"A few years later, when the railroads established the relative rates of freight between New York and Philadelphia and the Southeast, and St. Louis, Cincinnati and Chicago and the Southeast, giving the former the sales of merchandise and the latter the furnishing of food products, the hardware consumed in this country was manufactured in England. At that time we, in Chicago, felt that we were going beyond the confines of our legitimate territory when we diffidently asked the merchants in western Indiana to buy their goods in our market. Today, a very considerable percentage of the hardware used in the United States is manufactured in the Middle West, and we are profitably selling general hardware through a corps of travelling salesmen in New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and special lines in New England. "What we claim is that we should not have our territory stopped at the Ohio river by any act of yours. It is not stopped, gentlemen, by any other river in America. It is not stopped by the greatest river, the Mississippi. It is not stopped by the far greater river, the Missouri. It is not stopped by the Arkansas; it is not stopped by the Rio Grande. It is not stopped even by the Columbia; and, even in the grocery business, it is not stopped by the Hudson. There are Chicago houses that are selling goods in New York city, groceries that they manufacture themselves. Mr. Sprague's own house sells goods in New York city, and Chicago is selling groceries in New England. As I say, even the Hudson river doesn't stop them." All this record implies progressiveness, energy, and ambition on the part of both business men and traffic officers. Nothing is more remarkable in American commerce than its freedom from restraints. Elasticity and quick adaptation to the exigencies of business are peculiarities of American railroad operation. This is due to the progressiveness of our railway managers in seeking constantly to develop new territory and build up business. The strongest contrast between Europe and the United States lies in this fact. European railroads take business as they find it. Our railroads make it. Far be it from me to minimize the service rendered in American progress. And yet there are reasonable limits to all good things. We ought to reckon the price which must be paid for this freedom of trade.