The people and the railways Author:Appleton Morgan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: a replication to the array, once for all. Especially when the volume impresses us at every paragraph as having been compiled by a gentleman who not only has neve... more »r been engaged in the management of railways, operatively or financially, but has never discovered, in all the immense delicacy of mechanism which moves 8,778,581,061 of people one mile, and billions of dollars' worth of treasure in every direction across and along a continent in a single year, and supports a property representing $7,676,- 399,054 of securities, a single point for his admiration or even for his approval. Archimedes had the world for a load and natural science for a lever; but even Archimedes was obliged to sigh for a place whereon to plant his fulcrum. It appears to me that, in this laborious . work of five hundred closely printed octavo pages, what Mr. Hud son lacks most of all is a standpoint. He has a load, he has a grievance for a lever, but, since he can not himself float in space, he makes no impression on what he claims to be the burden to be moved. Mr. Hudson's want of standpoint is prominent at his very outset in his very title-page. He calls his boot "The Railways and the Republic," thus antagonizing his two terms. But the grouping is vicious, to begin with; since railroads, whether regarded as legal entities or as companies of individuals, are as much part and parcel of the republic as is Mr. Hudson himself. Starting upon this false major premise, Mr. Hudson proceeds in the 6rst of his eleven chapters to give us the indictment, the remaining ten to be the counts of the particulars. CHAPTER ill. The title given to this indictment, " The Problem of Railway Domination," is again illicit. Where is the " domination " to be eliminated ? Frankly admitting that the present writer believes that ...« less