Commissions, state and interstate, are created for the purpose of regulating the rules, running and operation of railways. In many cases these commissions are permitted to fix the rates and conditions under which certain commodities are carried, but one thing they fail utterly to regulate, and that is service. The only real regulator of service is competition. Competition has enabled the American railways to make a living and still to move freight cheaper per ton mile than it is moving elsewhere in the world, having regard to the cost of operation, especially the wages paid to employees. Wherever service is bad and lines are neglected, these conditions are improved immediately by the introduction of competition. Naturally the new line understands that it must improve on existing roads and conditions if it hopes to attract its share of traffic, especially if it expects to stimulate industries and create new traffic, without which there is no justification for its building. Not only will the second railway, properly constructed and economically and honestly operated, improve conditions and render a real service to the existing line which has in some measure failed, but it will also create new business. All over this continent there are railways which have been constructed under most adverse conditions and circumstances that have made good. The old story echoed and re-echoed by the critics of the railway, which is to the effect that the railroad produces nothing, is a

fallacy. The difference between the price of a ton of coal at the mine and at the factory is all value produced by the railway. Native resources are practically worthless when far removed from a railway. The introduction of transportation facilities creates a new value immediately for these resources because it is then possible to transport them and put them to use for the benefit of mankind. One would think that the natural resources of New Hampshire, for instance, had been pretty thoroughly exploited; and yet there are hundreds of square miles of territory practically untouched. The forests are there, ripe for judicious cutting, but the cost of transporting the material to the markets eats up all the profit, and until the transportation facilities of this state are improved, until the neglected territory is tapped by railways which will carry these products to the consumers, the state cannot be fully developed.

By permitting the Grand Trunk system to build its line across New Hampshire, we will be able to enjoy not only competition in service, but competition in facilities, for it is well known that nothing quickens a neglected line as will competition.

The expenditure of millions of dollars in railway construction will help, but the development of new regions, the establishment of new industries, and the opening of new markets for labor and for the products of labor and of the soil will be a permanent advantage.

GEORGE A. GORDON

George Augustus Gordon, born in Dover, N. H., July 17, 1827, died in Somerville, Mass., May 3, 1912.

He was the son of Ebenezer and Sophronia (Anderson) Gordon and graduated from Dartmouth College in the class of 1846, when scarcely nineteen years of age. He commenced active life as a civil engineer, and in that capacity assisted in the erection of the Atlantic Cotton Mills at Lawrence and the Manchester Print Works. Later he superintended the construction of the mills of Lewiston, Me. He continued this work till 1854, and in the following year entered journalism, purchasing the Lawrence Sentinel, which he conducted as a Democratic paper during the Buchanan campaign in 1856, when he sold out and went to Detroit as draughtsman for the Detroit Locomotive Works. The panic of 1857 soon wiped out this enterprise, and Mr. Gordon went south, where he became assistant editor of the Charleston Mercury, continuing till just before the outbreak of the Civil War, when he became supervising engineer of some gold mines near Dahlonega in northern Georgia. Later he became assistant quartermaster in the "Home Guard," First Regiment, state of Georgia troops, with the rank of Captain, and served through the war.

Returning north, in 1866, he located in Lawrence, Mass., where he engaged in literary work, but soon removed to Lowell to take charge of the advertising department in the J. C. Ayer's Co. establishment.

For the last twenty-eight years of his life Captain Gordon had been a resident of Somerville, where he was for some time connected with the business department of the Somerville Journal. His later years, however, were entirely devoted to genealogical work, in which he had always taken deep interest. For seventeen years, up to 1910, he served as recording secretary of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, of which he had been a member since 1876. He was a corresponding member of the New Hampshire Historical Society, and of various similar organizations. He was a Mason and was Senior Warden of Emanuel Episcopal Church of Somerville. He married, October 16, 1857, at Lawrence, Ann Farley Gordon, who survives him, with three

sons.

CLARENCE F. CARROLL

Clarence F. Carroll, one of the ablest and most successful educators in the country, born in Enfield, N. H., April 1, 1852, died at Warner, June 14, 1912.

Mr. Carroll was the son of the late Alonzo C. and Mercy (Hale) Carroll. His father was long a prominent citizen of Warner, as is his brother Edward H., at whose residence

he died from an apoplectic shock immediately after having delivered the address at the graduating exercises of the Simonds High School.

He was a graduate of Yale College and soon after graduation became principal of the New Britain, Conn., Normal School, which he made one of the leading institutions of the kind in the country. In 1895 he was called to the superintendency of schools in Worcester, Mass., one of the most progressive cities in the country in educational lines, where he continued eight years, with a measure of success which commanded the attention of educators throughout the country. In 1903 he was called to a similar position in the progressive city of Rochester, N. Y., where he enhanced his already nationwide reputation as a thoroughly practical educator, continunig until 1911, when he resigned and returned to New Hampshire, locating on the old homestead in Boscawen, where his wife, who was Julia, daughter of the late Nathaniel Webster, was reared.

For the past year he had devoted a portion of the time to the direction of the schools at Marblehead, Mass., as incidental pastime, and had pursued special studies at Harvard University and, up to the time of his death, had been in excellent health. He had written much for educational publications, and delivered many addresses along various lines. He was the principal speaker at the "Old Home Sunday" service in Concord last year.

He is survived by his wife, two sons, Henry C., of Indianapolis, and Carl H., of Boston, and two daughters, Mrs. Lawrence P. Tolman, of Seattle and Margaret E., of Boscawen.

JOSEPH REED WHIPPLE

Joseph R. Whipple, familiarly known as J. Reed Whipple, one of the most prominent and successful hotel men in the country, died at a private hospital in Boston, June 15, 1912.

Mr. Whipple was born in New Boston, N. H., September 8, 1842, the son of John and Philantha (Reed) Whipple. Early in life he went to Boston and commenced work as a grocery clerk, soon engaging in business himself, but without success. Turning his attention in another direction, he became an assistant steward in the Parker House, where he rapidly developed capacity for the hotel business, and was advanced accordingly. In 1876 he became proprietor of the famous Young's Hotel, and in 1891 of the Parker House. Some years ago he took on the Touraine, and at the time of his decease was the proprietor of all these great Boston hostelries, and prominent in other interests. He had always retained a deep interest in his native town of New Boston, where he had an extensive farm and frequently visited, and contributed liberally to promote the town's welfare.