Agricultural and Indus- 
 trial Progress Depends 
 upon Prosperous 
 Railroads 
 
 An Address 
 
 Before the Chamber of Commerce of Anderson, South 
 Carolina, February 24, 1914. 
 
 By 
 
 FAIRFAX HARRISON 
 
 President, Southern Railway Company 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/agriculturalinduOOharr 
 
16 1932 
 
 i?. ^ •> 
 
 AGRICULTURAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS DEPENDS 
 UPON PROSPEROUS RAILROADS. 
 
 Anderson and Anderson County typify the Progressive South. Here 
 agricultural progress 'and manufacturing development are advancing side 
 by side. In what is, in many respects, the leading agricultural county in 
 South Carolina and in the entire Piedmont Section you have one of the 
 most important manufacturing developments in the South. Anderson 
 County is far from being the largest in South Carolina in land area, but 
 the census of 1910 showed that the value of farm property in this county 
 exceeded $24,000,000.00, and amounted to about one-sixteenth of the total 
 value of farm property in the State. Taking the average for a series 
 of years Anderson is the leading county in South Carolina in cotton pro- 
 duction. It ranks high in the production of cereals and forage crops 
 and is the first county in the State in the value of live stock. 
 
 Your agricultural development alone would make this a prosperous 
 community, but in addition to your agricultural wealth, Anderson County 
 ranks second among all the counties of the State in textile manufacturing. 
 The economic advantage of the location of a cotton, mill in proximity to 
 a cotton field was early appreciated by the people of this county, and, in 
 the relatively few years since the construction of the first mill at Pelzer 
 in the early 80’s, you have built 18 mills in the county — 11 of them in 
 the city of Anderson — and the annual value of their product is in excess 
 of $14,000,000.00. 
 
 Thus far the industrial development of Anderson has been very 
 1 largely in connection with the textile industry. Mark Twain once re- 
 versed the old adage about not putting all of your eggs in one basket 
 by saying something to the effect that it was the best policy to put your 
 ( eggs in one basket and watch that basket. Without disputing the wisdom 
 of this, as applied to the individual, I do not think that it is the best 
 I policy for a community, for the reason that it makes community pros- 
 perity depend upon the vicissitudes of a single industry. I believe, there- 
 fore, that it should be the aim of commercial organizations in our South- 
 ern cities and towns to encourage as far as practicable the diversification 
 of industries. Conditions at Anderson are favorable for a diversified 
 industrial development. You have hard wood forests near at hand and 
 ' are not far distant from supplies of iron and steel. You have cheap 
 power and a climate which, by reason of its mild winters and its freedom 
 
from the excessive summer heat of many more northern localities, is 
 conducive to the efficiency of labor. I know that the members of this 
 Chamber of Commerce are alive to the importance of these advantages, 
 and I confidently predict that the future will wifness the continued in- 
 dustrial growth of Anderson, not only in the textile industry, but along 
 the line of a wider diversification of manufacturing. 
 
 The splendid agricultural and industrial development of Anderson 
 and Anderson County is founded upon the natural advantages of this 
 locality, but great as these advantages are, they would have been of little 
 avail without transportation. But for a means of concentration of raw 
 cotton at the mills and the carriage of manufactured goods to the mar- 
 kets of the world there would never have been a cotton mill built in 
 Anderson County, and but for a means of carrying the cotton crop of 
 the county to market it would be absolutely without value. The present 
 agricultural and industrial prosperity of Anderson County has thus 
 been made possible by rail transportation, and your continued progress 
 will be dependent upon the ability of your railways efficiently to handle 
 the increased tonnage which you will produce. 
 
 Anderson has had the advantages of rail transportation since the 
 completion of the line of the Greenville and Columbia Railroad to this 
 place in 1853. The Greenville and Columbia Railroad Company pro- 
 posed to take over the ambitious project abandoned in 1844 by the Louis- 
 ville, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad Company, and to complete a 
 trunk line from Charleston to the West by way of Rabun Gap, making 
 Anderson the point of departure for new construction at the eastern 
 end. Work was undertaken and the road was completed and put in 
 operation from Anderson to Walhalla in 1861, when the war between the 
 States put an end to further construction. Since then the people of 
 Anderson have very properly desired the resumption of work along the 
 line of this original project and the construction of the gaps that would 
 make the Blue Ridge Road a part of a through line from the Atlantic 
 Seaboard to the West. In the meantime, however, you have achieved the 
 real purpose of your plan, for you have a direct road to the West along 
 substantially the line of the original project of the Louisville, Cincinnati 
 and Charleston. I have just come from Cincinnati to Anderson over that 
 line in three days and have spent 24 hours at Asheville en route. You are 
 soon to have another through line to the West in the northern extension of 
 the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio. Anderson thus has efficient rail trans- 
 portation to the West, but other lines are still desirable, and old plans are 
 
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generally good plans. The extension of the Blue Ridge Road, so as to 
 make it a part of a through line to Knoxville and the West, has not been 
 abandoned. The advantages to be derived from its construction are fully 
 realized. All that restrains us from entering upon the work is the evi- 
 dent responsibility to make our existing railroads better railroads before 
 we undertake new railroads. Under present conditions surrounding the 
 raising of new capital for railway enterprises it is necessary that railway 
 managers shall consider most carefully what is the vital relative impor- 
 tance of the many projects calling for the expenditure of money. 
 Anderson is at present supplied with railway facilities in every direc- 
 tion, as I have already pointed out. Your continued progress is dependent 
 upon the ability of the railways to carry to market your increasing volume 
 of traffic, which, important as it is, is only a small part of the great and 
 constantly growing traffic of the South. The volume of Southern traffic 
 is increasing at a more rapid rate than the railroads of the South have 
 been able to add to their facilities. Under these circumstances, I believe 
 that it is more important to the people of Anderson that, for the immedi- 
 ate future, the railways by which they are served shall devote their re- 
 sources to increasing and improving facilities on their existing lines 
 rather than consider new construction. With your large and constantly 
 growing business, you are interested in the efficiency of rail transportation 
 over the entire South. 
 
 It is natural that people of any locality shall fully appreciate 
 the importance and desirability of railroad disbursements and im- 
 provements in their own immlediate neighborhood. The railroad 
 manager must take a broader view!. He must consider the system 
 as a whole in relation to available resources and give precedence 
 to those betterments that will most facilitate the movement of its traffic 
 as a whole. In taking this broad view he may, at times, in the true and 
 larger interest of the people of a community, run counter to local opinion. 
 The ability of your railroads to do what you would like to have them 
 do and to do what their managers would most assuredly like to do, in 
 your interest as well as their own, is dependent very largely upon the 
 support which they receive from the people of the South. They are 
 operating under a system of public regulation which has gone further 
 into detail of absolute statute law than any system of public regulation, 
 even of the activities of government itself, which the world has ever 
 known. Thus far this regulation has been concerned principally with 
 the correction of abuses which had grown up in former times and the 
 
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enforcement of the obligations of the railroads. Whether it shall 
 take cognizance also of the needs of the railroads in their relation to 
 the development of the country is dependent upon public opinion. 
 
 The general discussion for several years past of the affairs of the 
 railroads and of their relations to the public has been of great educational 
 value. Railroad managers and employees appreciate better than ever 
 before their duties to the public, and the American people more clearly 
 understand their interest in efficient railroads. Because of the fact that 
 a railroad is a public highway on which all travelers and shippers should 
 have equal rights, under similar circumstances and conditions, and 
 because operating conditions are such that a single company must exercise 
 a monopoly of transportation over it, public regulation is sound in princi- 
 ple, and, under American conditions, I believe is much to be preferred 
 to either unrestricted private control or government ownership and | 
 operation. Having faith in the fairness of the American people, I am 1 
 confident that we shall work out a system of regulation that will be 
 just, both to the public and to the railroads. Such a system, if it is 
 to be in the highest degree successful, will leave to the managers of 
 railway property the largest measure of discretion and the widest oppor- 
 tunity for initiative consistent with the prevention of abuses, and, while 
 guarding against charges that are exorbitant or unreasonably high as 
 measured by the service performed, will recognize that the paramount 
 interest of the public is in efficiency of service and that this can only 
 be secured by an adjustment of charges for service which will leave 
 to the carriers a fair margin of profit over the costs of operation and J 
 will attract to railroad investments the new capital that will be needed 
 from time to time if facilities are to be kept fully abreast of the growing 
 demand for transportation. 
 
 It has been my duty and my privilege to study the agricultural and : 
 industrial progress of the South in relation to transportation, and, in 
 asking the Southern people to become active and militant advocates of 
 public policies that will be just and fair to the railroads, I believe that 
 I am speaking in their interest no less than in that of the railroads of 
 the South. Looking back over what has been accomplished by the 
 people of Anderson and Anderson County and realizing the part that 
 transportation has played in your past progress, I predict with confidence 
 that we shall have such effective and mutually helpful co-operation 
 between this community and the railroads by which it is served as will ij 
 insure your continued progress and ever increasing prosperity. 
 
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