to decry the other. The canal, it was urged, was not an
experiment; it had been tested and not found wanting; already the
great achievement of De Witt Clinton in completing the Erie Canal
had made New York City the metropolis of the western world. The
railroad, it was asserted, was just as emphatically an
experiment; no one could tell whether it could ever succeed; why,
therefore, pour money and effort into this new form of
transportation when the other was a demonstrated success?

It was a simple matter to find fault with the railroad; it has
always been its fate to arouse the opposition of the farmers.
This hostility appeared early and was based largely upon grounds
that have a familiar sound even today. The railroad, they said,
was a natural monopoly; no private citizen could hope ever to own
one; it was thus a kind of monster which, if encouraged, would
override all popular rights. From this economic criticism the
enemies of the railroad passed to details of construction: the
rails would be washed out by rains; they could be destroyed by
mischievous people; they would snap under the cold of winter or
be buried under the snow for a considerable period, thus stopping
all communication. The champions of artificial waterways would
point in contrast to the beautiful packet boats on the Erie
Canal, with their fine sleeping rooms, their restaurants, their
spacious decks on which the fine ladies and gentlemen congregated
every warm summer day, and would insist that such kind of travel
was far more comfortable than it could ever be on railroads. To
all these pleas the advocates of the railroad had one
unassailable argument--its infinitely greater speed. After all,
it took a towboat three or four days to go from Albany to
Buffalo, and the time was not far distant, they argued, when a