f through freight cars,
which should be loaded at Cairo, St. Louis, Chicago, or anywhere else
in the West, and hauled through to New York, Boston, or anywhere else in
the East, without breaking bulk. The saving of expense was so obvious
that you put a hundred thousand dollars into the line and the railroad
magnates made specially good terms for the hauling of the car. You
expect and will get dividends from your investment. The railroad men see
profit for their companies in the operation of the line. That is all
that you and they foresee of advantage. In my view that is the very
smallest part of the matter."

"How do you mean?"

"Why, taking cotton as a basis of reckoning, this through-line system of
transportation, owned independently of the railroads, will make an
important saving in the cost of raw materials to the owners of New
England mills. They will run more spindles and set more looms agoing
than they would have done without the through line's cheapening of raw
material. They will pay better wages and reap larger profits. They will
produce more goods, and they will sell them at a smaller price. The
farmer in the West will pay less for his cotton goods and get more for
his grain because of the through line's cheapening of transportation. He
and his wife and his children will dress better at less cost than they
otherwise could do. Bear in mind that the line's cars will carry other
things than cotton. The people of the East will get their breadstuffs
and their bacon and their beef far cheaper because of its existence than
they otherwise could.

"That is one step in advance, and it is only one. The success of this
line is now assured. A dozen or a score of other through freight lines
will be organized and operated in competition with it. The present
line's rate of one and a half cents per ton per mile will presently be
cut down by competition to half a cent per ton per mile, or even less. I
shall not be surprised if, with the improvement of railroads and with
their closer co-operation the freight rate shall ultimately be reduced
even to one-fifth or one-tenth of a cent per ton per mile.

"Now, again. A little while ago you were in Washington. You found it
necessary to execute certain papers and to file them in Chicot County,
Arkansas, before a certain fixed date. You ordered me by telegraph to
prepare the papers and bring them to you in Washington in the speediest
way possible, in order that I might carry them, w