two elevated railroads from Chicago to Philadelphia. It would build eight elevated tracks from Chicago to Indianapolis. It is more than enough to build a single line from Chicago to Boston, or to Galveston, or to Santa Fé, N. M., or to Jacksonville, Fla., or to Denver, or even to Salt Lake City. This 1,600 miles of trackage is equivalent to eight miles for every one of the 192 square miles of Chicago's area. This is entirely independent of any lines operated by electricity or by any power other than steam.

It was the wholesale destruction of lives and property on railway rights-ofway within the city, that prompted Chicago to dispense with the deadly gradecrossings. In Chicago there are rightsof-way that contain from eight to twen

with the duty of lowering and raising the gates at the proper time, and of signaling trains and vehicles and pedestrians whether it was safe or dangerous to pass. To the competency and faithfulness of these low-salaried, overworked watchmen, were entrusted the lives of the constantly passing throngs. Generally these watchmen have been faithful to their trust, and often they have sacrificed their lives to their duty. Two or three of them used to be killed at their posts every year before the city began to dispense with the grade-crossings. Scarcely an issue of a Chicago newspaper in days gone by, failed to record some accident at one of the city's 3,000 grade-crossings. Sometimes the watchman, worn from his long hours and the complexity of his

View at 18th and Fuller streets, looking south. Concrete mixer is shown on rear car of train.

task, would neglect to lower the gates in time. Often he would fail to give the correct signal to an approaching train or to the stream of traffic watching his warnings from either side. Frequently, in the rush hours, the pressing throngs, in their haste to cross the tracks, would either disregard or mistake his signals. Sometimes the machinery by which the gates were lowered and raised would get out of order. Maybe some of the other signals would fail to work properly. From causes like these, appalling accidents have happened. Probably there is not one of these 3,000 grade-crossings that has not been stained with the blood of human beings caught in the traps and ground to death by the on-rushing trains. Since the construction of the 800 miles of elevated roadbeds, there has been a remarkable diminution of this kind of fatality; and when the other 800 miles is finished, railroad accidents to others than railroad employees will be almost unknown in Chicago. Certainly they will be unknown in so far as grade-crossings are concerned.

In the scheme of raising the tracks on embankments, the 3,000 grade-crossings are to be reduced in number to 1,100 by means of the diversion of streets, and all of these will be transformed into subways under the railroads.

Statistics in the office of traction expert John O'Neill' of Chicago, show that more than a million people cross the railways of Chicago every day in going to and from their work and in the performance of other duties. This is more than 365,000,000 a year. Well, then, may be realized the danger menacing Chicago's moving millions in crossing to and fro over the network of railroad tracks.

Chicago is terribly cut up by railroads entering the city in what appears to be the utmost confusion. There are twentyeight trunk lines coming into the different depots, and no two of these enter on parallel lines. On the contrary, they cross one another at ali conceivable angles, forming a veritable network of tracks in many sections, most conspicuous of which is that maze of railway intersections on the South Side, known as Grand Crossing.

It is to the efficiency of the office of Track Elevation, a new city department

ders a certain railroad to elevate its tracks according to plans and specifications prepared by Mr. O'Neill. The ordinance is equivalent to an order, stating just how and by what time the tracks of that particular road must be elevated; and the road has no alternative but to obey. The same ordinance serves as a notice to the gas, telephone, and electric. light companies, and to other corporations operating conduits or wires or pipes or other obstructions anywhere in the path of the proposed improvement, that they must make way for it; and they, too, have but to obey the city's mandate, and, besides, pay all the expenses of any removal or changes that may be necessary for the road to execute its work as ordered by the city.

A special ordinance is passed for each particular job of elevation required, so

that there is a separate ordinance governing each particular railroad, except in instances where the work of elevating two or more railroads conjointly is desired, in which event the ordinance may be made to cover the entire job. Thus, when the work is completed, nearly as many ordinances will have been passed as there are railroads entering the city.

While other cities have been awarding extensive damages to public service corporations for the changing of conduits in the streets on account of track elevation, Chicago has awarded no damages whatever for such interference. With a view to having the railroads of their own cities raise their roadbeds, delegations from many different municipalities have of late visited Traction Expert O'Neill and the Corporation Counsel's office, for the purpose of learning how Chicago did the thing. For track elevation, just now, is exceedingly popular. It will not be long before every city in America will have dispensed with grade-crossings, for everywhere have they proved exceedingly dangerous.

How did Chicago do the work without paying any of the expense of construc

tion? How did the city force public service corporations to get their conduits, mains, pipes, wires, street-car tracks, and other obstructions out of the way, without paying any damages? How did it avoid paying enormous sums for impairment of private property?

These are some of the many questions the delegations from other cities have to ask.

All such questions elicit the reply that it is done merely by the general police power delegated to the city by the State. Under this police power, Chicago can force every railroad operating in the city to take every one of its tracks off the city's streets, if such should be found necessary for the city's improvement, without paying the railroads any compensation. This is likewise true of Philadelphia, though that city is paying many million dollars to have some of the railroads elevate their tracks. It is true of St. Louis, which is now contemplating track elevation. And it is true of every other city worthy the name of city in America. By similar law, other cities, like Chicago, can compel the removal of any conduits or other obstructions with

out paying any damages, provided such be necessary for the cities' improvement. An arbitrary law is this police power, and its extent has been most forcibly emphasized during the progress of track elevation in Chicago. For there were many corporations who were angered and felt outraged at being disturbed and at being forced to undergo great expense for the benefit of the city, and they had recourse to the courts. But the city won in every instance; and in no case has any single public service corporation been able to collect one dollar damages resulting from track elevation.

It is the unwritten law of judicial decisions by which Chicago is accomplishing one of the most, if not the most, important municipal improvement in its history. The city takes the position that it owns the streets, and corporations occupying them do so by the city's permission, subject to any changes the city may see fit to make for public improvement or public safety.

Of course the corporations occupying the streets have franchises guaranteeing to them certain rights; but in all cases these rights are amenable to the police powers. The city, of course, could not molest the property of public service cor

porations unless it were for public improvement or other just cause. Therefore, in the many bitter, early contests before the courts, it was necessary to prove that the cause was just-that the interference with the property was necessary for the city's actual welfare. The city's interests in the damage suits were defended by Assistant Corporation Counsel Thomas J. Sutherland.

The city ordinances under which the roads are being elevated prescribe that either sand, broken stone, gravel, cinders, clay, loam, or slag shall be used in the embankments, and specify that they shall be kept strictly within the limits of the road's right-of-way, either by the use of retaining walls or otherwise. As the retaining walls give the railroads a greater amount of surface space of right-of-way, because of the absence of the slant, they are employed in all the construction where there is not an abundance of ground for present needs. In all instances, however, the construction is made with a view of erecting retaining walls in future when increased business may demand greater surface, or trackage space. The retaining walls may be found supporting nearly all the embankments in the thickly populated sections of the city,