Even in the fifties and the sixties, the American public had its railroad problem, but it was quite different in character from the one with which we have since grown so familiar. The problem in this earlier period was merely that of getting more railroads. The farmer pioneers in those days were not demanding lower rates, better service, and no discrimination and antipooling clauses; they asked for the building of more lines upon practically any terms. This insistence on railroad construction in the sixties explains to a great extent the difficulties subsequently encountered. In a large number of cases railroad building became a purely speculative enterprise; the capitalists who engaged in this business had no interest in transportation but were seeking merely to make their fortunes out of constructing the lines. Not infrequently the farmers themselves furnished a considerable amount of money, expecting to obtain not only personal dividends on the investment but larger general dividends in the shape of cheap transportation rates and the development of the country. Even when the builders were more honest, their mistaken enthusiasm had consequences which were similarly disastrous. The simple fact is that a considerable part of the Mississippi Valley, five or ten years after the Civil War, found itself in the possession of railroads far in excess of the public need. In the long run this state of affairs was probably not a great economic evil, for it stimulated development on a tremendous scale; but its temporary effect was disastrous not only to the railroads themselves but to the struggling population. The farmer had mortgaged his farm to buy stock in the road; and his town or county or State had subsidized the line by borrowing money which it frequently could not repay. When this property became bankrupt, not only wiping out these investments but leaving the agricultural population at the mercy of what it regarded as exorbitant rates and all kinds of unfair discriminations with high interest charges on its mortgages and high local taxes, the blind fury that resulted among the farmers was not unnatural.