hile they still did shock the community, they were
amazingly capable at their work and really rendered service of
inestimable value.

But meanwhile, for various reasons and owing to sundry influences, the
father had grown testy and rather sour on them. He cut their allowance,
he restrained them in various ways, some wise, some less so, he changed
his will in their disfavor, he showed marked preference to other
children of his. And one fine day, partly because he was annoyed at the
discovery of some wrongdoing in which, despite his repeated warnings, a
few of the railroads had indulged (though the overwhelming majority were
blameless) and partly at the prompting of plausible self-seekers or
well-meaning specialists in the improvement of everybody and
everything--one fine day he lost his temper and with it his sense of
proportion. He struck blindly at the railroads, he appointed guardians
(called commissions) to whom they would have to report daily, who would
prescribe certain rigid rules of conduct for them, who would henceforth
determine their allowance and supervise their method of spending it,
etc.

And these commissions, naturally wishing to act in the spirit of the
parent who had designated them, but actually being, as guardians are
liable to be, more harsh and severe and unrelenting than he would have
been or really meant to be, put the railroads on a starvation diet and
otherwise so exercised their functions, with good intent, doubtless, in
most cases, that after a while those railroads, formerly so vigorous and
capable, became quite emaciated and several of them succumbed under the
strain of the regime imposed upon them. And then, seeing their condition
and having need, owing to special emergencies, of railroad services
which required great physical strength and endurance, one fine morning
the parent determined upon the drastic step of taking things into his
own hands. And so forth....

II

To drop the style of story-telling: Individual enterprise has given us
what is admittedly the most efficient railroad system in the world. It
has done so whilst making our average capitalization per mile of road
less, the scale of wages higher, the average rates lower, the service
and conveniences offered to the shipper and the traveler greater than in
any other of the principal countries.

It must be admitted that in the pioneer period of railroad development,
and for some years thereafter, numerous things were