CHAPTER I. POLITICAL AND BUSINESS METHODS. The disposition to better that which exists is a noticeable trait in the management of railroads, and it is to this spirit we owe the improvements that attend their operation. It at once heightens their efficiency and lessens the cost of their working. Every luxury that the traveling public enjoys is due to it, and while it is perhaps true that these luxuries are sometimes hardly warranted by the income of the properties, they are, in the main, judicious and to be commended for the enterprise they evince. It is a common belief that greater improvements have been made in the operation of railroads in the United States than elsewhere. Change is a characteristic of our people. It is noticeable both in their commercial and political action, more especially the latter. In this they have been constant in hoping that it would better their condition; would bring them some new blessing. Shrewd beyond measure in other matters, we have too often been the victims of political hysteria; of cerebral exaltation or epilepsy of the nerves; of what machinists would call "foaming" of the blood! The knowledge that many, undoubtedly a majority, of the changes wrought in our political practices have not been betterments, has not deterred us from making others at random. The apparent purpose of our political existence, in many things, has been to revivify old and exploded sophisms: to encourage experimentalists. The latter flatter our vanity by making us believe we are better and wiser than other people: silly delusion. We have loved to pose; to grow sentimental; to recount; to look out of the corner of our eye at the Samaritan across the way. God having blessed us with a vast and fertile country, greatly in excess of our present wants, we have ascribed its benefits to our local devices, and our egotism has been so monstrous that the Almighty has oftentimes stood obscured in its shadow. Indifferent to the traditions and practices of mankind, we have obstinately run counter to the teachings of history. Having made the poorest in experience and moral worth the political equals of our agricultural class and the merchants, traders and philosophers of the land, we glorify the transaction as the acme of political wisdom. Great has been the power of Gush among us. We have lived in an atmosphere of expectation, attaching throughout our political existence undue value to mere forms and catch words. so that every new nostrum has been received with Howls of delight! But this is less the case now than formerly. Hard usage is telling upon our credulity. We are becoming weary and less impressionable. The belief grows that many of the theories of government we have encouraged would be atrocious if not redeemed by the simple, ignorant trust of those who instituted them. In escaping the exaltation of King and Noble we have too often exalted others less worthy, and in doing so have sacrificed stable, honest government to political fantasies. These excesses, and others yet more hideous, dimly perceived, begin to dull the appetite. Our political vivacity, if not gone, is fading away while our eye is leaden and sorrowful. Good patriots are no longer concerned in making Advances: they no longer seek to extend new boons, but to recover those thanklessly bestowed. While hailing the companionship of those politically fit, they are no longer interested in rescuing the downtrodden of other nations: no longer welcome with wild acclaim the stained and unwashed to the political couch. We no longer believe the "ketch as ketch can" form of government the best in the world. In making these comments, I do not criticise our people. They are above criticism. Influences that corrupt government are, however, legitimate subjects of denunciation. The theory that the Improvident, the Worthless and the Vicious may be admitted as equal partners and participants in a great enterprise like that of |