Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-12-10
AND PATBRNAL GOVERN
MENT

should be made, if only to show how easy
it is for the press and people to drift into
the acceptance of most pernicious doc
trines. when they are not carefully exam
ined at the outset. Judge Black asserts
that % it is a cardinal error, and the pa
''rent of much false argument, to suppose
g that railways are the property of those
''who build and operate them" In this |
sweeping allegation he of course includes
all the railways in the country. He pro-
.ceeds: ga railway laid out and built by
+" the authority of the State for the pur-
poses of commerce is as much public
" highway as turnpike road, canal, or
"navigable river, and public highway
s'cannot be private property" The cor
porations who have got into the habit
"of calling themselves the owners, have
''no proprietary right, title, or claim to
"the roads. They are the agents of the
estate for the performance of public
"duty;" and Judge Black explains
what this is by informing us that sit is
" the duty of the State to promote in
tercourse and trade by making highways
"of the best sort throughout her terri
tory" Now two facts are clear from
this The first is that no such relation
has ever been recognized in civilized
States, since if it had been recognized it
would have become the plain duty of the
State to build railways itself, and to OPP
crate them itself through appointed or
elected officers. The second fact is that
Judge Blacks theory of government can
not be confined to railroads, but must, if
it is worth anything at all, be equally
applicable to every other department of
industry and production. If it is the
duty of the State to regard railways
as public agencies, it must be equally its
duty to regard all other corporations in
that light. If it is its duty to promote in
"tercourse and trade " in one way, it must
be equally its duty to do so in all ways.
1t must then undertake not only to build
railroads, but ships and steamers. 1t
must engage in manufactures, it must
carry on the business of insurance and
banking and general commerce. Il must
keep hotels, and warehouses, it must
manufacture clothing and boots and
shoes and furniture. 1t must distrib-
ute money, and find employment for
everybody. In short, if Judge Blacks
principle is sound the State ought to go
into the business of paternal government
on the largest scale, and take full charge
of all the interests of the country from
Alpha to Omega. If railroads are public
agents there can beno reason why manufac-
turing corporations of all kinds, gas and
telegraph companies, and every imagin-
able species of corporate undertaking,
should not be placed in the same category.
1t is impossible to draw the line anywhere.
The logic of the principle demands It's uni
versal application, and if it be applied
solely to railroads at the beginning it is
inevitable that it must be gradually ex-
tended until it reaches all human activi-
ties. And if. as Judge Black asserts,
it is the duty of the State to undertake all
such enterprises, it must be best that it
should undertake them directly instead of
indirectly. The State, therefore, ought to
do everything for the people in its own
name, and private enterprises ought to be
abolished.
This is the logical implication of Judge
Blacks argument. 1t is an assertion in
the boldest form of the wisdom of pa
ternal government. Now paternal gov
eminent, as every schoolboy knows, cannot
coexist with the freedom of the individ-
ual. When the State is everything, the
citizen is nothing. When the State is
everything, and is at the same time nomi-
nally democracy, the result is the most
grinding and insupportable Of all tyrannies,
namely, mob despotism. Judge Black is
politically Bourbon Democrat, and the
school to which he belongs has opposed it
self to what it regards as the centralizing
tendencies of the age. Ostensibly it de-
mands decentralization as guarantee for
further protection and freedom to the in
dividual. But here we find Bourbon
advocating Capitalization in its widest
and most measureless form, and announc.
ing his crude ideas as gravely as though
they were the embodiment of ripe thought
and ample experience. If he alone had
thus expressed his superfciality it might
have been of little consequence, but when
we find large number of journals quoting
his ideas with swift approval, and declaring
that his views are sound and opportune,
it is time to demonstrate that they
are neither the one nor the other.
The truth is that the best gov.
eminent is that which NEEDLES least with
human activities; which confines its inter
ference to absolutely necessary measures
which leaves to individual enterprise all
that can be achieved by individual enter
prise; which fosters independence and
self.help in its citizens, and teaches them
to look to their own efforts for success in
life. Paternal government has always been
the dream of those who disbelieve in the
capacity of the masses for self-govern-
ment, or who!have sought to cure the evils
arising from natural inequalities of intel
leotual and physical powers by bringing the
whole of society down to dead level of
helplessness, dependence and submission.
No healthy mind leans to paternalism. 1t
is confession of want of confidence in the
people, and its absurdity is shown in the
fact that it ascribes to aggregated human
ity virtues and capacities which it fails to
find in the units of society We should
have expected the press to detect the soph-
istry of Judge Blacks arguments, and not
to have accepted them as profound utter
ances. No country could prosper or ad.
vance if it was governed upon such prin-
ciples as he enunciates, and no Anglo
Saxon community would submit to the