The money that went to meet these deficits was provided from some source. Where did it come from? Most of the big railroaders know. They will tell you, without much mincing of words, that it came from previous accumulations of surplus, or else from money withheld from the upkeep of the physical property of the railroads. Of this last, much more in due course. For the present moment, consider that great $4,000,000,000 expenditure between 1908 and 1914 for additions and betterments. It was none too much--not even enough when one comes to consider it beside the great expansions in service as represented by the showings of passenger-miles and ton-miles. And yet today, as we shall see in due course, the railroads stand in need of far greater development and expansion than ever before in their history. Five or six years ago that supreme railroader, James J. Hill, estimated that the railroads of America would need a further expenditure of $1,100,000,000 a year upon their properties before they would be in shape even to decently handle the traffic that would be coming to them before the end of the present decade. Hill was a master railroader who stood not only close to his properties but close to the great territory which they serve. He knew that the states of the Union which are west of the Mississippi River had been developed to only twenty-seven per cent of their ultimate possibilities. It would be hard to state the lack of development of the railroads of that territory in exact percentage. It certainly would be a figure far less than twenty-seven. If you are a traveler at all familiar with the Middle West and the South; if you are traveling steadily and consistently these years over all of their rail routes, you must have been convinced of their appalling condition. Many of their main lines are deplorable; their branch lines are unspeakable. Branch-line service in every part of the land has been a neglected feature of railroad opportunity--as we shall see in due course. But in the Middle West and in the South they are at their worst. If they do not actually cry aloud from a physical standpoint for reconstruction, their service, or the lack of it, certainly does. Yet the people, the communities, and the industries which are situated upon them are entitled to a railroad service which shall enable them to compete upon an even basis with the communities and industries which are situated upon rich and efficiently managed railroads. I feel that this is an economic principle to which there can be no dissent. And I think also that there can be no dissent to the wretched plight of many of the roads of the Middle West and the South--more particularly the Southwest. In rough figures, the prosperous railroads of the land, representing some forty per cent of its mileage, are able to give service to their patrons; sixty per cent are unable to render a proper service.