Page:The truth about the railroads (IA truthaboutrailro00elli).pdf/72

Rh that period. Mileage of freight-trains increased 80 per cent and of passenger-trains 112 per cent, showing how much improved is the service of to-day to thousands of scattered communities. In 1880 the par value of all railroad securities outstanding was $5,004,521,666.08, and in 1909, $13,914,302,363 at par in the hands of the public represented the railroad property of the United States, including the great terminals, large equipment, lands, cash, and miscellaneous investments of all kinds, or a capitalization of less than $60,000 a mile of railroad and less than $41,000 a mile of tracks. But the real capital in the railroad business is all the property owned and not the cost of the property or the amount of securities issued. In fact, the securities issued against American railroads as a whole to-day, in my judgment, are much less than their fair value as “going concerns.”

In what is known as the Minnesota Rate Case, just decided by Judge Walter H. Sanborn of the United States Circuit Court, a judicial valuation of the railroad property of Rh