, 1873-01-31
RAILROADS..

| To the Editor Of The Chicago Tribune:
SIR The remarks in your able paper Of the
| 22d inst, under the head of Z" Money and Com
merce," are so remarkable, go intelligent, and 80
/ appropriate to the-present state Of public in
quiry, public rights, and public necessities, that
would like to add an exclamation point, if no
more. = r. p.
It ia indeed time that every Individual Us well
es Legislators md Judges, should inquire and
understand 1hat are public rights and what are
private rights, and whether the public have any
rights in the great and a1l-controlling
agencies Of the commerce OF the
world :; when it will be possible
for Judges aad Lesiala.ors,- whether they own
railroad stock or have passes in their pockets or
not, to cipher out what public right there-is in
railroads, and who is to assert and maintain it
in some practicable way; whereas, hitherto, no
Judge has been ablo to discover any rights Of the
public but such:as are subordinate to those Of
the corporation. - -. :
Your modest correspondent, however, has ven-
t1red to say that. 81 it we're established thas
railroads were public highways in fact, as they
aro in tho theory Of the 1aw,-Rol-
ing Stock Companies, Ho.": This ia the
very point. Arc they public highwaya in fact, or
only in theory7 The writer evidently knows
well enough how this is, but did not choose to
say too much at once Let us atin inquire,
where did this conceded theory Of the law come
from? II it originated IN fact, who hut rni1road
interests have discarded tho fact ?--who has had
power to surrender this right 2 Railroads that
have got their ri3ht-of-way don't ccre to hear
any more about it. II nobody else asserts it,
they call It an. old heory:, But let them
seek to build new road, end they want to go
hntwaen n fArn1ar'a md harm fhnx,
not think it possible to do 1t fictitious theory
but the agent tells the unreconclable farmer tho
truth: thattt is not private corporation OF indi
yidual that demands his property, even for q
property cannot bo taken for private use in any
civilized State or country without tho consent Of
the ownor,-but that it is the public, the sorer-
eign, that demands it, by paying for it a
the land does not pass, only the use for the
public for this purpose only; and that, whom
the public cease to use it, tho same reyerts to
the owner, Like that Of any other highway 80
Thu Thus far, then, IT would scem to be clearly 3
stubborn prectical fact. Go one step further:
Hand over this right-of-vay to the public agents
to serve the public for a fair compensation; it
becomes monopoly, supersodes all other
modes Of. transportation highways, riverB.
interest i? dependen:: upon 1t, Ind tho tho
public right has become heoru. and
tho rights ofrailroad corporations are hyperion
to all others, and it is assumed and asserted
that tho Courts, the Legislature, and the Con
Railroads, ono day, are, in feet, public high
wnys; another day, that iR theory merely ;;
they make q town where they viii, destroy or5
where they please II a hourishing town vii
not gi7s or sell them all tho land they onooso to
uhero they own 1ands, and run through tho town
with all speed, % they arc doing to-day to tha'