Upon one occasion I was making a trip over a division of road where there was no competition and where we therefore enjoyed one hundred per cent of the business. There was an unexpected stop for something and a brakeman went to the rear to protect the train. Presently a wagon-load of girls came in sight. The brakeman took out his handkerchief and initiated a flirtation. Then discovering that I had seen the performance and evidently desiring to square himself, he said without hesitation, "If we make friends of these people they ride on our road." One could hardly convey better than that brakeman did to me, an idea which we should never abandon, namely, that one of the best assets a road can have is friends, and I suggest that probably our first duty is to keep in good humor and be considerate one for another. That involves and includes good service to the public, and nothing will help more to keep the public in good humor. The people of this country already have the lowest rates and the highest wages in the world. They are the best people in the world and are entitled to the best service in everything. I believe they should insist upon having the best railroads, and when they so insist, and realize that our population has thus far doubled every thirty years and will soon be one hundred million, and not very long after that one hundred and twenty-five million, and that our transportation necessities double faster than our population does, they will set about finding out what is necessary to obtain adequate railroads, and then we shall probably hear less about rates and more about efficiency and safety. When the people do this they will soon discover that it is no more disgraceful to make money in building railroads than in selling land or in merchandising or in manufacturing or in mining. They will also discover that although the courts have said railroad investors are entitled to a reasonable return upon a fair value, no court--not even that great tribunal, the Supreme Court of the United States--can finally say what is a reasonable return. This question would still be unsettled because we have not yet gotten away from our dependence upon private capital. What is a reasonable return must be answered by the investor as well as by the commissions or the courts, because it always takes two to make a bargain, and money, like its human owners, will go where it has the best prospective reward and the greatest liberty. The people will find that what we need in this country is not more bureaucratic government by untrained officials with brief tenures of political office, or more power to commissions, but more responsibility upon boards of directors. If statutes are necessary to insure this, well and good; but if regulation is general in character and national in scope, is directed against oppression and discrimination, and designed to promote safety and efficiency and faithful accounting, the people will get better results from intelligent and honest