The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1879-10-21
SUPERVISION.

According to the New York San an attempt
will be made at the next session of Congress
to subsidize the Texas Pacific Railroad. This
prediction will likely be verified so far as the
attempt is concerned, but fortunately to at
tempt is one thing, to succeed another. In
stead of following the old plan of squandering
the peoples money in subsidies to build rail-
roads which when completed were handed
over to their directors to be managed solely
in the interests of those directors, or at the
very most of the stockholders standing be-
hind them-instead of following this plan,
that which promises to be the railroad policy
of the future, rather favOrs a governmental
supervision, or even management of rail-
roads. The public everywhere is awakening
to the truth that a railroad is merely an i'm
proved highway, that it stretches across the
public domain after the manner of a highway,
or else, secures from the law-making power
the right of way which authorizes it to choose
its own path in passing through the estate of
the private citizen-in fact, that the railroad
possesses privileges secured from the legisla-
ture which make it public property to a very
large extent. The labor expended in build
the line, the rolling stock required to furnish
it, may be paid for to the last dollar by the
stockholders, but still the privileges conveyed
by the people through their legislature, are
so vitality important that they rightfully claim
a voice in the management of the road, in
stead of delivering it into the hands of a few
to be used as a monopoly for their exclusive
benefit. In the past, only a few years ago,
rail- Dads were thus employed. They were
used as engines of oppression, by which the
people were robbed for the benefit of the
Fisks, Vanderbilts and Drews, who happened
to be in the ring. The operations of those
INSCRIPTIONS managers We're on such a scale
that thinkers as cool and discriminating as
Charles Francis Adams, jr., were filled with
misgivings at the prospect when they looked
forward and saw in Imagination the power
our Republic would be forced to grapple
with in the near future, if the railroad mo-
nopoly should continue to grow during the
next thirty years at the rate noted during the
past thirty. But relief has unexpectedly
come. What grew to power beneath the fos-
tering care of the people could be guided and
controlled by the people if they would only
set their minds to the task. They did apply
themselves 10 this task some years ago, and
the success of their experiment is revealed by
the fact that a number of States are to-day
provided each with its Board of Railroad
Commissioners to stand between the people
and extortion. In the beginning of this
movement the blunders of the few honest but
awkward Changers who took the matter in
hand only served to excite the mirth of the
naughty railroad mi~llionaires, but nowadays
they don't feel quite so mirthful. They &C
knowledge there is something in tin this
claim of the public to exercise joint supervi-
sion with themselves over the railroads, and
are only anxious now as to the basis upon
which such joint supervision can be arranged.
So much for the beginning. The work is
good as far as it goes, but We must remember
that it has scarcely yet made a beginning
Above all, Montanians should prof. by the
experience of others. Montana is at the
threshold Of her railroad era, with Statehood
in the near future. Let the thoughtful
among her citizens give a little study TO thu
railroad problem, that when we come to adop
a State Constitution we may be able to secure
for ourselves a full measure of the privileges
enjoyed by the people Of the States which
have done services as pioneers in the struggle
against railroad oppression.