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The President:-The next paper on the program morning is from a gentleman who is a guest, and yet a host. Some ten years ago he heard the call to more fertile fields and moved to another, and great state. But during that time he has continued his membership in the Tennessee Bar Association. I am delighted to be able to say to you that this gentleman whom I shall present to you, is yet young, as I now look upon youth; he has achieved such distinction at the Bar of Missouri, that he is, today, the general counsel of the largest corporation of its kind in the world.

I take pleasure, members of the Association, ladies and gentlemen, in presenting to you Mr. Thomas M. Pierce, of the City of St. Louis. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Pierce.

THE CITY AND THE RAILROAD.

BY T. M. PIERCE, OF THE ST. Louis Bar.

The Railroad and the Bible are the two greatest instrumentalities of civilization, and I purposely mention the Railroad first, because it is the means whereby the written truths of Christianity come within the reach of the benighted and unenlightened.

The Railroad brings the bricks and mortar and materials with which are fashioned the Temples of God and the abodes of Justice; the places where we are amused, and the houses in which we live; the stores for trade and commerce, and the structures for the factories, and the looms of industries. To speak collectively, the Railroad literally makes a City, which springs into being only after the various atoms and units of energy, imagination and perseverance have coalesced and crystallized into churches, court houses, theatres, stores, factories and homes. And so the Railroad is truly the essential artery through which is transmitted the blood of life into this aggregation of men and things known as a City.

Naturally, during its period of gestation and parturition, the City depends absolutely upon the Railroad. Every inducement is offered by the City to the Railroad to make its surround

ings convenient and commodious, and its transactions and dealings profitable. In a majority of instances the right-of-way is donated, the depot sites, sidings and switch tracks, and land for terminal facilities are gratuitously bestowed; aid bonds are voted, and taxes indefinitely remitted. The products of the mine, the farm and the forest must be brought to satisfy the insatiable cravings of the infant City, in order that it may be nourished, grow and wax strong. The Railroad is the provider of happiness, the conduit of plenty, and the harbinger of prosperity.

The advent of the Railroad is indeed a day for jubilation. Civic exercises and parades proclaim an occasion of hope and joy, while the eloquence of the orators mingles with the inspiring strains of brazen and orchestral music so as to form one splendid antiphonal chorus, and pealing anthems sound the praise of the originators and promoters of this great work of public benefaction. It is not only assumed and conceded, but loudly vociferated, that the Railroad is God's finest gift to mankind. The state and national representatives, together with the Mayor and local dignitaries, demonstrate to the satisfaction of all, that now the Railroad has come, a golden era has commenced. Worthless and arid wastes in the suburbs and environs, become suddenly priced at fabulous figures for industrial sites and commercial purposes. Real estate values bound upwards to the sky. The use of the municipal streets is tendered to the Railroad for its own purposes, and the public places accord a glad acclaim to Railroad tracks, like the welcome given the procession of a bridal pair down the aisle to the altar. With the present sense of recent need the City feels what the Railroad means to it, and fully realizes the difference between conditions before and after the Railroad came. During this period, a railroad official is a personage of consequence, a man to be honored and graciously received, and the good citizens vie with each other in extending to him the courtesies of life.

But the human mind and memory is fickle and variable. Transitions occur, conditions change and the years multiply. The City become a metropolis, and with a huge population is a concentration of strength and power. Land in the City, which so precipitously and miraculously enhanced in price, has

remained valuable so long that the owner forgets the original cause. He thinks the property is worth a large amount of money because located in the populous part of a thriving City, and does not recall the origin of the thrift. The chief value of a Railroad to a City, is that it brings supply and demand together for exchange and distribution, so that manufacturers and merchants may gather in the profits of the intercourse. The average citizen does not realize this, but regards merely the fact that the Railroad does nothing o ther than carry something from one point to another, without adding any improvement or ornamentation. There are people who think that the mere transportation of an article is so incidental to its value, that but a trifling charge for the moving service should be made, forgetting the tremendous outlays required to pierce mountains, span rivers with bridges, and then install and operate very costly equipment, to say nothing of the vast sums spent in the employment of operatives to man the engines and trains. So important is the location of a thing as affecting its value, that an article perfectly worthless in one place may become exceedingly precious if found somewhere else. An Easy illustration would be the difference between the price of coal in the Arctic and in the Infernal regions. I apprehend that the commodity rate on ice from Labrador to Hades would be exceedingly high if a carrier could furnish an unlimited amount of cooling material to such a locality where the demand will always be constant, and far beyond any possible supply.

And then, the citizens who live near the passage of trains complain that smoke emitted from locomotives consuming coal is very offensive, and that engines and cars are noisy and disturbing while being operated. The free travel over municipal streets is observed to be impeded by railroad tracks, and the streets obstructed and rendered dangerous at crossings. Manufacturers begin to complain because cars are not switched from and to their plants with proper frequency, and merchants find fault with the rates charged for the transportation haul and switching service. Since railroading is a hazardous business people get hurt. Many are killed, many maimed, mutilated. These derelicts go about as living monuments to the cruelty and inhumanity of the Railroad.

The community demands that at once and forthwith all grade crossings be abolished; that more and better cars be furnished, and at lower rates; that all railroad lines using coal be electrified, and the nuisance caused by coal smoke be abated; that patent joints be installed at all switch connections so as to eliminate noise, and that everybody employed by the Railroads who is injured, irrespective of circumstances, be compensated in person or estate. The executive officers of the Railroads to whom these modest and surprising requests are addressed, acting under the instructions of their Boards of Directors, do not accede, and are thereafter universally anathematized and execrated. The Press, as the vocal agent of the people, does not hesitate to condemn the Railroad in the most severe terms and strictures. Descriptive names are coined to designate the objects of public hatred. In St. Louis we have the "Big" and "Little Cinch," meaning thereby the principal switching company and the street railway company. "Octopus" and "Beast" are quite favorite and popular appellations applied to any particular public utility, as a water or lighting company, thought to be solvent and fairly prosperous.

Thus arises a tremendous conflict between the Railroad and the City, with the issues sharply drawn. The City tries to get back all the privileges and rights granted to the Railroad in the early ignorant and dark days when an overweening desire to obtain transportation facilities, which meant life and advancement, made it conceive that some consideration should be given for the benefits to be conferred by the Railroad. On the other hand, the Railroad endeavors to hold its privileges and rights, upon whose estimation funds has been raised to finance and consummate the enterprise, because the stockholders had invested their money upon the promises and good faith of the City, and the bond holders had purchased the securities, being deluded into the belief that a contract was binding, and that a vested right could not be destroyed under the form of law.

The Railroad, however, was in possession and enjoyed the franchises the City had voluntarily granted and importuned it to take. But the City forgot completely the attendant facts and conditions upon which the Railroad had been persuaded and induced to locate, and had spent millions of dollars in con

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struction, extensions, betterments and improvements, and so permanently implanted itself in the midst of the City as not to be capable of removal without suffering death. The fact that the Railroad is so fixed and situated as not to be able to get away and escape is thoroughly appreciated by the City, in all its aspects, and hence the City does not fear that the Railroad may be driven out by adverse legislation, as would be any other kind of business concern. The interest of the Railroad

is not thought about at all. The City does not consider the fact that when coal is consumed smoke will be occasioned, and that a Railroad is chartered and constructed to use coal as a generating motive force; that tracks, while obstructing the streets, must be laid there in order to discharge the corporate duties of the Railroad; that while subways and elevated structures are more sightly and less in the way, that the Railroad lacks the funds to change its whole system of operation and rebuild its terminals; that grade crossings place life and property in frequent jeopardy, but the Railroad is without the means to immediately separate the grade and obviate all danger, because it cannot raise the requisite amount of money, even though it be willing to risk bankruptcy. No, the City regards only the present, and cares nothing for the past. Is it to be wondered at that the Railroad struggles to preserve its existence, and combats ordinances which, if effective, would be intolerable? Nor is the Railroad as a property, merely an intangible abstraction. Its stocks and bonds are held widely by many classes of people in many stations of life. When you destroy a Railroad the man of wealth is not alone affected, but oftentimes the support of the widow, the orphan and the necessitous is taken away. Accordingly the Railroad stands upon its legal rights and strives to the utmost to keep and hold what it may.

We come then, to regard just what the City can do to a Railroad with regulatory legislation and oppressive municipal laws. A City usually contends, through its mouthpiece, the Mayor, sometimes a transitory demagogue who has been elected upon a platform of distorted principles, that under its power to tax and authority to police, it can, in extreme cases, take over and operate the Railroad, when coercive means and practices have rendered the Railroad business unprofitable and impossible.

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