THE RELATION OF THE RAILROADS TO THE STATE 220 By W. M. Acworth, M. A. RAILWAY NATIONALIZATION 238 By Sir George S. Gibb. CONCERNING ADVANCES IN RAILWAY RATES 261 By the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce, 1909. STATISTICS OF AMERICAN RAILWAYS FOR 1909 291 By Slason Thompson. I Mileage in 1909 306 II Equipment 314 III Employes and their Compensation 321 IV Capitalization 337 V Cost of Construction 342 VI Ownership of American Railways 345 VII Public Service of the Railways 346 VIII Earnings and Expenses 358 IX Taxes 363 X Damages and Injuries to Persons 365 XI Locomotive Fuel 367 XII The Safety of American Railways 368 XIII Railway Receiverships in 1909 384 XIV Cost of Railway Regulation 385 XV Statistics of Foreign Railways 386 XVI Growth of Railways 391 Recommendations 393 INDEX 395 INTRODUCTION In the following pages is presented a number of the more timely papers and addresses of the year 1909 on the present railway situation, together with chapters from two books of current interest on the same subject. As the object of the compilation has been to present in permanent and accessible form information in regard to American railways worthy of more than the ephemeral life of newspaper or pamphlet publication, it has been thought well to accompany the messages of today with a brief glance at the conditions on this continent before the days of railways. Happily for this purpose the first two chapters of Messrs. Cleveland and Powell's "Railroad Promotion and Capitalization in the United States," fresh from the press, afforded the very background needed, and the first report of the engineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad provided the glasses through which the reader can look forward from the small beginnings to what is now known as the greatest railway system on the globe.