“I have been asked to speak to you of what is known as the ‘Plant System.’ Not this mere physical system of the man--for that speaks for itself. But the system of railways and steamships and other interests which have been built up as all other industries are built up in the great march of American progress and industrial development. In touching upon the plans and scope of the Plant System, I believe I will be credited with perfect sincerity when I say in the very outset, that if some of the conditions of which we now have knowledge had been known in the beginning, much of this system would not exist to-day. I have reference to such conditions as have in late years arisen and confronted corporations in the nature of an obstacle and an obstruction. As you all perhaps know, there has been a great change in the plans and methods of railroad construction during the last decade or two. In the old days railroads were built for the most part by the people of means along the proposed route, and they were for the most part short lines. People did not set out in the earlier days to build long lines of railways. As years rolled by, however, there sprang up among the people of some sections an unexplained feeling of hostility to corporations--a sort of antagonism to capital--which has worked its way like a devouring worm into the politics of the nation, and which, in recent years, has well nigh sapped the lifeblood from many of the leading railway systems of the country, by plunging them into such a complicated pool of injurious legislation as to land them on the dangerous shores of bankruptcy. Just at the time when such a spirit of antagonism was at its zenith there came a change in the methods of operating railway lines. Instead of the short lines, several of the roads began to be joined together for a longer line, thus reducing the expenses of operation and at the same time giving better facilities of travel and of shipment. It was found that the railroads could not live if operated on the short-line basis, for competition grew so great it became necessary to link this road and that to form a through line binding the commerce of one section to that of another in rapid transit at reduced expenditure. This came as a necessity born of the situation, for the railroads were being bankrupted on the old plan and were sold out by receivers for their original owners to the men of capital, and they saw the absolute necessity of a more economical basis of operation. Taxes were high, competition was great and everything served evidence that the old plan would no longer prove feasible.