The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1877-03-11
Public Highways-The Supreme Court
Decision.

Decision
On January 81, 1872, the HERALD warned
the public against the measures then on
foot for the organization OF what has since
become known as the coal combination.
We then said: Railroads are really public
highways. The corporations to which these
highways are intrusted take the property,
land, or whatever may come in their way, OF
private individuals, under the pretence that
it is for the public good. The owners who
give up this property only relinquish
tons. The public also has rights in
this property, these public highways.
Among these rights are equal privileges IN
their use after they are prepared for travel
and the regulation of charges for the traffic
over them The people have an
inherent right to travel over these public
highways, called railroads, with their own
cars and locomotives if they choose; but
this right is held in allegiance, because pub
lie policy and safety require that the dan
gerous engines Of travel shall be under one
control" In later reference to the same
coal question it was said in these columns:-
'sThe whole scheme stands on an illegal
foundation. These corporations were not
chartered to buy land. They were
privileged by the Legislatures Of their
respective States to hold in trust
for the use of the people certain pub
lie highways, over which highways all coal
operators were and are entitled to send
their coal produce on equal and fair terms.
The Legislature which gave privileges to
these corporations did not part with the
right of the people to say through their
representatives what tolls shall be charged
for the use of these public highways"
All this subject OF the rights of the public
in the control of railways, of the relations
OF the people to great corporations that re-
ceive charters and franchises from the State,
and the principles that underlie these rela-
tions, have just been reviewed and declared
by the Supreme Court of the United States
in it's decision on what are called the
granger cases. In this judgment the
Supreme Court emphasizes the declarations
made by us five years ago as quoted above.
1t is in general terms the theory of this
decision that every great instrument of COM
merce the operation of which becomes a
monopoly from the nature of the case and
which is, therefore, removed from the effect
of competition. must, for the protection and
safety of the people, be subject to the super
vision and control of the authorities that act
in the name of the people. In the cases in
which the judgment was actually given the
issue arose with regard to the use of grain
elevators in Chicago. These are pri-
vate property-as ferryboats are-but
they hold relation to the grain
trade that gives every farmer and
merchant an interest in them as immediate
as that which every citizen who is COM
PEELED to cross the ferry has in ferryboat.
Indeed, they bridge the space over which
grain has to pass in its transmission from the
railway car in which it arrives to the ship
in which it is to be carried away. They are
an indispensable part of the machinery of
this traffic and if the owners were per-
mitted to charge what they might choose for
their use it would be just such an oppres-
sion as if ferryman, having, by the use of
his capital, secured the monopoly Of
the passage Of river, could pre-
vent any man going to his home
or on his journey until he had paid him a
ransom rather than fee. In what seemed
to many an extreme assertion of the right Of
the people the Legislature of Illinois made
laws to limit the charges which might be
imposed for the storage of grain in ele-
vators, and the owners opposed these stat
utes as unconstitutional, their strongest
point of argument being that by such legis-
lation they were deprived of their property
without due process of law. In the courts
the Legislative regulation of charges was sus-
tanned, and on appeal to the Supreme Court
of the United States it is held that it is not
deprivation of property, but legitimate
act of authority, for the representatives of
the people to prescribe what charges shall
be made for the use of even private prop
erty in which the public interest is con-
cerned-as legitimate to limit the charge
which may be made for the use of grain
elevator as to limit the price that an owner
may demand for his land when it is forcibly
taken from him for any public purpose
whatever.
On the occasion on which we touched
this topic we dealt with the principle in the
phase in which it was of most interest to the
people of this neighborhood- immoral
and mischievous combinations of railroads
and other lines of transportation to abuse
the franchises they had acquired in order
to Cypress, by raising the price of coal,
the people whom it was intended the
franchises should benefit. But the coal
conspirators, disregarding the HERALD warn
ings and the rights of the people, went
on to make their unholy combination,
.,.ac aexainct ho laxrs Of frado