another." In the absence of whistles, warning and signals were given from the locomotive by raising the valve stem on the steam dome by hand, which permitted the steam to escape with a hissing sound, while the conductor had either to run the length of the train or use agreed signs to communicate with the engineer. Advanced practice in communication was illustrated by the engineer running up a flag on the tender when he wished the brakemen to set the brakes. Stopping a train was a matter of physical strength on the part of the trainmen and resulted in discomfort to passengers and in scrambling of freight; the jolting was often "tantamount to a shock scarcely less severe than would be caused on a superior modern train by a collision."

But the peculiar conception early entertained as to the nature of the railway, complicated a difficult matter still further. "It was not the intention of early legislators that railroad companies should have any preferential or exclusive use of the means of transportation upon their tracks. With the exception of the Baltimore and Ohio, few railroad companies of this period were granted charters which did not expressly provide that the road might be used by any person who would comply with necessary rules as to form of wheels, style of cars, and weight of loads. The idea was distinctly in mind that the railroad was to be operated precisely like a turnpike, with gates at intervals along the route for the collection of tolls." Regarded as a public highw upon which all who wished might place at will their own cars for movement by power supplied by themselves, complications were inevitable. Disputes as to right of way often delayed and sometimes blocked traffic and the use of the railways by the general public on a toll basis interfered with any orderly operation by the railway officials themselves. With the proved superiority of the locomotive, however, the railway soon gained exclusive control of its roadway and it was not long before it was recognized that even the right of the individual to furnish cars must be exercised in accordance with appropriate regulations.

PUBLIC OPPOSITION TO THE RAILWAY

But the difficulties faced by the railway pioneer extended far beyond mere problems of plant construction and operation-positive opposition had to be overcome and the support of capital enlisted. By some this new transportation agency was received as an invention of the devil and a herald of social catastrophe, an agency calculated to overturn an ordered state and to erect, in its stead, an organization as menacing as itself for the defiance of all natural laws respecting speed of movement. Illustrating this opposition:

In Connecticut, we are told, an eloquent divine went about lecturing in opposition to railroads, declaring that their introduction would necessitate the building of a great many insane asylums, as people would be driven mad with terror at the sight of locomotives rushing across the country with nothing to draw them. And the townspeople of Newington in the same state, having learned that a line of railroad was projected through their neighborhood, are said to have presented to the directors a remonstrance which represented that they were a peaceable, orderly people, and begged that their quiet might not be interrupted by steam cars and the influx of strangers.1

By considerable numbers the railway was regarded, rightly or wrongly, as inimical to their own economic welte, and was fought with that bitterness which character

only a man's defense of his "bread and butter" interests. Large sums of money had been invested in canal projects by individuals and by government, so active effort was immediately made to protect these undertakings. In New York, the Utica and Schenectady was prohibited in its charter of 1833 from carrying any property other than the baggage of passengers and not until 1844 was it permitted to handle freight-then only during the period of suspension of navigation and upon payment to the state of a sum equal to the canal tolls leviable had the movement been through the Erie Canal. As late as 1848 the General Incorporation

1 Cleveland and Powell, Railroad Promotion and Capitalization, p. 76.

Act required canal tolls of all lines parallel to and within 30 miles of canals and all restrictions were not removed until 1851. In Pennsylvania the charter of the Pennsylvania Railroad required the payment of a tonnage tax of five mills during about nine months of the year, a tax not wholly lifted until 1861, while in New Jersey the Camden and Amboy was forced to agree, as the price of receiving a charter, that it would take over and complete the Raritan Canal project which constituted a rival route!

Turnpike companies and the proprietors of stage-lines also opposed bitterly the introduction of the railway. The Utica and Schenectady was forced to buy up the shares of an established turnpike company at an agreed price, and the granting of railway charters was frequently delayed by such rival interests. Often, too, after the railway was built the stage line waged an almost equal battle against this rather imperfect agency for some time. Allied with those whose financial interests were directly identified with canal, turnpike, and stage-line as investors was a large group whose incidental relationship was such as to make their interests one with the investors. This group included inn-keepers and coach drivers, even the farmers who feared that their market for horses and, in consequence, for hay and grain would be ruined. Such was the general attitude displayed in many quarters that Josiah Quincy declared "the believer in railroads was not only to do the work and pay the bills for the advantage of his short-sighted neighbor, but, as Shakespeare happily phrases it, 'Cringe and sue for leave to do him good." Rivalry even among railway promoters delayed development - where no competition for traffic threatened, prospective competition for financial support often caused promoters to block one another's plans.

INADEQUATE SUPPLY OF CAPITAL

The difficulty of securing capital for early railway construction is assignable in part to the scarcity of capital in

the United States, in part to the natural hesitancy of those commanding funds to invest in this new and relatively unproved enterprise. As is peculiarly true of any new country with large areas of undeveloped territory and with great natural resources, the demand for capital greatly exceeded the supply: funds were at a premium. Relief during the early years of development was not to be anticipated from the more highly developed sections of western Europe because at this time the rapid movement toward industrialization at home offered local opportunities for profitable investment. In consequence, early railway construction in the United States had to be financed by local capital. But access to these funds was denied to a degree that the success of the enterprise afterward proved unjustified. Capital is essentially conservative, venturing but timidly into new and relatively untried fields and this is doubly true where an almost endless number of investment opportunities of proven character are offered. Certainly, the first 10 years of railway building and operation were so characterized by experimentation that none but those actively interested, enthusiasts in the "cause," felt that financial success could be immediate and permanent. And that was the only type of success calculated to lure considerable sums of private capital into the field. But, when in addition to a reasonable doubt as to the immediate, even the ultimate, success of this new agency, there existed public apathy in some quarters and active, bitter opposition in others, it is in nowise strange that the possessors of funds doled them out to those interested in railway construction somewhat slowly at first! When a leading paper of Boston declared, in 1827, concerning the proposal of constructing a railway from Boston to the Hudson instead of the canal which had been suggested earlier, that it was "a proposal which everyone knows, who knows the simplest rule of arithmetic, to be impracticable, but at an expense little less than the market value of the whole territory of Massachusetts; and which, if practicable, every person of common sense knows would be as useless as a rail

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road from Boston to the moon," it would have been odd, indeed, had capital rallied to the support of the enterprise within the space of less than a decade or more.

In consequence of the difficulty of securing financial support, many projects were undertaken during this period with wholly inadequate funds. The result of this situation was that numerous roads were but partially completed and this, in turn, was highly conducive to financial disaster. Or, perchance, those who had become financially interested in the project decided to "throw good money after bad" in the hope of retrieving the original sums invested through the completion of the project. Yet, even with the project complete, difficulties were not ended. The lack of adequate working capital and the slender revenues during early years often resulted in a serious situation. In this connection Ringwalt says, "An early employee of the Philadelphia, Germantown, and Norristown, which subsequently became one of the most profitable short lines in the country, reports that he was obliged to buy oil to grease the axles, with his own money. An old engineer on a New England road 'relates how men were sometimes put on the tender with a sawhorse and saw, to cut the wood to make steam for the trip, because there was no supply on hand, and no money to buy any. It is said that an official once gave up his gold watch as security when a train was seized for debt while en route." " The financial way of the railway builder was truly a hard one during early years: it was more difficult to secure the support of capital during this period for sound projects than it was later, during the speculative era, for the most impossible of promoter's schemes.

RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION AT THE CLOSE OF THE FIRST PERIOD

That construction prior to 1850 reached the proportions which it did stands as splendid testimony to the enthusiasm and perseverance of the railway pioneer. With but little more than a score of miles in operation in 1830, that decade