This question has been extensively treated by leading railroad men, statesmen and Press of the South, and admirably covered by addresses on numerous occasions before various audiences throughout the South.
I therefore feel that the southern railroad situation is gradually becoming better understood, not only by the public at large, but by the railway men of the South, who are jointly appreciative of the fact that the greatest need of southern railroads is the confidence and support of the communities through which they run and serve.
Therefore, my remarks will be few, and are made in order that certain fundamentals may be read into the record of this convention.
For the purposes of this address the South is described as that portion of the United States lying south of the Potomac and Ohio Rivers and east of the Mississippi.
Shortly after the close of the Civil war, the South realizing the changed order of things, accepted the situation in the spirit of American manhood and started on a new era of industrial and commercial development.
One of the first necessities was a comprehensive system of transportation facilities. The railroads, which prior to the Civil war had compared favorably with those in the North, at its close were practically bankrupt financially and physically, and were more the shadow than the substance of what they should have been.
Southerners with brains and energy, starting with 11,587 miles of detached, dilapidated and crippled railways, immediately commenced to lay the foundation of the present industrial and commercial prosperity in the South by constructing its lines of railway.
The efforts of these men and the confidence they were able to inspire in northern and foreign capital are best illustrated by the fact that today the South is served with 46,434 miles of railroad, serving eleven states, twenty million people, and representing a total investment in round numbers of two billion dollars.
Of these 46,434 miles of railroads only 1,134 miles approximately, or 2½ percent, are double track. It is possible that the next ten years will see at least one-fourth, or over ten thousand, additional miles of second track.