Sitting on the porch of his home at dusk, the farmer looks out over his broad acres, sees the great industrial aids that American invention has given him for the growing and the harvesting of his crops and forgets, perhaps, that on each of these mechanical devices he has paid a toll to the railroad. But when he looks to his wheatlands he must recall that it is the railroad that carries forth their crops--not only to the cities and towns of the United States, but to the bread-hungry land, far overseas. In those markets he competes with the wheat from lands so far distant that they seem like mere names wrenched from the pages of the geography book--Argentina, India, Australia. Because of this alone, it is nationally important that the steel highways which lead from our seaport gateways inland to the wheat and corn fields be kept healthy and efficient. They have become integral parts of that broad national policy which says that the United States is no longer isolated or insular but one of the mighty company of world nations. Will you permit me for a moment to enlarge upon this point--this competition between our farmer of the West and the farmer of the Argentine Republic, of India, of Australia, and of the nations of the Baltic Sea in the market of the consuming nations of the world? As the wheat fields of each of these nations are nearer tidewater than the wheat fields of the United States, it long ago became necessary for our railroads to lower the transportation rate for grain in order that the American farmer might not become submerged in this great international competition. That this has been done, a single illustration will show: A bushel of wheat today is transported from the center of the great granary country of our Northwest or Southwest to tidewater--an average distance of 1,700 miles--for 27 cents. This is at the rate of .53 of a cent--a minute fraction over half a cent--per ton-mile. The average ton-mile rate in Great Britain, 2.30 cents, as applied to our average grain haul in the United States of 1,700 miles, would make the transportation cost of American wheat four and one-half times as much, or $1.21. The American farmer owes a far greater debt to the railroad than he sometimes may believe. He may have suffered under the oppressions and injustices of badly managed roads--may yet be smarting from these oppressions and injustices. But how much greater would be the oppression and injustice of a high grain rate such as I have just shown? And if such a rate were imposed upon him, would he be able in an average year to grow wheat at a profit, to say nothing of being able to compete with it in the broad markets of the entire world? * * * * *