TRIUMPHANT DEMOCRACY.

Evening Star, Issue 7641, 18 June 1888, Page 4

TRIUMPHANT DEMOCRACY.

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[By Andrew Carnegie.J

CHAPTER XIII.-(Continued.)

American railways wero built under charters for short distances, but as population increased these were consolidated and managed as great through-lines between termini hundreds of miles apart. In time these main lines absorbed branch and connecting lines, and now there are several systems, each serving extensive districts. Of theso the most important—the Pennsylvania—is a good example. Its network of linos aggregates five thousand foUr hundred and ninetyone miles, \Vith more than a thousand miles of second, third, and fourth tracks. Its gtoss earnings in 1884 were 50,000,000d0l (L 16,000,000). The tonnage was sixty-three million tons, and the cost of moving perhaps the lowest in the world, being about four mills (less than a halfpenny) per ton per mile. Certainly no rates for traffic in Europe are so low as the average received by the Pennsylvania Railroad. This line is solidly built, stone ballasted, and in every respect compares favorably with the trunk lines of Europe, if we except numerous road crossings at grade which would not bo tolerated abroad. From its depot opposite New York four times per day through trains start for the great West, with sleepingcoaches which run through without change to Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati; in special cases, when desired, the travelling party may pass on to San Francisco or to New Orleans without change. A " dining " or "hotel car" is attached at proper intervals, and every luxury supplied upon these peripatetic Helniouicos. The New York Central, Erie, and Baltimore and Ohio are systems of similar character between the East and West. Chicago, the western metropolis, has also its corresponding railway systems, some of which are of great magnitude. The Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy has three thousand three hundred and seventy-three miles, the Chicago and North-western three thousand two hundred r.jd seventy-one miles, and the Chicago, Milwaukee,; and St. Paul, the work of that man of Aberdeen, Alexander Mitchell, no less than four thousand eight hundred and four miles under its sway. It is with railways as with manufacturers; consolidation into the hands of a few organisations seems the inevitable tendency. The saving and efficiency thus effected over the hundred former disjointed petty corporations, each with its officers and staffs, arc so manifestly great that nothing can prevent these consolidations. What the outcome of this massing of forces is to be is difficult to foretell, but that it is_ in accordance with economic laws is certain ; therefore we can proceed without fear. We are on sure ground, hence the final result must be beneficial. If corporations grow to gigantic size and attempt to use their powers like giants, forgetting that they are the creatures and servants of the State, we may safely trust the Democracy to deal with them. There is no problem which an educated people cannot and will not solve in the interests of the people when solution is demanded.

The American railway system, starting rifty-five years ago at nothing, has reached, in 1885, one hundred and twenty eight thousand miles of line. The whole of Europe has not so many ; for in 1883 it had only one hundred and fourteen thousand three hundred miles, and the entire world but two hundred and seventy-nine thousand eight hundred and fifty miles. The record for the past ten years shows with what strides the iron road is girding the continent, for during that period no less than fifty-four thousand two hundred and eighty miles were built. When we read that in 1880 India, with its two hundred and fifty millions of people, added to it 3 railways only two hundred and seventy-three miles, and the Republic, with its fifty millions, added in 18S1 eleven thousand live hundred miles, we get some idea of the speed at which she rushes on. The whole of Europe, has not built as many miles of railway an the Republic hax during mine recent years, and m ISSO the whole world did not build as many. It will be only a few years—probably not ten —ere the railway lines of America exceed in length those of all the rest of the world. The Republic in one scale and " The World " in the other, and " The World " kicking the beam ! Monster, you were called into existence only to redress the balance of the Old \\ orld, and within one short century we find you threatening to weigh it down ! The Republic against " the field," and no takers ! In no other country is travel so comfortable and luxurious. For this wc arc chiefly indebted to a remarkable American invention, the sleeping car, without which suctt extended lines would have remained an imperfect instrument for the consolidation of the people. Journeys between the oceans, requiring seven days and nights to perform, or even that between Chicago and other Western cities to New York and the East, which occupy but twenty-four to forty-eight hours' consecutive bravel, could have been undertaken only in extreme cases, had the unfortunate traveller been required to sit up, as in the old-fashioned cars. Well do I remember that, when a clerk in the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, a tall, spare, farmer-looking kind of man came to me once when I was sitting on the end seat of the rear ear looking over the line. He said he had been told by the conductor that I was connected with the railway company, and he wished me to look at an invention he had made. With that he drew from a green bag (as if it were for lawyers' briefs) a small model of a sleeping berth for railway cars. He had not spoken a minute before, like a flash, the whole range of the discovery burst upon me. "Yes," I said, " that is something which this continent must have." I promised to address him upon the subject as soon as I had talked over the matter with my superior, Thomas A. Scott. 1 could not get that blessed sleeping-car out of my head. Upon my return I laid it before Mr Scott, declaring that it was one of the inventions of the age. He remarked : " You are enthusiastic, young man, but you may ask tho inventor to come and let me see it." I did so, and arrangements vvero made to build two trial cars, and run them on the Pennsylvania Railroad. I was offered an interest in the venture, which of course I gladly accepted. Payments were to be made ten per cent, per month after the cars were delivered, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company guaranteeing to the builders that the cars should be kept upon its line and under their control.

This was all very satisfactory until the notice came that my share of the first payment was 217d0l 50c (L 43). How well I remember the exact sum ; but two hundred and seventeen dollars and a-half were as far beyond my means as if it had been millions. I was earning oOdol (L 10) per month, however, and had prospects, or at least I always felt that I had. What was to be done 1 I decided to call on the local banker (Mr Lloyd), state the case, and boldly ask him to advance the sum upon my interest in the affair. He put his hand upon my shoulder and said : " Why, of course, Andic, you arc all right. (!o ahead. Here is the money." It is a proud day for a man when ho pays his last note, but not to be named in comparison with the day in which he makes his first one, and gctn a banker to take it. I tried both and I know. The cars paid the subsequent payments from their earnings. I paid my first note from my savings so much per month, and thus did I get my foot upon fortune's ladder. It is easy to climb after that, A triumphant success was scored. And thus came sleeping-cars into the world. " Blessed be the man who invented sleep," says Sancho Pan?.a. Thousands upon thousands will echo the sentiment—Blessed be the man who invented sleeping cars ! Let mr record his name and testify my gratitude to him, my (leac, quiet, modest, truthful, fannerlooking friend, T. T. Woodruff, one of the benefactors of the age. This brings us to another remarkable man, George M. Pullman, as great a genius in organisation and administration as Woodruff was in his peculiar line. It did not take this typical American of Chicago very long to see what part sleeping-cars wore bound to play upon the American continent; and while a few cautious old gentlemen in Philadelphia were managing the original cars, in that peculiar Philadelphian way whioh is so amusing, making ten biteo of even the smallest cherry, this young man laid his daring piano. He would

contract for twenty or thirty cars, while the Philadelphia people hesitated to engage for one. The result was that Mr Pullman completely eclipsed them. I soon saw that we had a genius to deal with, and advised the old concern to capture Mr Pullman. There was a capture, but it did not quite take that form. They found themselves swallowed by this ogre, and Pullman monopolised everything. It was well that it should be so. The man had arisen who could manage, and the tools belonged to him. To-day his company has a paid-up capital of about thirty millions of dollars, and it 3 ramifications extend everywhere. Mr Pullman is a remarkable manj for he not only manages this business, he has created it. Before he appeared upon the scene a sleeping-car company had no rights which a railway company was bound to respect. Mr Pullman has made the business respectable, and the travelling public are very much his debtors. Should Mr Pullman's life be spared, I that the young contractor for elevating buildings in Chicago will leave a monument for himself in his new industrial town of Pullman which will place his name with those of Salt of Saltaire and Godin of Guise. A short roll of honor this, which contains the list of those who, springing from honest poverty, have made fortunes through honest toil, and then—ah, here comes the secret of the shortness of the list—and then turning back to look upon the poor workers where they started, have thereafter devoted their fortune and abilities so to improve the industrial system as to give to that class a better chance in life than it was possible for themselves to obtain. Mr Pullman has made a start upon this toilsome path. His future deserves to be carefully watched. If ever aerial navigation becomes practicable, it will, like railways, attain its highest development in America; for here men's lives are too full of activity to permit lounging in parlor-cars drawn wearily by a locomotive at only forty miles an hour, when it is possible for men to soar through the air and outstrip their own symbolic eagle in its flight. Nature has done much for America as regards facilities for transportation. Her inland seas, containing one-third of all the fresh water in the world, and her great rivers lay ready at hand awaiting only the application of steam to vessels to render them magnificent highways. A vessel sailing round the edges of these American lakes traverses a greater distance than from New York to Liverpool. The rivers of America are also the largest in the world. After the Amazon and the La Plata comes the Mississippi, with an outflow of over two million cubic feet per hour. This mighty river, which the Indians called in their picturesque language Father of Waters, is equal in bulk to all the rivers of Europe combined, exclusive of the Volga. It is equal to three Ganges, nine Rhones, twenty-seven Seines, or eighty Tibers. " The mighty Tiber chafing with its flood," says the Master. How would he have described the Mississippi on the rampage after a spring flood, when it pours down its mighty volume of water and overflows the adjacent lowlands! Eighty Tibers in one ! Burns's picture of the prettj little Ayr in flood has been extolled where the foaming waters came down "an acre braid." What think you of a tumbling sea twenty miles "braid ' instead of your "acre," dear Robin? The length of the Mississippi is two thousand two hundred and fifty miles, while its navigable tributaries exceed twenty thousand miles. The Father of Waters collects his substance from water-sheds covering an area of more than two and a half million square miles.

The Hudson is navigable by large steamers as far as Albany, one hundred and fifty miles inland from the Atlantic. There are quite a dozen other livers in which the like is possible. Many well-known seaports are considerable distances from the coast prtiperly speaking. Such are Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, and on the Pacific Coast, Portland. The presence of inland ports, with extensive docks, piers, and large craft, is a constant source of astonishment to the European traveller. The sight of ships of three thousand tons burden, fifteen hundred miles from salt water, is sufficient to surprise one in whom the sight of rigged ships has always been associated with the sea. Walking along the quays of the lake cities, Toledo, Chicago, or Duluth, one might well imagine himself at the sea coast.

These great natural waterways have been supplemented, and connected with each other by artificial canals. There were in the United States in ISSO four thousand four hundred andsixtv-eight miles of canals, which had cost 265,006,000d0l (L 53,000,000). Nearly two thousand miles of canal had, however, been abandoned, having been rendered valueless by the superior facilities offered by railroads. Many of the canals still worked were reported not to be paying expenses, and part of these also will no doubt soon be abandoned. The freight traffic on canals in 1880 amounted to twentyone million forty-four thousand two hundred and ninety-two tons, yielding a gross income of 45,000,000d0l (LO.OOO.OOO). (To be continued.)