Litchfield enquirer., 1871-12-07
wealth against the political power of eap' ital accumulated by association in these

wealth aga1nSt the p0atlc6l power or e&NT ital accumulated by association in these stupendous masses
 ". There must be an end of special legislation in the interest or for the con venience of railroad companies So long as railway corporations are chartered each by special act of the legislative power. privileges, they cannot but be- 8 mischlevous and corrupting power in every legislature with which they have to do. We do not affirm that there was anything like pos. itive bribery in the last session of the leg islatpre at Hartford-any paying of defi- mite price for vote in the interest of 8 railroad company. Let us trust that Con- necticut has not yet arrived at that stage of degeneracy There was no need of buying votes with money, even if the pres ident of ''our roads" had not been 90 ve- hemently virtuous in his denunciations of the lobby. But how many members of 1 either house were there who had not re- ceived gift from one or more of the railroad companies in the form of pass? Every member who had that little gift the value of it being somewhere between 8 and $50, according to the distance of his home from Hartford and the frequency of his trips-carried bribe in his pocket ] from the beginning to the end of the ses- sion:-not such bribe as IS paid for votes in the notoriously venal legislatures of some other States-not the stipulated consideration for voting yea on certain l question, but such bribe as those rich corporations can afford to give without l stipulating that 1t shall be gatid pro Quo. It was for receiving just such bribes, though on a larger scale-compliment 1 presents expressive of respect for the office and the office-bearer-that the illus trious chancellor of England in the reign of James was impeached, disgraced and ruined He had never sold 8 decree or decision for 8 stipulated price. He had only accepted gifts, sometimes trifiing, sometimes of greater value, from parties who had suits pending in his court. His decisions and decrees had been Tn some instances adverse to the parties whose 1 gifts he had received. But he had sinned against that principle in the administra- 1 tion of justice, "A gift bindeth the wise and preventeth the words of the right eous" Simply for that sin he was cast down from his high place, and the after ages to which he appealed have not re- versed the sentence It is & matter of pure philanthropy that these corporations, aware that the day wages of representa- tive or senator in Connecticut are hardly more than the wages of a brakeman on one of their trains, take pleasure in the l gratuitous conveyance of legislators be- tween their homes and the seat of legisla- | tion? Or is it because every such corpo- ration is always expecting, either imme- diately or at no distant day, some act of special legislation in it's interest? A free pass is not costly bribe, but it helps to to make the unprejudiced receiver feel a little more kindly toward the giver, and in an emergency-as when parallel line | from New York to New Haven is to be | chartered or defeated, or when votes are to be gained for or against an air line from New Haven ,or Boston-are not oth- CT methods of conciliation possible? Gan it be expected of & corporation which yields fifteen millions of capital, and which annually receives and disburseF some four or five millions of revenue, that | it shall have occasion to any act of special 1 legislation, and not be able in one way or another to command a sufficient number of votes for it's purpose? If special legis- lation in the interest of such a corporation is needed and possible, the tendency to legislation cannot be resisted.
 We say then that if the people would guard against the power of railroad lob- by besieging the legislature at every ses- sion, they must not put their trust in the incorruptibility of the men whom they send to the State house in the character of lawmakers. The chartering of railroad companies, the limitation or expansion of their capital, the connections and com pacts which they make with each other, must be regulated in some other way than | oso1 @<,.
 instance. Special legislation on the whole tional prohibition. In the mean time, something might be done by enacting that, whereas the railroad companies have established 8 laudable custom of carrying members of the legislature gratuitously, and whereas it is important to the public | welfare that members of the general as- sembly should not be dependent in any manner on the favor of these corporations, therefore certificate of election to the senate or the house of representatives shall entitle the holder of it to pass freely on any regular train from any point with in the state to any other during all the time Sundays excepted) between the day proceeding the commencement of a session and the second day after the final adjourn ment.
 1 V. Competition cannot become a reg ulative force, in the matter of railway freights and fares, without perfect free dom to construct parallel lines of railway wherever they will be renumerative. The possibility of parallel road is more of a check on the proprietors and managers of any railroad than the existence of the parallel road would be- We are aware of the paradox in our statement, but let it be remembered that though there may be sharp competition between two or more railways parallel to each other, that com petition will inevitably yterminate-nobody knows how soon-in some compromise and combination. A special charter for a railroad from Derby to New York would be valuable franchise to be bought by the owners of the New York and New Ha- ven railroad, and would be to the grantees a means of exacting money from that wealthy corporation. The petition, there. fore, for such a charter would require from both parties lavish expenditure, without which the legislature could un. derstand the merits of the question; and it would probably be defeated, railroad ia esse being more powerful in argument than railroad in posse. If, however such charter should be granted and should then pass under the control of the rival corporation, it might be worth the cost of it, inasmuch as it might, by ju- dicious management, be made, for five and twenty years, an effectual barrier against another attempt of the same kind Meanwhile the travel and traffic of the country would be taxed to pay the full
 cost of the conflict in the Legislature, and of any subsequent bargaining to get pos | <,& &hn D,.4 = parallel road could be constructed with
 out a special charter, whenever the pros
 pect of its becoming profitable invest
 ment should be sufficiently attractive te capitalists, that possibility of competition would always be regulative force check
 ing the greed for extrayagant profits.
 VI. The assumption that railway cor poration is simply trading company which exists and carries on it's business
 only for the pecuniary profit of the part
 ners or stockholders, must not be admit