The letter was at the time regarded by railroad men as a very strong document, and the railroad journals were filled with lengthy editorials in praise of the soundness of the doctrines and arguments which it contained. The disinterested of the enlightened portion of the community even then realized that the "eminent jurists" whom the company had consulted were hired attorneys and greatly biased in their views as to the constitutional rights of corporations, and that President Mitchell on his part had painted by far too dark a picture of the situation. It is now quite generally admitted that many of Mr. Mitchell's statements were as false as his counsel's interpretation of the Constitution and the law was erroneous. From the assertions made in this letter one is led to infer that the then stock-and bondholders of the Milwaukee road had paid in full every dollar of the capitalized value of the road, and that they derived from their investment an income of only about six per cent. on the money actually invested by them. The cost of the entire Chicago and Milwaukee system in Wisconsin was stated in the letter as being $38,000 per mile. It is not likely that this line of road ever cost to exceed $25,000 a mile, or that those who then owned the road paid much more than two-thirds of its actual cost for it. The road, as the letter itself admits, was bought at sheriff's sale, and no mercy whatever was shown to the farmers who had mortgaged their farms to aid the railroad company in raising funds for the construction of its line. The letter contains other misstatements equally grave. Mr. A. B. Stickney, the president of the Chicago, St. Paul and Kansas City Railroad, in his recent excellent work, "The Railway Problem," reviews Mr. Mitchell's letter as follows: