Page:The truth about the railroads (IA truthaboutrailro00elli).pdf/157

manufacture has grown, and there has been an equalization of commercial situations that has permitted a development of cities and communities, which under the mileage basis would all have been congested in a very few places. Give the commission the power to fix rates, and the land values of the agricultural States west of the Mississippi River would be at once affected. An advance of value would be stopped, and a decrease in value would result. To-day the railroads, in their desire to develop territory, make the rates on wheat from North Dakota, on wool from Montana, on lumber from Washington, on butter from Iowa, so as to compete with similar products raised in Ohio, in Kentucky, in Mississippi, in Pennsylvania, in New England. If the Government has to fix the rate, what right will it have to refuse to the wool-grower of Kentucky, the wheat-grower of Ohio, the lumber-producer of Mississippi, the butter man of Pennsylvania, the same rate per mile that is charged the producer in North Dakota, Iowa, Montana, and Washington? No matter