Other States have much experience similar to that of Iowa. Nebraska has just adopted a maximum tariff law for the control of her roads. It will, of course, be resisted by the railroad managers of that State.

The State of Texas is not so productive in proportion, but is much greater in extent than Iowa, and upon the whole resembles it much in its prominent characteristics. Both are thrifty, progressive States, with no large commercial or manufacturing centers where their people can easily organize to protect their financial interests.

The people of Texas endured patiently the abuses so prevalent in railroad management until a few years since they enacted a railroad law similar to that of Iowa. The Wall Street managers of the Texas railroads are at the present time using all of their familiar methods to influence the people of that State to repeal their law. The following letter serves to show the spirit with which they are approached:

"23 Broad Street,
New York, November 30, 1891.

James B. Simpson, Esq., Dallas, Tex.

"Dear Sir: Yours of the 26th is received and contents carefully noted. Very likely you have valuable franchises, or what would be valuable in almost any other State than Texas; but while there are many places in Texas where we would like to build some railroads—mostly short ones—we cannot do anything so long as the disposition exists that now seems to in Texas; that is, to do all the harm they can do this kind of property, and I think my views are shared by all people who have money to invest. No one is disposed to create property which, after being created, is not to be controlled by its ownership. Of course, we all expect to be subject to the police regulations and to pay the taxes of any State even as other property, but whenever anything is done beyond that it checks this kind of improvement, and where it approaches so near confiscation as the sentiment of Texas tends it entirely prevents capital from being invested.

"I think there is no road in Texas that is to-day earning its operating and fixed charges. Every road, I think, has been or is in the hands of a receiver, excepting our great east and west line, which is supported by business going entirely through the State, which business could also be sent another way, and would be so sent, excepting that we believe the people of Texas will some time take a sober second thought and treat the railroads as they do other kinds of property. When that time comes I shall be ready to talk to you about your franchises, if it comes in my day, and I believe it will, as I think no other people are suffering from an unwise policy persistently pursued as are the people of your State.

"Yours truly,
C. P. Huntington."

"Now, in the name of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed,
That he hath grown so great?"

It was but a few years ago when this Mr. Huntington was keeping a small retail store in the city of Sacramento, and he exhibited then no greater ability, except perhaps that he was a little more venturesome, than thousands of others engaged in the same occupation; subsequently he engaged, with several others, in the Central Pacific Railroad scheme, and received from the bounties of our generous Government as his share of the profits in that enterprise several million dollars, which sum has ever since been continually swelled by the exercise of a power scarcely inferior to the power of taxing the property of the Pacific Coast. He has been so successful for years in manipulating Congressmen and State legislatures and shaping the policies of States that he now considers it impertinent and short-sighted for a people to take steps to limit his levies upon them. It is to be hoped that the boycotting and intimidating methods resorted to will have no more effect upon the people of that State than they had on the people of Iowa.