ection of the
modern electric railway is greatly due to the labors and inventions of
a large number of other well-known inventors. There was no reason
why Edison could not have continued the commercial development of the
electric railway after he had helped to show its practicability in 1880,
1881, and 1882, just as he had completed his lighting system, had it
not been that his financial allies of the period lacked faith in the
possibilities of electric railroads, and therefore declined to furnish
the money necessary for the purpose of carrying on the work.

With these facts in mind, we shall ask the reader to assign to Edison a
due proportion of credit for his pioneer and basic work in relation to
the prodigious development of electric railroading that has since taken
place. The statistics of 1908 for American street and elevated railways
show that within twenty-five years the electric-railway industry has
grown to embrace 38,812 miles of track on streets and for elevated
railways, operated under the ownership of 1238 separate companies, whose
total capitalization amounted to the enormous sum of $4,123,834,598.
In the equipments owned by such companies there are included 68,636
electric cars and 17,568 trailers and others, making a total of 86,204
of such vehicles. These cars and equipments earned over $425,000,000
in 1907, in giving the public transportation, at a cost, including
transfers, of a little over three cents per passenger, for whom a
fifteen-mile ride would be possible. It is the cheapest transportation
in the world.

Some mention should also be made of the great electrical works of the
country, in which the dynamos, motors, and other varied paraphernalia
are made for electric lighting, electric railway, and other purposes.
The largest of these works is undoubtedly that of the General
Electric Company at Schenectady, New York, a continuation and enormous
enlargement of the shops which Edison established there in 1886. This
plant at the present time embraces over 275 acres, of which sixty acres
are covered by fifty large and over one hundred small buildings; besides
which the company also owns other large plants elsewhere, representing
a total investment approximating the sum of $34,850,000 up to 1908. The
productions of the General Electric Company alone average annual
sales of nearly $75,000,000, but they do not comprise the total of the
country's manufactures in these lines.

Turning our attention now