In February, 1907, I had the honor to be invited to the annual banquet of the Commercial Club at Clarinda, Iowa, and I was asked to speak about the railroad situation. After referring to some of the proposed laws that were then under consideration in the various states, I continued as follows: "I will not speak of the probable effect of such a public policy as I have referred to, on the general railroad situation, as others are much better qualified to do that, but speaking for the Company which I represent, we view the situation with much concern, and we have done, I think, what any prudent manager would do if he saw confronting him conditions which he was certain would increase his cost of operation a large but unknown amount and at the same time reduce his revenues--we have planned to curtail our expenditures wherever possible. I do not mean that we shall let the property suffer, or lower the character of the service, but we will not undertake extensions or large improvements until we can see more clearly where the money is coming from, or if it comes at all. How far reaching this policy of retrenchment, or perhaps I should say curtailment, will be, I, at least, cannot say; it will depend upon the future. Certain it is that our expenditures in that direction will be much less this year than last, which means, of course, fewer men employed and less material purchased." It is two years since that was written, and I regret to say that circumstances have not yet seemed to justify any considerable change of policy. The Burlington Company has on its pay-rolls today about 38,000 men, 15,000 less than in October, 1907, and 7,000 less than in February, 1907. We are doing all the things that we consider necessary for the safe operation of the trains, and for the proper maintenance of the property, but conditions so far have not seemed to us to justify a resumption of the policy of betterments and extension followed during 1906 and the preceding years. I do not know absolutely that it is so, but I imagine that the other Railroad Companies have been pursuing much the same course as we have here. The latest reports indicate that the total railroad mileage of the United States is about 230,000, so that the Burlington's mileage is about one-twenty-fifth of the whole, and if you multiply what has happened on this road by twenty-five, you will get a result for the whole country which will probably not be far from the truth. In fact the Eastern roads suffered much more from the actual business depression than we did in the West.