The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-23

impotence in regard 10 the exercise of power
by great corporations. Valuable privileges are
sought, and then are used disadvantageously
to the people whose representatives have
granted them. The local interests of a State
are injured by business organizations which
it has created; enterprises sanctioned under q
belief that they are to operate bensfcially,
ere SO manipulated that they prejudice what
their promoters professed to help. The gene
raj tendency of railroad management is to
produce this result. Through traffic takes
the precedence OF local, and is carried on
more advantageous terms, passengers pay
less, relatively, for long routes than for short
ones. Competing lines are bought up, and
monopolies become masters of the situation.
These are some of the evils which the Miohi-
gan amendment is intended to correct; and
they are evils from which almost every State
suffers in greater or less degree.
Whether local legislation may be relied
upon to correct them is, however, question
to which experience does not furnish very
satisfactory answer. The Legislatures are
far from Immaculate. The lobby has become
power, which the money and patronage of
railroad companies easily explain. They take
possession, literally, of the members, and
bribe them to enact any law which corporate
convenience seems to require. The Erie has
eXemplifed both the extent of this influence,
and the uses to which it is applied, more
shamelessly than any other corporation,
but it is far from being alone in its
infamy. Nor is our Legislature ex-
ceptioDal in its corruption. Harrisburg
is not many degrees removed in rascality
from ALBANY. The movement for a conven-
tion to amend the Pennsylvania Constitution
derives most of it's force from the audacity
with which members of the Legislature sell
their votes and the power which corporations
have thus acquired for purposes at variance
with the public veal. Similar examples
might be drawn from other States-all telling
tale we'll calculated to shake confidence in
the efficacy OF the means to be employed in
Michigan TO arrest the present tendencies in
railroad management.
The universally of the grievances CON-
plain ed of, and the unsatisfactory results of
reliance upon remedial action of q local
character, are circumstances which suggest
the desirableness of Federal legislation on
the general railroad question. Railroad
charges and management SO directly affect
the industrial and commercial interests of
communities that rigid and honest super
vision is indispensable. Producers and con-
sumers, East and West, have a common con-
cern In the cost of transportation, in the ex-
tension of facilities and in a management
which realizes responsibility to the public, as
well az the desire for profit on the part of
stockholders. The drift of things is, how
ever, altogether the other way. Railroad
companies are the masters ofs,the community
instead of its servants. They stifie competi-
ton, disregard local wants, and by amalgs-
nation secure arbitrary control of the lead
ing avenues of trade and travel. Single rail-
roads are but links in vast chain; and a few
60 mbiDations are rapidly acquiring supre-
macy which bodes no good to the future of
our internal commerce. A little arrange
ment among themselves will soon enable
them to charge what they please, to run the
lines as they please, and to set local protesta-
tiops at defiance.
If an adequate remedy is ever to be ap-
piled, it must come from Congress There
are careful observers who profess to see in the
distance the development of Influences which
will enable combined railroad companies to
dictate Federal laws as effectually rs Fisk,
Jr., now dictates the course of Governor
Hoffman and his party at Albany. But that
| stage has not been reached, and never will
be if the country can be induced to exact
timely interference to check the progress of
railroad consolidation and monopoly, and to
enforce conditions that are essential to the
protection of public interests. The con.
stitutional right of Congress tc
do this may have been doubt
full so long as railroads were limited tc
the States under whose laws they were
severally organized. But State boundarie;
are no longer respected in railroad construc.
ton or management, and State jurisdiction,
therefore, no longer suffices to regulate the
leading roads. The conflict of Jurisdiction
is in itself an evil, to be remedied if possible
And when line runs through three States
and combined hines run across half the CONT
nent, there is necessity for checks and qua
rantees which no one State can enforce. The
authority by virtue of which Congress regu
| Ia. IL &C he LII
gable rivers, is alone equal to the proper
regulation of the enormous traffic between
the States over which railroad combination!
now exercise almost unchecked control.