the
character of the economic problems of the country. Until the time of
the Civil War its chief problems had been those of securing the means
to develop its resources, of acquiring the facilities for transporting
its products from place to place, and of providing markets in which its
products could be sold. As capital, population and transportation
facilities were provided to exploit the latent wealth of the continent
it was found that out of their presence grew far larger and more vital
problems than their absence had ever created. The economic difficulties
of the nation after the Civil War arose chiefly because of the
existence of the things which before 1860 it was a question of
acquiring.

In no instance was this general proposition better demonstrated than in
the railroad problem. For nearly sixty years of the nineteenth century
the chief obstacle to internal trade had been the lack of the means of
transportation. To overcome this difficulty the states had first built
their own canals and railroads. Many of the state enterprises failing
because of weak administration, the states had surrendered the
management of railroads to private corporations, but the public
continued to share in railroad construction through numerous grants of
aid by federal, state and local governments. For a number of years
almost the only activity of the public in regard to railroads was to
foster and protect the interests of the railroad companies. In the
seventies the public gradually came to a realization of the fact that
the railroad companies were displaying a lamentable lack of regard for
the interests of the public. Persons and communities found themselves
entirely at the mercy of railroad corporations, which, by vicious
discriminations, built up and destroyed where they chose, and even
endeavored to control arbitrarily the economic future of entire groups
of states regardless of their natural advantages or the choice of their
people. And not only did the railroad companies themselves become a
source of danger, but they were instrumental in the creation and
development of great industrial combinations, which were equally
indifferent to the welfare of the general public. The transportation
problem of the United States was no longer that of providing
facilities, but of controlling and regulating the existing facilities
in such a manner that reasonable rates and services would be given to
the public which had entrusted the business of