The United States was never in such great need of additional transportation as during the last ten years and never before was so little done to supply it. James J. Hill, the great empire builder of the Northwest, used to furnish figures to prove that we must invest two billion dollars new capital per annum to keep pace with the development of the country. It did not require a sage or a seer to discern that if we multiplied production from farm and factory, mill and mine, indefinitely, and failed to provide transportation facilities, we would ultimately reach a time when crops would rot on the ground while those who had grown them would be freezing and coal miners starving. Truly, the American people are “kin-folks.” For more than three years, liberty hung in the balance simply because the United States, with all her development, had failed to keep her transportation facilities abreast of her production. We had no merchant marine and during the entire period of the war were dependent largely upon the Allies to transport our troops and our munitions. Adverse marine laws had been passed rendering it impossible to sail an American ship in deep sea transportation except at great loss even if the ship had cost nothing whatever. It became necessary for the government to take possession of the railroads in order to avoid the effect of statutes filled with restrictive and prohibitive provisions. If the railroads had been operated under private ownership as the government is now operating them, every railroad president in the United States would be in the penitentiary. The roads asked an increase of fifteen percent in freight rates, which raised a furore of objection from both shipper and public, and it was denied. Government control and operation resulted in a loss of seventy million dollars the first month. Then both freight and passenger rates were increased twenty-five percent, generally, and in many instances, one hundred percent, and no one murmured. And still the loss continues. _It was four hundred million dollars the first year of government operation._ WILL WE EVER BUILD MORE ROADS? If someone should predict that the last railroad ever to be built in the United States of America, has been built, are you prepared to question its correctness? Will it be necessary to change our policy if more roads are to be builded? Listen! Will you invest money in railroad construction, knowing that if it succeeds you will be allowed no more than six or eight percent on the money wisely spent, and that if, through misfortune or want of foresight, it fails, you will lose everything? The theory of public utility commissions generally, is that if money is unwisely invested it ought to be lost, and when it is wisely invested, it should earn about six percent.