The population of the United States
is so scattered, its distances so huge, and its variations in
topographical level so great, that its industries would necessarily have
remained very local in character, as long as its system of
transportation depended chiefly upon waterways and highways. Some kind
of quick transportation across country was, consequently, an
indispensable condition of the national organization of American
industry and commerce. The railroad not only supplied this need, but
coming as it did pretty much at the beginning of our industrial
development, it largely modified and determined the character thereof.
By considerably increasing the area within which the products of any one
locality could be profitably sold, it worked naturally in favor of the
concentration of a few large factories in peculiarly favorable
locations; and this natural process was accelerated by the policy which
the larger companies adopted in the making of their rates. The rapid
growth of big producing establishments was forced, because of the
rebates granted to them by the railroads.
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