The Inland Investor from Topeka, Kansas • 8

INLAND INVESTOR 8 the American people. If that order had been maintained thousands of good people would have been homef-less and bankrupt in a short time. An economic condition which makes it possible for one man with a stroke of his pen to bankrupt thousands of his fellow citizens is inherently wrong and will not be tolerated permanently by a free and patriotic people. It is a call for the states individually and the states collectively to do some wise thing quickly for the solution of the whole trust problem. ilctns livered, during the month of March, on orders placed several months' ago.

It is indicative of the industrial and commercial prosperity of Rock Island States that, even before the receipt of the new equipment, it has been found necessary to place another large order for delivery in the early summer. A 1905 estimate has it that there are 520,955 miles of railway in the world. The North American continent has 233,186 miles. Europe follows with 183,907. South America has only Africa, Australia, 16,308.

The mileage of the United States alone is about 207,000, or 40 per cent of the entire railway mileage of the world. Great Britains railways represent the highest cost per mile, $256,839. The railways of Europe appear to be much more costly than those of the rest of the world. It is estimated that the 3 European roads represent an investment of $114,760 a mile, while those of the rest of the world average $57,000. Does a full fare railway ticket expire until it has been traveled out? This question came before a court in a suit some time ago brought against the Erie railway for damages.

Six years ago a woman bought a round-trip ticket for a certain station, for which she paid $1. She did not use the return part of the ticket until recently. The conductor refused to take the ticket and put her off the train. She sued and received $2,000. The case was carried to the United States court and the judge affirmed the decision of the lower courts, although since the ticket was bought the railway, a branch absorbed by the Erie, has changed hands, even its name.

The court holds that the purchaser of the ticket paid full fare for a ride for the distance called for by the ticket, and was entitled to a ride at her own convenience. cialistic. It is not the spirit of socialism, but the very reverse of it. It may have the semblance of socialism, but its soul is that of competition. Socialism is a heresy which I have studied and combated for years and of the fallacy of which I am more than ever convinced.

It is a heresy of extensive literaturfe, both ancient and modern, the fundamental tenet of which, so far as material matters are concerned, is the negation of property rights in individuals to hold property. Its profoundest philosophers have all taught that personal ownership of property is a crime. Certainly this state oil refinery movement is not tinctured with this heresy. All over this broad land no one denies the right of the Standard Oil Company to own oil properties or to deal in oil. All the states have welcomed the investments of the Standard Oil Company as legitimate and have given them the protection accorded to all investments.

It is not the possession and exercise of property rights which the people of this nation object to; it is the abuse of property rights to which objection is made. If the states which adopt state refinery laws do so with any other purpose than to restore equity of opportunity in the oil industry they make a mistake. The establishment of a state refinery should not be considered as the establishment of a monopoly. It should be an attempt to make an already existing monopoly be decent. It should encourage private investment in this line.

It is an attempt to encourage competition, not to destroy competition, as socialism does. When its purpose' is achieved, when private capital can find investment in refineries with a fair chance of success, when normal conditions are restored, when individual competition shall again be possible, when these good conditions have been made permanent, then the states should not only be willing, but be glad to retire from the refining of oil and leave that business as well as other lines of industry in the hands of private competition, where it legitimately belongs, bul where it is now impossible on account of the greatest socialistic corporation now doing business on earth, the Standard Oil Company. If we can force the Standard Oil Company to a basis of fair play what an achievement for the intelligent patriotism of the country! No greater question confronts the American people than the control of the great aggregations of capital, all of them socialistic in character, and which are antagonistic to the essential element of all national progress, the competitive system. When the recent order of the Standard Oil went out withdrawing the purchase of Kansas oil a most timely and significant illustration of the coercive character of these modern combinations of capital was furnished Senator Beveridge of Indiana was a laborer on a railway when a youth. It would require the work of teams to do the work now done by the railways.

Of the 1,350 locomotives owned and operated by the Southern Pacific, 780 are now using oil as fuel. The general passenger department of the Chicago Great Western railway is to be removed April 1 from Chicago to St. Paul. The steamship Minnesota, the largest freight and passenger ship in the world, belonging to the Great Northern railway system, sailed on its first trip from Seattle to the Orient the latter part of January, carrying away a cargo of over 600 cars of freight and several hundred passengers. Some of the Eastern railways have decided that the custom of making reduced rates to all parts of the country for conventions has grown to an extent that costs the railways an enormous sum annually far in excess of the increase in regular travel due to the reduced rates.

Modern transportation is the wonder of the world. The modem passenger engine, pulling a solid vestibule train weighing 1,000,000 pounds at 60 miles an hour, is the height of achievement in land transportation. On the water, a passenger steamer 700 feet long and making nearly 25 miles an hour between New York and Liverpool, is an accomplished fact beyond the visions of a Jules Verne of 50 years ago. It has just been announced that to provide for the increased volume of traffic on Rock Island lines, a large amount of new equipment will be de In the average city bank the young man does not learn how to be a banker; he learns how to be one particular kind of clerk or messenger. It is in the country bank that he is educated in all the branches of the banking business.

Ninety-two American cities contrib ute to Bradstreets compilation of bank clearings for 1904. The grand-aggregate for 1904 is $111,784,452,867, a gain of 2.9 per cent over 1903. The latter year showed a loss of 7.4 per cent from 1902, which in turn showed a decrease of a fraction of 1 per cent from the record year, 1901. It is found that of the ninety-two cities, sixty-two show increases over 1903, while thirty-two show decreases. In other words, about two-thirds of all cities show gains..