"In the section of this country, the portion of this country east of Chicago, I do not know anywhere north of the Ohio River, where a railroad, built with the greatest care and economy, could pay one per cent. on its cost; that is, a new road, built between any of the large cities of the west to the large cities of the east, paying the present price of real estate and terminals and the cost of construction, the cost of eliminating great profits, the cost of the necessary expenditure of money to make life and limb safe. "Take, for instance, a railroad from New York to Chicago. I had curiosity enough to inquire from the leading real estate man who was getting the additional property for the New York Central, their terminals, what it would cost from Thirty-eighth street to Harlem River, a narrow strip of blocks on the East Side, say ten blocks, from Thirty-eighth to Forty-eighth street, to be used as a terminal. He told me it ought to be secured for $200,000,000, but he would not like to take the contract. Now, follow that up through Albany and Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo and Erie and Cleveland and on to Chicago, and if you can get into Chicago and get out of New York with any reasonable cost I want to say that when your road was finished, at the present rate, it could not pay 1 per cent. on what it cost in money. NO ROOM FOR MORE ROADS. "Now, what chance is there for more roads between New York and Chicago, or between any Atlantic city and any large city in the west? During the ten years from 1898 to 1908 the railroad mileage in the United States increased about 24½ per cent., the passenger business increased 125 per cent., and the freight business increased 148 per cent. The additional burden was placed on the railways, with an increase of over 148 per cent. in the tons moved. What is it costing the Pennsylvania road to get into the City of New York? I do not know the exact figures, but I have seen it estimated from time to time at one hundred millions of dollars to secure passenger facilities in the City of New York. When I think of these things and see what you have here I think that we have reason to congratulate ourselves, and I think that we had a narrow escape from being compelled to do our business west of Commercial street in place of where we are today. There are no places that I know of today where there is any room or any use for any other large railway enterprise.