Conservative * 9
business motives which led to it and to
judge of its ultimate effects for the good
or ill of the people are 0. E. Perkins
and James J. Hill , and I take the lib
erty of reproducing here their views of
the situation , which you will recognize
as more important than any contribu
tion I could make to the subject. Mr.
Perkins said recently in a published
letter :
" 'The 0. , B. & Q. company will con
tinue to do business precisely as hereto
fore with Mr. Harris as president and
the organization unchanged. But it will
be assured of what it does not now
possess , a permanent connection by the
shortest line with the great northwest ,
rich in minerals and lumber , with its
markets for agricultural and other pro
ducts , and with the commerce of the
Pacific ocean. On the other hand , the
northern roads willv be assured of a per
manent connection with the shortest
line with the agriculture and manufac
tures of the middle west , and the mar
kets to bo found there for the products
of the north and the commerce of the
Pacific.
" 'The whole effect of the combina
tion will bo beneficial. Look at a map
and see how the lines of these corpora
tions fit into and supplement each other.
And when doing so it will interest you
to trace , and compare with these rail
roads of today , the line of march of
Lewis and Clark , who took possession
of the Louisiana purchase for the gov
ernment of the United States a hundred
years ago. '
"Mr. Hill has set forth in an inter
view , in detail , the efforts made by
Union Pacific interests to secure control
of the Burlington. The result of such
control would have been to largely
shut out the vast territory , reached by
the Northern Pacific and Great North
ern companies , from access to this cen
tral Mississippi and Missouri Valley
region. That attempt was defeated ,
accompanied , as it was , by the greatest
corner in stocks that was ever known ,
and involving the risk of tens of mil
lions of dollars.
Some Pertinent Questions.
"Mr. Hill then asks these pertinent
questions , which are of great interest to
the people of Iowa :
" 'Did the Union Pacific people , with
their railway lines extending from
Omaha and New Orleans to California
and Oregon through the several states
in the middle west and south , purchase
a majority of the stock of the Northern
Pacific company for the purpose of
aiding that company and increasing the
growth and prosperity of the northern
| country , or was it for the purpose of
restricting such growth and aiding the
| | development of their interests hundreds
of miles to the south ?
" 'Did they purchase the Northern
Pacific and its interests in the Burling *
ton for the purpose of building up the
Asiatic trade between the northern zone
lying from St. Paul and Minneapolis to
the Pacific coast , or in order to control
the oriental trade for their own ships ?
" 'In defeating their control of the
Northern Pacific and retaining it in the
hands of those who had built it up , and
with it the entire northwest , did wo in
jure or benefit the people of the north
west ? '
"The far-reaching policies of world
embracing commerce sought to bo at
tained by these gigantic financial
schemes cannot be better told than in
Mr. Hill's own picturesque and forcible
words :
" 'Cross the Pacific , ' lie says , 'and
what do we find ? Millions of people ;
and what can they buy ? What can a
man who earns a shilling a day and
that is the average wage of the orient
buy of us ? Can he buy luxuries ? Can
he buy any great amount of manufac
tured goods at all ? No. He will buy
only what he is compelled to buy to
sustain life. He will do most of his
own manufacturing after a little , for
labor with him is cheap and plenty. He
will want of us only the simple staples ,
as grains , provisions , raw cotton , etc. ,
from which to weave his cloth , and per
haps a little lumber , coal and some
hand tools. But his principal demand
will bo for food just the products
which the present coming population of
America's great central and western
zone is prepared to furnish.
" 'So here have traffic
we a big prop
osition to place the great surplus
staples of central and western America
at the door of the orient , and bring back
from the latter anything that we can
use. The future has in store for us
along this line a vast commerce.
" 'The next question is , how shall it
be handled , by what route shall it go ?
Shall America handle it , or Europe ?
Will it go by the Pacific or by the Suez
canal and Cape Horn ? I hope that
America will handle it. Geography and
nature declare it and trade cannot resist
them. '
" 'Now , the Burlington has food and
fuel to a degree not possessed by any
other transportation system. Reaching
from Chicago to Denver , and from the
Twin Cities to St. Louis and Kansas
City , it covers the richest and most di
versified zone in the world in the pro
duction of grain , and provisions and
fuel. What do these central prairies of
Illinois , Iowa , Missouri and Nebraska
require in return ? They need lumber.
From where is the lumber to come ?
From Washington and British Colum
bia. That is the only region with a
heavy timber surplus. Look at the
volume of this traffic. The great cen
tral belt between the Alleghenies and
the Rockies consumes something like
10,000,000,000 feet of lumber annually ,
and produces perhaps half of that.
Some of this will come from the south ,
but the bulk from the Puget sound
country.
The Key to the Situation.
" 'Thus , on the one hand , we have a
vast surplus volume of grain , provisions
and fuel in the Mississippi and Missouri
valleys seeking eastern and western out
lets , and a similar largo surplus product
of lumber in the Puget sound country
likewise pushing for markets , and es
pecially for the treeless prairie of the
Mississippi and Missouri. Grain , pro
visions , fuel and lumber constitute the
principal heavy staples which govern
traffic and make traffic routes. What ,
then , have we reached ? We have a
tremendous volume of traffic across the
northwest between Puget sound and the
Mississippi valley. The northern roads
will carry westward the meat and corn
and coal , together with the raw cotton
originating within Burlington territory
at St. Louis , and will place these pro
ducts on the Pacific docks for export to
Asia , and for the return trip the freight
trains will bring back lumber for the
central west and east. Nature and her
products govern transportation roxites
and traffic ; we railway men can simply
get in line or fall by the way.
"What , then , is theO.B. & Q. today ,
as it affects the interests of its 85,000
employees , and the interests of the people
ple of Illinois , Iowa , Nebraska and of
the other states , which have created it ,
and which , in turn , it has largely peopled
pled and enriched ?
"It is still the Burlington , but a new
and greater Burlington. Allied with
interests which control a large part of
the traffic of the northwest from St.
Paul to the Pacific , it has become at
one stroke a great international thor
ough-fare. The fabled wealth of the
east , which Columbus sought as he
sailed westward , will come our way in
its journey from China and Japan to the
markets of Europe and of our own
own country.
"Why should millions of fresh capital
bo consumed in extensions of the O. , B.
& Q. to Puget sound when rails are al
ready laid and facilities already exist
and are made available by this combi
nation , for accomplishing the same re
sult ? How much more in harmony
with the natural development of the
Burlington this alliance seems to be
than would have been its control by any
interest that would have repressed its
growth and determined its sphere of
usefulness by considerations , foreign to
the interests of the people whom it now
serves.
"The realization of these predictions
for the future will mean not simply the
Burlington , gentlemen , that you have
been proud of , but an improved Bur
lington being constantly made better
more employeesmore trainsa faster fast
mail and a bettor service generally , and
speed the day , so say we all ! " .
STOPS THE COUGH AND WORKS OFF
THE COLD.
Laxative Bromo-Quinine Tablets cure
a cold in one day. No Cure , no Pay.
Price 35 cents.
" , , ; , * * ' . "
