ADDRESS OF 
 
 OTiUiam C. Jlroton 
 
 General Manager 
 Chicago, Burlington ^ Quincy Railroad 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 Quarter -Century Celebration 
 
 OF Incorporation of the 
 
 City of Hamburg 
 
 HAMBURG, IOWA, APRIL 25, 1892 
 
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 After having been associated with and having acted as 
 a leader of the wandering hosts of Israel for nearly half 
 a century, and just before the advent of that people into 
 the land of promise and plenty, Moses admonished the people 
 to remember all the way in which the Lord their God had 
 led them. 
 
 In all ages and among all people it has been customary 
 to set apart special days for the purpose of reviewing with 
 retrospective interest the history of the past. 
 
 We are gathered here this evening to celebrate with its 
 good citizens the twenty-fifth anniversary of the incorpora- 
 tion of the city of Hamburg; to trace with reverent, grate- 
 ful hearts the providential blessings of the past quarter of a 
 century; and to indulge the. hope that the present may be 
 but the threshold of a future prosperity and growth greater 
 than Hamburg has yet enjoyed. 
 
 I am glad to be permitted to speak for a few minutes 
 to an audience composed very largely of citizens of Iowa. 
 Fifty years ago this present month, my father, then a young 
 man, left the State of New York to settle in the territory 
 of Iowa. A sainted mother, two brothers, and two little 
 ones have found a resting place beneath her soil. 
 
 I feel for the State of Iowa that full measure of filial 
 affection which a dutiful son should bear an honored and 
 indulgent mother; an affection which time or change of 
 residence cannot efface. I am proud of her history, I have 
 an abiding faith in the ultimate fairness of her citizens and 
 an unshaken confidence in the future of this great Hawkeye 
 state. 
 
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I have been asked to say something this evening about 
 the railroads of Iowa and the bearing and influence they have 
 exerted upon the prosperity of your city. I would do vio- 
 lence to my own feelings and injustice to Fremont county, if, 
 in this connection, I failed to speak of your first railroad. 
 
 It was a peculiar railroad. It had no charter. It never 
 had a public organization. The location of its right of way, 
 like the location of the grave of Moses on Mount Nebo's 
 lonely brow, was unknown to mortal man. It was a rail- 
 road not built with hands, "Whose builder and maker was 
 God" — a railroad the southern terminus of which was en- 
 shrouded in the clouds and darkness of human slavery; its 
 northern terminus was bright and glorious in the sunlight 
 of liberty. 
 
 It was in Fremont County that the poor down-trodden 
 and oppressed passenger upon the underground railway 
 breathed in his first inspiration of the life-giving atmosphere 
 of freedom, and here the chains of bondage worn by him- 
 self and his ancestors for centuries were loosened. 
 
 The history of the inception and building of the now ex- 
 isting railways of Hamburg was a counterpart of similar 
 experiences all over the west. It was a struggle against 
 obstacles and circumstances which would have discouraged 
 less persistent and determined men. 
 
 On the 6th day of November, 1859, ground was first 
 broken at Council Bluffs on the Council Bluffs & St. Joseph 
 Railroad. Contracts were let and the prospects seemed 
 favorable for the speedy construction of the road. The 
 work was commenced so late that little could be accomplished 
 that year, and operations were suspended with the intention 
 of an early resumption in the spring. 
 
 In 1860, the clouds of rebellion which had for years 
 been gathermg in the southern horizon, had risen and grown 
 
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 AU6 2 5 1910 
 
so threatening as to overshadow all other questions, and 
 active operations on the road were indefinitely discontinued. 
 The organization, however, was carefully maintained, and 
 on July 13, 1861, the following directors were elected : 
 
 James A. Jackson, J. T. Baldwin, Horace Everett, J. P. 
 Casady, Samuel Knepper, Edward Gilliland, W. C. Sipple, 
 S. F. Nuckolls, and R. L. Douglass. The same directors 
 were annually elected during the continuance of the war, 
 with but few changes. 
 
 In this presence, little need be said of that momentous 
 period embraced in the years 1861 to 1865. The history of 
 those days of anxiety and nights of watching was written 
 in letters of blood in Fremont County. We all know that 
 the sword unsheathed at the little village of Tabor, and which 
 fell from the nerveless hand of John Brown on the scaf- 
 fold at Charleston, was caught up by half a million loyal 
 hands, and that it flashed and burned upon a hundred fields 
 of battle from Gettysburg to the Gulf; that the old cannon 
 which was concealed in the barn of Elder John Todd at 
 Tabor was replaced by a thousand batteries of artillery, 
 which for four years blazed and thundered from the Ohio 
 to the Gulf, and from the Father of Waters to the seas ; 
 and when the clouds lifted and peace came, the sun shone 
 upon a country with but one flag, upon a nation without a 
 slave. 
 
 In July, 1865, the annual meeting of the Council Blufifs 
 & St. Joseph Railway was held at Council Bluffs and a board 
 of directors chosen. At this meeting the board elected the 
 following officers : R. L. Douglass, president ; J. P. Casady, 
 vice-president ; Horace Everett, treasurer ; and Samuel 
 Jacobs, secretary. On September 23d following, a contract 
 was made with Willis Phelps of Springfield, Mass., to build 
 the road. 
 
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The road was completed to the north Hne of Fremont 
 County, January 1, 1867, and to Hamburg during the 
 autumn of the same year ; later, but during the same year, 
 the line from St. Joseph was completed to a connection with 
 the road from Council Bluffs. Two years later the road 
 leading from Red Oak to Hamburg was commenced and was 
 completed in the spring of 1870. This gave Hamburg and 
 Fremont County railroad communication with Omaha and 
 Council Blufifs, and the vast territory in the northwest and 
 west, to which these cities are gateways, with St. Joseph 
 and Kansas City as their tributary territory, and with 
 Chicago and the great markets of the east. 
 
 Those of us who lived in Iowa before the days of rail- 
 roads know by experience something of the benefits con- 
 ferred upon communities by the building of these great 
 arteries of commerce. To my hearers who for years listened 
 with impatient intentness for the sound of the whistle, which 
 proclaimed the coming of your first railroad, I need not 
 attempt to describe how exceedingly welcome to the pioneers 
 of Iowa these railroads were. 
 
 We believed the construction of these roads would help 
 build up, beautify, and enrich this state of ours. We knew 
 that the long lines of steel and iron stretching like ribbons of 
 silver from Iowa back through the Buckeye State, the 
 Keystone and Empire States, to New England, would bring 
 us into closer proximity and in a measure reunite us with 
 the dear old home back in the east, and the loved ones who, 
 with tear dimmed eyes, had bade us good-bye when we 
 started for the wilderness west of the Mississippi. 
 
 My friends, I believe the railroads have redeemed in 
 bountiful measure every promise, every pledge, and have 
 fulfilled our m.ost hopeful anticipation. 
 
 Page Four 
 
We are prone to forget past circumstances and condi- 
 tions, and I desire to quote briefly from the recorded ut- 
 terances of some of the earHer settlers of Iowa. 
 
 A letter written by a settler in Grundy County (now 
 one of the richest and most prosperous counties in the state) 
 in 1856, says: 
 
 "While the land is fertile and productive 
 almost beyond belief to one accustomed to our 
 stony land at home, we are all in terribly 
 straitened circumstances. We have an abun- 
 dance of everything we produce, and a large sur- 
 plus to spare, but it is almost worthless for want 
 of a market. Wheat must be hauled 110 miles 
 to the river and will bring only from 35 to 40 
 cents per bushel. The trip takes from eight to 
 ten days and is a hard one. Feed must be carried 
 for the team and provender for the driver, in 
 order to have anything left with which to buy 
 sugar, coffee, salt, and the few articles of cloth- 
 ing which we must have. If tavern bills and 
 feed for team were counted, the expenses would 
 more than eat up the load of wheat." 
 
 The following extract from a letter written by James 
 W. Grimes of Burlington, afterwards governor of the state, 
 will indicate that, while Iowa at that time possessed all the 
 fertihty of soil which has given her pre-eminence among the 
 agricultural states of the union, she was far from pros- 
 perous, or even promising, on account of lack of trans- 
 portation facilities : 
 
 "We have hard times here, such as were 
 never conceived of in the east. I saw a man to- 
 day who had been keeping a shop ; he was obliged 
 to sell on credit and had, beside book accounts, 
 small notes due to the amount of $2,500, yet he 
 could not raise money enough to buy a bushel of 
 corn meal for his family. The settlers have no 
 
 Page Five 
 
resources of capital or credit, and many of them 
 are unable to even pay the government the small 
 sum of a dollar and a quarter per acre for their 
 land. Of course, there is no trouble in raising 
 enough to eat, but the fertility of the soil and the 
 industry of the settlers are almost valueless with- 
 out a market." 
 Another of the old settlers writes thus : 
 
 "Land and everything has gone down in 
 value to almost nominal prices. Corn and oats 
 can be bought from six to ten cents per bushel ; 
 pork one dollar a hundred ; and the best horse 
 a man can raise will not sell for fifty dollars. 
 Nearly all are in debt, and the sheriff and con- 
 stables with legal processes are common visitors 
 at every man's door." 
 
 This condition of things was in a section of country as 
 fair and fertile as the sun of heaven ever shone upon, and 
 not entirely destitute of means of transportation ; for it was 
 in counties the eastern borders of which were washed by the 
 Mississippi river, affording water transportation to St. Louis 
 and other southern markets, giving it a very great advantage 
 over sections lying remote from that stream. 
 
 In the interior counties of the state, until relief was 
 afiforded by the building of railroads, land was almost worth- 
 less. The product of the farm (corn and wheat) could be 
 disposed of only by a tedious and expensive journev to the 
 distant market on the river. Butter, eggs, and poultry, 
 which now form so important a factor in the product of 
 Iowa, had no market value, as it was impossible to haul 
 those commodities these long distances without rendering 
 them unfit for use. 
 
 Your own historian has left on record his estimates of 
 the beneficial influences of the railroads upon Fremont 
 county in the following language : 
 
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'The almost incalculable advantages to be 
 derived from railroad facilities are offered at 
 their liest to the inhabitants of Fremont county. 
 The creation of points of sale and shipment for 
 agricultural products increase the value of farm 
 property, and this country everywhere shows, 
 in its rich, well-cultivated farms and fine build- 
 ings, the benefits of home markets and the high- 
 est facilities for transportation. To arrest or 
 seriously delay the conveyance of what now 
 comes and goes so promptly by rail and express, 
 would be to take away what constitutes civiliza- 
 tion and to remand the community thus affected 
 to comparative barbarism." 
 Before the advent of railroads settlement was exceed- 
 ingly slow. The soil of Iowa possessed then all the elements 
 of fertility and productiveness which have since made her a 
 very queen among the agricultural, horticultural and stock 
 raising states of the Union. The seed time was followed 
 by a bountiful harvest, but the wealth of golden grain was 
 almost as valueless as the soil from which it sprung, for want 
 of facilities for transporting it to the market. 
 
 The pioneer railroads did not wait until the country 
 had attained a population and a stage of prosperity which 
 would guarantee a profitable business. A policy of this kind 
 would have rendered impossible the wonderful growth of 
 the west which we have seen, and would have postponed 
 almost indefinitely the prosperity which we now enjoy. 
 
 The railroads were pioneers, willing to cast their lot 
 with other pioneers, and content to share with them hard 
 times and adversity, believing that for Iowa and the west 
 there was a marvelous future. 
 
 An incident will serve to illustrate. In June, 1866, a 
 party of two gentlemen started from the western terminus 
 of the B. & M. road (then just west of Ottumwa) to drive 
 
 Page Seven 
 
across the state of Iowa. The mission of the party was to 
 look the country over, and report upon the expediency of 
 extending the railroad westward. 
 
 After several days riding, a clear and beautiful morning 
 found the company on the summit of the eminence where 
 is now located the bustling little city of Creston. The scene 
 which was presented was one of surpassing beauty. Stretch- 
 ing away in every direction in undulating hill and valley, 
 until the billowy waves of green met and blended with the 
 azure tint of the summer sky, an empire of fertile, pro- 
 ductive land, with only here and there a dot on the landscape, 
 indicating where some settler had located his claim, spread 
 out before them. 
 
 After gazing upon the scene for some time, remarking 
 the beauty and natural advantages of the country, and the 
 evident fertility of the soil, the elder gentleman, then a 
 veteran in the railway service, announced as his opinion 
 that twenty years must elapse before the country they had 
 traversed, and that which lay before them, would justify the 
 building of a railroad, or would afford sufficient traffic 
 to support one if built. 
 
 The younger gentleman, then only twenty-seven years 
 of age, and occupying a subordinate position on the B. & M. 
 road, with perhaps some of the hopefulness and enthusiasm 
 of youth, but with an abiding confidence in the future pos- 
 sibilities of the State of Iowa, dissented from the opinion of 
 his senior. He believed that the construction of the road 
 would develop and settle up the country ; would establish in- 
 dustries and create business which would in much less than 
 twenty years furnish a volume of business which would 
 justify its construction. 
 
 The elder gentleman was Mr. James F. Joy, then 
 president of the Michigan Central railroad and a veteran in 
 
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railway service. The younger gentleman who had faith in 
 Iowa then, and who has demonstrated his confidence many 
 times and in many ways since then, was Mr. C. E. Perkins, 
 now president of the Burlington system of railroads. 
 
 Mr. Joy wa§ right. Had the building of the road been 
 deferred until the country was sufficiently settled to furnish 
 traffic enough to justify its construction, twenty years was 
 not too long a time to accomplish the result. 
 
 Mr. Perkins was correct and wise beyond his years 
 when he recommended that the railroad (instead of waiting 
 for others to build up and develop the country) should join 
 hands with the settlers, share with them the hardships and 
 privations of the early days, and assist in developing and 
 enriching the state. 
 
 To an audience composed of citizens of southwestern 
 Iowa, and familiar with the wonderful advancement and de- 
 velopment of that portion of the state through which the 
 B. & M. road was built, it is not necessary for me to say 
 that the judgment of Mr. Perkins has been fully vindicated. 
 
 The cities of Albia, Knoxville, Indianaola, Chariton, 
 Osceola, Creston, Corning, Villisca, Clarinda, Red Oak, 
 Shenandoah, your own beautiful city of Hamburg, and many 
 others, are living monuments which will for all time testify 
 to the beneficent results that follow the building of a rail- 
 road through a country not supplied with this means of 
 transportation. 
 
 The broad-acred productive farms with their thrifty 
 well-kept buildings crowning the hill tops, the flocks and 
 herds grazing upon the hill sides and in the valley, the busy 
 villages with their happy homes, their school houses, and 
 churches, are evidences and arguments which prove more 
 eloquently and more conclusively than can any words of 
 mine, that the railroads as pioneers with other pioneers have 
 
 Page Nine 
 
wrought out the civilization, the prosperity, and the happy 
 conditions we now enjoy. 
 
 In the early days the people and the railroads had a 
 common interest and were striving for a common purpose. 
 Together they worked with singleness of purpose, and with 
 earnestness, to build up and advance the material interests 
 of this, their adopted home. Adversity for one meant ad- 
 versity for the other. Neither could enjoy prosperity with- 
 out sharing it with the other, and to this harmony and 
 unity of action much of the great measure of prosperity and 
 growth, which marked the first decade after the opening 
 of the road, may be attributed. 
 
 There should be no conflict between the railroads and 
 the people whom they serve, and who are their patrons. 
 There has never been a time, and a time will never come 
 when the best interest of the people and those of the rail- 
 roads, if properly understood, will not lie in parallel lines. 
 
 In dealing with a railroad, as in business transactions 
 of any character, and between any parties, there may be dif- 
 ferences of opinion. Such differences can and should be 
 settled equitably, fairly, and satisfactorily. In order to se- 
 cure this desirable result, it is essential that the people and 
 the railroads get into closer touch, that both appreciate more 
 clearly than they have ever done how inseparably inter- 
 woven their interests are. 
 
 Each should deal with the other in a spirit of reason, 
 fairness, and good neighborhood. Neither should expect 
 absolutely to dictate terms, but each should be willing to 
 concede something and above all to impute to the other the 
 same fairness and good faith which should govern his own 
 actions. 
 
 When tins happy time comes there will be few questions 
 or controversies between the people and the railroads for 
 adjudication by court or commission. 
 
 Page Ten 
 
In conclusion, when charges are made against the rail- 
 roads, when politicians or agitators rail against them, I ask 
 you to investigate the charges fairly, impartially, and without 
 prejudice. 
 
 I ask you to remember that the railroads were pioneers 
 with you in blazing the way into this wilderness ; that with 
 you they participated in the great work of laying broad and 
 deep the foundation for the prosperity which we now enjoy. 
 
 Remember that the railroads are friends and neighbors, 
 not enemies or strangers. Accept their friendship and their 
 co-operation, and I believe that the progress of the past 
 twenty-five years, wonderful as it has been, will seem as 
 nothing compared with the record of the quarter of a century 
 upon which you as a city are now entering. 
 
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