1868 she made a contract for the sale of this and other stocks on favorable terms, which included the assumption and payment of all her outstanding bonds that had been issued for railway stock subscriptions. Dissatisfied stockholders of the Southwestern Railroad Company and The Central Railroad and Banking Company, the proposed purchasers, successfully enjoined the sale. The contract was cancelled, most of the stock involved became worthless, and Savannah lost a million and a quarter dollars.

"Big Business" today would be astonished to read the frank resolutions of the Southwestern Railroad Company presented to the city council as authority for the proposition:

"Whereas, The consummation of those propositions contemplate an amicable and just settlement of the present unhappy and ruinous competition on the part of the Atlantic & Gulf Road for business legitimately belonging to the Southwestern and Central Railroads:

"Now Therefore, Relying upon the good faith of the city of Savannah, to protect as far as possible the investments already made in the great channels of commerce terminating at the port of Savannah by refraining from fostering other competing lines, and for the purpose of rendering the lines now in existence. not only self sustaining but profitable-disclaiming all antagonistic feeling, and desiring to contribute, as far as possible, to the commercial wealth and prosperity of Savannah, be it

"Resolved, &c."

It would be difficult to find a modern instance of so frank an avowal by big business of its intention to limit, if not wholly to suppress, competition. That such frankness does not pay will appear from the decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia (Central R. R. vs. Collins, 40th Ga. 583), which by a vote of two judges against one sustained the position of the objecting

stockholders. If not the first, it is one of the first formal decisions which have so firmly imbedded into American law the basic principle that public service corporations may not suppress competition.

This decision also shows the importance which was attached, even as late as 1868, to inland river transportation. Of the two lines which were held to be competitive, one runs northwest and west from Savannah through Macon to the Chattahoochee river at Eufaula and Fort Gaines, the other from Savannah southwest to the Flint river, a tributary of the Chattahoochee, at Bainbridge. The rail connection between the two was treated as negligible, but the suppression of competition was expected to come from the throttling of transportation on the Chattahoochee river, treated by the court as a great highway of commerce. About thirty years later, in another case (Dady vs. Ga. & Ala. Ry., 112 Fed. Rep., 838) involving a similar question, another high court in analyzing competitive conditions between two other railroads, both reaching from Savannah to the Chattahoochee river and more nearly parallel than were the earlier roads, treated the river commerce as insignificant and immaterial.

I have sketched some, but not all, of the transportation enterprises which are the result of Savannah's progressive activities because they teach us that it was no haphazard accident that made the small town of 1819 the successful projector of the first steamship to cross the ocean, and fifteen years later of the first iron vessel in American waters. Realizing from the beginning that her interest lay in establishing and maintaining herself as an important station, intermediate and terminal, for the transportation of the commerce of the state; the nation and the world, she has persistently and consistently, sometimes with great money loss, always with the risk of it, seen to it that she was well provided with rail and water lines ample for her needs. She has had no small part in the building up of her state and her nation, and as a transportation centre she is reaping her reward. Today she is served by the four largest railway systems in the South, all well provided with

ample terminals. Though limited by the ocean to only a half circle of adjacent territory, ten railway lines radiate from her stations, of which but three may be described as “short lines”. An important and successful coastwise steamship line bears her name and claims her as a home port. This line has recently built at large cost a modern pier and terminal of great size, recognized as probably the best in America. The great war has distorted all navigation statistics, but in normal times the ships of all nations, steam and sail, line her wharves to bear to the uttermost parts of the earth the commerce which her rail lines have brought from the interior.

For the past thirty years her foreign commerce has grown steadily, and she has gradually outdistanced her competitors as a port. In 1910-'11-'12 the value of the foreign exports from Savannah exceeded the value of the foreign exports from all other South Atlantic ports combined. This means that in normal times her foreign business was greater than the combined foreign business of Norfolk, Newport News, Wilmington, Charleston, Beaufort, Brunswick, Fernandina and Jacksonville.

In 1912 the value of her foreign exports was exceeded only by that of New York. Savannah was second, with Baltimore, Boston and Philadelphia following behind. In 1913-'14'15 the value of the water borne commerce, foreign and domestic, through the district of Savannah exceeded that of every other district except New York and Philadelphia. Between 1904 and 1914 (the last year for which statistics are available) the foreign exports from Savannah increased 105.5% while those of New York increased 70.5%; and from 1884 to 1914 Savannah's increase was 454.75% while that of New York was 162.25%. These figures were not approached by any other port.

It is impossible to eliminate from the causes which brought this supremacy the persistent encouragement and assistance always given to transportation enterprises; and today we commemorate the spirited activity and courage of the little embryo city which gave them birth.

The city of which I speak is not only the little Savannah which carried out the three enterprises whose centenaries are now commemorated, and which projected the first iron vessel ever seen in American waters, but is the Savannah which was foremost in the building of the some time longest railroad in the world, and the establishment in connection with it, of a large and important bank; the Savannah which subscribed near two millions of dollars to the capital of this and other important railroads; the Savannah which converted a site of naturally unsanitary surroundings into one of the most healthful cities in the country, with a low death rate; the Savannah which from her founding to this day has never seen an insolvent bank close its doors; the Savannah which forty years ago, more than decimated by pestilence and overburdened with debt incurred through her unprofitable railroad venture, successfully struggled with and avoided impending bankruptcy; the Savannah which, notwithstanding the difficulties of this struggle, continued from year to year on her march of progressive municipal improvement; the Savannah whose debt, nothwithstanding these improvements, is today less than it was forty years ago; the Savannah who in the race for foreign commerce has so far outstripped all other South Atlantic ports, and many of her more pretentious competitors.

These things have our forefathers and our predecessors done. The benefits and advantages which come from their work are ours, but with them come corresponding obligations. Ours is the duty to emulate their virtues and to follow their example. Let us not make this centenary an empty form. Let us seriously reflect on what these others have done, and here and now firmly resolve that their work shall not prove to have been in vain, and that, proud as we are of their achievements in the past, we shall by united and determined action endeavor to excel them. Today must be better than yesterday, and tomorrow better than today.

An Address

In the City Auditorium of Savannah, Ga.
April 21, 1919

By HON. E. E. ROGERS

Mr. Chairman, Your Excellency the Governor, Your Honor the Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen of Savannah:

It has been the privilege of Mrs. Rogers and me to attend many public occasions, but never have we journeyed so far in response to so gracious an invitation, nor with keener anticipation, than to this celebration.

As the official representative of the city of New London, Conn., by direction of the city council, I am pleased to convey to the people of Savannah the heartiest greetings from the citizens of New London, with their best wishes for the success of this Centennial, celebrating as it does the first trans-Atlantic voyage by steam.

New London and Savannah are associated historically. Both were captured during the Revolutionary War. Your Sergeant Jasper sealed his patriotism with his life. Within a few rods of my residence in New London stands the school house where Nathan Hale resigned as principal to accept his commission in the Continental Army, which service he sealed with his life, regretting that he had but one life to lose for his country. After reading your traditions and history and seeing your historic memorials on every side, I must pay a word of tribute to your patriotic women of such societies as The Colonial Dames, Daughters of the American Revolution, and United Daughters of the Confederacy, and others who have been instrumental in erecting such memorials, and I will do this in the words of Georgia's historian Lamar when referring to the patriotic women of Georgia, he said, "Whose unwearied efforts to rescue from oblivion the fading records of your great commonwealth, have made them, in a peculiar sense, the guardians of Georgia's immortality."