Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1881 — Railroads and the Farmers. [ARTICLE]

Railroads and the Farmers.

In his admirable address before the Minnesota State Fair, Cob William F. Vilas spoke of the immense benefit which the Western farmers have derived from the railroads. He said : Before railroads were devised there was no extensive freight communication but by water. And that was valueless unless conveniently accessible. From this, the agriculture of past ages gathered around the seas and lakes, or hned the rivers’ margin. It girt the Mediterranean and made famous the valley of the Nile. The unwatered world of the interior was left to the wandering nomad or the forest barbarian. It was the unknown region full of mysterious terrors. The great Hercynian wood was the home of beasts, brute and human ; the latter ever the impending peril, and finally the destroyer of the civilization of the world. The reserve corps of barbarism lay back on the plains of Russia and Tartary, which nourished the fierce savages who could live on equine flesh and carouse on the milk of mares. So, too, water communication was slow and tedious, even when accessible. That is true, especially of inland navigation. It is weeks by water from St. Paul to New York, though the aid of steam be invoked; and in Northern climes that avenue is available for but half the year. Your magnificent wheat fields would mostly lie unbroken, farmers of Minnesota, had not the invention and enterprise of other men, stimulated by your demands, laid the double-lined highway to carry the freight-car laden with your precious berry to the sea ; the Indian would still be master of the Territories of the West. Your lands derive their value, your industry, its reward ; your homes, the luxuries, and many of the comforts they exhibit, from the railroads of the continent. In the beautiful language of that noble lover of human liberty, once the pride and ornament of Wisconsin’s Supreme bench, the lamented Byron Paine, “Railroads are the great public highways of the world, along which its gigantic currents of trade and travel continually pour —highways compared with which the most magnificent highways of antiquity dwindle into insignificance. They are the most marvelous invention of modem times. They have done more to develop the wealth and resources, to stimulate the industry, reward the labor and promote the general comfort and prosperity of the country, than any other and perhaps than all other mere physical causes combined. There is probably not a man, woman or child whose interest or comfort has not been in some degree subserved by them. They bring to our doors the productions of the earth. They enable us to anticipate and protract the seasons. They enable the inhabitants in each clime to enjoy the pleasures and luxuries of all. They scatter the productions of the press and literature broadcast through the country with amazing rapidity. There is scarcely a waut, wish or aspiration of the human heart, which they do not in some measure help to gratify. They promote the pleasures of social life and of friendship ; they bring the skilled physician swiftly from a distance to attend the sick and the wounded, and enable his absent friend to be present at the bedside of the dying. They have more than realized the fabulous conception of the Eastern imagination, which pictured the genii as transporting inhabited palaces through the air. They take a train of inhabited palaces from the Atlantic, coast, and, with a marvelous swiftness, deposit it on the shores that are washed by the Pacific seas. In war they transport the armies and supplies of the Government with the greatest of celerity, and carry forward, as it were on the wings of the wind, relief and comfort to those who are stretched bleeding and wounded on the field of battle.” But, while we do them j ustice, let us not forget there are doubtless many faults to be corrected and abuses to be reformed in the administration of these highways. Corporate powers and corporate values have advanced with a mor® rapid step than the invention of our statesmen and law makers. The agency of the corporation is comparatively modern, and, like the agency of steam, is a mighty power. Unless subdued by proper appliances of law sufficient to control it, we are liable to disasters injurious to our welfare, as the accidents which sometimes befall the train are destructive of life.

But I must not protract this weary hour to discuss this problem foreign to my subject. Important as it is, we need not fear it. The railroad, rightly used, is the friend of the farmer ana the whole people. It is the paramount interest of its owners that it should so remain. They dare not make it an enemy, and when we reflect that.a single invention—the steel rail—has reduced the freight tariff 40 per cent., we may trust somewhat to time and genius to relieve the inconveniences, and continue to enjoy its blessings with composure.