If you have never read Herbert Casson’s “Organized Self-Help,” do so. A brighter, braver, stronger book is not picked up often. No matter how much you may already know, your information will be greater when you shall have mastered this little volume. * * * * * The reason why Sir Plausible Voluble, of Nebraska, is so mixed up on the Railroad Question is that his talk-talk-talk commenced, as usual, before he understood his subject. At first he advocated state ownership, which would have given us forty-odd different systems. Now he has reached the point where he wants the Nation to own national lines of transportation while the states are to own “local lines.” _Wouldn’t_ we have a sweet time deciding which roads are national and which are local? * * * * * Under the present system every line of transportation has a double character, partly national and partly local, and _the traffic_ on every line is partly state and partly inter-state. You can no more separate what is national from what is local in the railroads than you can in the Post-Office. _Every_ postal route is at once local and national. A letter may come five miles, five hundred or five thousand—the _system_ carries it to its destination. So with freight and passengers. The so-called local railroad will carry freight from the adjoining county, from the adjoining state, from the remotest section of the Union, and from the lands beyond our borders. So with passengers. Why, then, should anybody be talking tommyrot about “_local lines_”? Said Betsy Prig to Sairey Gamp, concerning the alleged existence of a certain Mrs. Harris, “_I don’t believe there is no sich a person._” Says I to W. J. B., concerning the alleged “local lines of transportation,” I don’t believe there is any such thing as a local line of transportation. * * * * * The reasoning which sustains government ownership of a part of the railroads inevitably leads to the ownership of all. At _such_ a cherry, why take two bites? Why have a system where there is certain to be a clash between state management and national management? Why leave the gaps down for inequalities in rates? Why not insure _uniformity_ by unity of ownership and management? Why not learn a lesson from the German Empire, and avoid state ownership altogether? * * * * * However, I am glad to see that our Nebraska friend is making progress. Give him time, and he will arrive. For a convert who jumped on our platform of Government Ownership so recently as last July, he does fairly well. But if he would use his thinking apparatus a little more, and his organs of speech a little less, he would get on faster. “Local lines” of transportation—_at this time_? He might as well say that the artery in his left hind leg is a “local artery.” * * * * * The New York _World_ says: