Page:The truth about the railroads (IA truthaboutrailro00elli).pdf/129

Rh business. Hamper the railroads by too much restrictive legislation and take away from the man who has to provide the money for these expanded facilities the naming of the price to be charged for the use of these this facilities, and this expansion will gradually be stopped. “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.” You can give to a branch of the Federal Government the power to fix an actual rate which the owner of property shall receive for the use of his property, but you cannot make the owner of the property improve his railroad, buy more cars, build more branch railroads, and expand his business.

That the abuses connected with the railroad business, small in number as I believe them to be when compared with the total volume of trade, are not affecting materially the general growth of business in the United States is evidenced by the fact that everywhere you go in this country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, you see thriving towns and cities, expanding agricultural productions, demand for lands, growing values of lands, increasing Rh