Show RAILROAD I ROAD VA VALUES ALVES UES Speaking of the physical valuation of railroads which h was as pressed in the early stages of the r railroad rail rail- il- il road fOd bill which has now become a law Jaw but finally surrendered there is no such thin thing as making that estimate correctly For instance the New NewYork NewYork NewYork York Central or the Pennsylvania Central railroad could not Dot be estimated that way It would woula be e. e pos pOSe Si lc to find out how much it wOl would d cost to duplicate c cate tc both roads but that wouldn't wouldn t give any idea of the present value of either of them A new newspaper paper plant might be worth ten thousand dollars in cash that is it would require ten thousand dollars to tob b build up tip a plant of the same same- same kinds kind but but but-a a newspaper plant pant to be valuable at all has got to have a soul it t has bas got to have prestige it has got to have a history his tory tory It is the same ay way with railroads A person person per per- son son might ask er in New York City what road to ta take e out ut of oi the city going west The answer almost certainly would be either the New York Central or the Pennsylvania Central and the person person per per- son addressed would do so because those roads b have ve ample accommodations they have handled bandIed in inthe Inthe n the last five years so many millions of people of of- whom only one in so many thousand has e ever er r been injured To estimate the value of a merchants merchant's business there must be added the good will A merchant desires desir to go out of business an old respected respected re re- re- re merchant and offers his place for sale He does docs not expect to limit his price to the actual cost of what he is selling He lIe sells the g good will of th the trade be he turns over the books which h hold ld Jt ti the names names o of the thc customers and th buyer says to cf If If I can cl treat these customers as well as my did dd I will retain their custom Thus r us he be bu buys s 's what is called an established business The physical value altie of a railroad cannot be he esti- esti cst esti mated A part of the value vahie may ha have e been in process of building up for half a cent century ry and t that at js' js not revealed in rolling roiling stock or rails it is what is h in i the knowledge of the w who o patronize that road and is no more to be estimated than would would b be one of President Roosevelt's speeches the night before it was to be delivered because no nU one could tell in advance what he would say or r what his speech would be worth And to carry out the illustration his bis speech would bo be worth more the next morning to a ue newspaper than a better speech d delivered lh r d b by a less noted man When Tennyson a got git a 8 hundred dollars a line fo his poetry he did w write ite nn any better when better when writing for the money than did did W Whittier or Lowell or while ih their i ir productions would not bring half what Lord Tennyson's Tennyson did More than half the thc value of an n old established railroad lies in iii the estimation of th the people |