“Ingenious and simple, but it is not my own. A similar contrivance was in use on the Italian roads twenty years ago, although the idea was suggested to me by an Arizona rancher, who was averse to having cattle straying in his alfalfa fields, through which several public roads ran. In order to avoid the cost of fencing the roads, he put up automatic gates. The weight of the horses and vehicle upon a platform a few yards from the gate, on either side, operated upon a lever, and swung open the gate, which was released automatically by the passage of the wagon, and so swung shut.” “You seem, by these arrangements, to have secured the safety of passengers and train hands, but how about the speed? Will the traveling public be content with twenty miles an hour between Kansas City and San Francisco?” “I do not know. If they shall not be, still the speed would be satisfactory to the freighters. My own belief is that the greater safety and lower rates of passage that will prevail on this road will attract to it a large share of the passenger traffic. Those who are in haste can travel over one of the other lines.” “Your object seems to be to give to the public cheaper railroad service.” “It is partly that and partly to give the railroad employes better pay and greater regularity and permanency of employment. I will try to divide the benefits equitably.” “Will not those who run trains upon your road defeat your object by combinations among themselves, to put up the price of freight and passage, and put down the wages of railroad hands?” “It will be practicable, I think, to guard against both these things. If the Brotherhoods of Locomotive Firemen, and Locomotive Engineers, and Train Hands, will establish and maintain reasonable rates of compensation and hours of labor, and will enable all qualified workers to become members at will, then the directors of the company owning the roadbed will only allow its use to trains managed by Brotherhood members. If persons or companies owning rolling stock shall advance freight or passenger rates beyond maximum, or reduce them below minimum, rates, fixed by the directors of the Railway Company, they will lose their right to run trains, and if a combination should be made to diminish facilities to shippers or travelers, then the Roadbed Company will itself place a freight and passenger service on the track.” “Will you expect to personally superintend this great work, Mr. Morning?” “No, I must leave it to others. Once it shall be well started I have other projects which will require my attention.” “Who will run it, Mr. Morning?”