Conservative.
STORY OF THE BURLINGTON.
In an address delivered at AlbiaIa. ,
December 80 , W. W. Baldwin spoke
of the Burlington system as follows :
"Many a farmer , in this county and
in the counties west of hero , has cause
for thankfulness that lie bought his
farm from the Burlington , and not
from a speculator. Its land policy was
always to favor the farmer and to sell
lands only to actual settlors. These
sales were made on ten years' time ,
with every facility afforded to enable
the purchaser to become the owner of
his land. Prior to 1868 , all sales were
made at $1.25 per acre. The lands
were good but the people wore poor.
Today these same lauds arc worth
from $40 to $60 per acre , showing to the
farmer a larger profit on the invest
ment than was realized by any pur
chaser of the stock or bonds of the rail
road company. In this connection
there is an interesting situation grow
ing out of the laud grant to the Bur
lington , to which you will pardon my
alluding. By an act of congress
passed twenty-fivo years ago , a deduc
tion is made of 20 per cent of the
mail pay of all land grant roads.
Ever since the fast mail was es
tablished on the Burlington , this de
duction has reached a , largo and con
stantly increasing sum and aggregates
at this time more than $900,000.
"Tho company could have bought
from the government every acre of
land granted to it in Iowa for $450,000
when the grant was made. It has al
ready repaid to the government twice
the value of its Iowa land grant and
is now paying at the rate of over $80 , -
000 a year for what was intended by
the people at the beginning as a gift.
Such is politics in some of its phases.
' ' Other railroad systems have become
prosperous Irom the traffic of mines or
the products of the forests , but this
company has been allied to the soil
and those who till the soil , and its
growth has been contemporaneous
with the evolution of the western
farm. It has not prospeied except in
those periods when the farmer Ijas
been prosperous , and its perception of
the needs of the laud owner , as to rates
and facilities , has been the true secret
of whatever success it has attained
its history is the history of the build
ing of the west.
Value of Administration.
' ' Some one has said that , next to the
question of economy in administration
there are just three points in railroad
ing terminals in cities , the rate sheet
and how to get trains over the road.
Iowa fanners and business men are in
terested , or think they are interested
more in the rate sheet than in any
thing else. I do not know anything
about rate sheets. As Governor Shaw
said the other day about another mat
or , 'I would rather bo a shepherd in
; ho 'bad lands' than bo obliged to
make rate sheets to plcaso everybody
and produce revenue enough to keep
the wheels going. '
"It certainly goes without saying , at
a business men's banquet , that no one
railroad has power any moro to make
its own tariffs. The tariff is a complex
jusiness production , as wo may all bo
cd to vividly appreciate when the
inter-state commerce commission be
gins to promulgate tariffs for every
body ; but this I have a right to say.
for the Burlington : that , in the mak
ing and application of tariffs , its influ
ence has always been oxerciscd for
reasonable rates , for rates that will
move the corn and cattle to market ,
that will enable the business of small
towns to prosper arid that will build
up aud stimulate the local industries
along its line. How and where and
when its influence in these directions
has been f 3lt you may not know in
detail. But this assurance as business
men you have had for many recent
years , that no railroad company has
had a man in charge of its freight in
terests , more democratic in his ideas
and manners , better qualified from
long experience as an Iowa business
man himself , nor more in sympathy
with the western farmer and stock
growers , and the western merchant
and manufacturer , than modest , genial
and capable Tom Miller , and when
it comes to successful railroading there
is u good deal in selecting men like
that.
"The Burlington has been a progres
sive railroad ; it is a progressive railroad
now. In the year just passed it paid out
$4,226,000 simply in improving its road ,
as it stands ; that is , in reducing its
grades , straightening curves , adding
new tracks , buildings , fences and
bridges , besides paying out more than
$1,500,000 for new equipment , among
the latter being , 1,000 freight cars addec
in the year. This does not include two
and a half million dollars expended dur
ing the year upon the new lines built in
Wyoming and Colorado. Of this four
and a quarter millions spent last
year in improving the road by reducing
grades and putting in second track , etc.
more than $2,500,000 was spent in
Iowa.
Stupendous Improvements.
"The work that is now going on be
tween Murray and Oreston , a distance
of about twenty miles , is costing in
cash at the rate of $100,000 per mile for
every mile of that distance the re
building of the road.
"This means that a great railroad is
never finished that there is a constant
demand and pressure , not simply that i
be kept in good condition and repair
but that it be constantly added to and
improved. Every device aud invention
which the ingenuity of man brings to
ight that may add to the speed , com
fort and safety of passengers , and to ex
pedition in the carriage of freight , must
)0 tried and adopted , if it proves to be a
success. If some Edison , or Marconi or
Tesla shall "perfect an electric locomo
tive that is a better and cheaper trac
tion machine than the present steam en
gine , the Burlington will adopt it , and
operate its road by electricity. That is
; he Burlington way.
' If there are ambitious rivals , cherish
ing the view that the Burlington will
some day lose the fast mail because it
fails to keep up with the times in the
matters of roadbed and equipment ,
there are plenty of business men in Al-
bia competent to advise them not to lay
that flattering unction to their souls.
"Now , if you will allow me , I will
speak of one more characteristic of the
Burlington its policy towards the men
who work for it.
"A railroad is not simply two strips of
steel with some cars and locomotives to
run over them ; it is a complicated busi
ness mechanism , demanding the anxious
thought and study of many minds. It
is every day and every hour in the day ,
what its management makes of it. It is
not a clock that can be wound up and
will then run of itself , keeping time and
showing good results. Good service on
a railroad means unremitting attention
to details-and such attention can only
be expected from a corps of willing ,
faithful and contented employees. Fi
delity from employees of any largo cor
poration is always stimulated by pol
icies in its management which recog
nize merit for its own sake , and that
railroad is most successfully managed
on which ability and not personal or po
litical pull secures promotion , and
where the humblest worker may hope
for advancement to the higher honor , if
by the test of years he is found worthy.
"Where do you findthis country over ,
a railroad which offers a better illus
tration of this enlightened policy than
the Burlington ? Call the roll of those
who at this moment are in its active
management , and you will find that ,
practically without exception , they have
come up from the ranks , and reached
their places step by step upward , and
after many years of apprenticeship.
There surely can be no impropriety in
my referring briefly to their successful
careers as proof of this policy.
"Mr. Perkins , who for the post twenty
years has been president , began his
services with the company in 1859 , at
nineteen years of age , as a clerk in the
office of the assistant treasurer at
Burlington , upon the B. & M. , with a
salary of $30 per mouth , and was suc
cessively paymaster , assistant treasurer ,
superintendent , director , vice president
and president.
"Mr. Harris , now president , began as
an office boy on the Hannibal & St.
Joe , when he was sixteen years old ,
with a salary of $85 per month , "onH
