ense of a needless
number of trains and of what would otherwise be an excessively
large permanent force of employes must be added. Of course, nothing
much better than guesswork is possible, but I believe that the
total loss would be sufficient to provide a greater portion of the
people of the United States with homes."

But it seems quite possible to make a closer estimate of the wealth
wasted by the construction of unneeded railways than the general one
above. There are now, in round numbers, 158,000 miles of railway in the
United States. The two lines named above have a total extent of nearly
1,000 miles; and while they are the most flagrant examples of
paralleling in the country, there is no small number of other roads in
various parts of the country which, except for their competition with
roads already constructed, would never have been built. Considering the
fact that the paralleling has been done in regions where the traffic
was heaviest and where the cost of construction was greatest, it seems a
conservative estimate to say that 5 per cent. of the capital invested in
railways in the United States has been spent in paralleling existing
roads. But the total capital invested in the railways of the United
States is about $9,200,000,000, 5 per cent. of which is $460,000,000. It
is also to be remembered that this 7,500 miles of needless road has to
be maintained and operated at an average expense per mile per annum of
$4,381, or a total annual cost of nearly $33,000,000. Taking Prof. Ely's
estimate of $1,000 as the cost at which an average size family can be
provided with a comfortable home, and we find that the cost of these
unneeded railways would have provided 460,000 homes, sufficient to
accommodate 2,300,000 people. Say that 3 per cent. of the cost of these
homes is required annually to keep them in repair, then this could be
furnished by the $33,000,000 now paid for the operating expenses of
needless railways, and an annual margin of about $19,000,000 would be
left, or enough to provide each year homes for nearly 100,000 more
people in addition. Of course, this is merely a concrete example of what
possible benefits we have been deprived by wasting our money in building
needless railways.

As a matter of fact, the money we have spent on unprofitable railways,
as well as those totally useless, has wrought us an amount of damage far
in excess of their actual cost. It is generally agreed by