The Portland daily press., 1881-03-12
The Transportation Question.
Canadian Competition that is Destined to
Bring to Terms the Railroad Princes of
the East.
BY A. j. GROVER.
Written for the Chicago Sentinel.

economic question of the age; not only to fifty
millions of people of this country-to the nu-
merous ard rapidly increasing population of
the States and Territories of the West, North
west and Southwest, but to the more numer-
GUS population of tie Old World, that rely up
on these States and territories for their daily
bread and meat
1t is question Of ofhumanity and information
al amity, as well as political economy.
Every year there comes an increased demand
for breadstuffs and provisions from across the
water, and the question of cheap bread to the
hungry people of Europe, is involved in the
question OF cheap transportation at home.
AT present it costs at least two bushels of
corn to carry one from the Missouri river to
the seaboard. This exorbitant charge the
producer loses, the consumer pays, and the
carrier makes, less the actual cost of carriage
Every commodity manufactured in the Eastern
States or imported from Europe, which is con-
sumed in the West, is subject to these exorbi-
tant rates for transportation, which the manu-
facturer loses, the consumer pays and the car
rier pockets, less actual cost to him.
The enormous profits to the vast confeder-
ated monopolists of the United States, engaged
In the carrying trade have enabled them to
water their stock, in some instances three hun
dreo per cent, and to pay good round dividends
on the whole.
| These monopolies and profits, by means of
| dividends on fictitious stocks, have already
built up vast corporate powers, which scorn
the civil, executive, and judicial branches of
the State governments, and dictate legislation
to suit their own pu urposes.
The right of eminent domain, which was
originally exercised by the legislature, or SOW
ereign power, in behalf of these corporations,
and which alone gave them life, or legal ex-
istence, is ignored and defied by them, when
ever the people endeavor to invoke its rightful
exercise to restrain, regulate or control them,
or in any manner interpose to prevent their
rapacity from devouring the entire earnings of
the country.
The Supreme Court of the United States has
decided that the right of eminent domain can
as properly be exercised to prevent corporate
extortion by railroads, as to give right of way
and other corporate powers to them. The
right can be exercised for any purpose, only
when the public good requires it. Every rail-
road charter, and right of way rests upon this
public requirement Public Interest, or emf
nent domain, through the sovereign power,
can certainly rightfully restrain and regulate
that which it has created. Nearly all the
States have attempted wholesome legislation
to this end, but no State has yet succeeded.
The child has outgrown and defies its creator
and father. Money is more powerful than the
law or the public good. The Legislature, or
the courts, or the executive, or the railroad
commissioners, prove venal and vulnerable,
and the railroads triumph over the law and
the people. Jay Gould openly says, as report
ed, that he finds it more economical to buy the
smaller bodies the Senate, the Governor or
the Commissioners-while Vanderbilt does not
hesitate to grapple with an entire Legislature,
as he did, and successfully, too, recently at AL
bany; while it is notorious that the manage
ment of the Pennsylvania railroad is more
really the autocrat of New Jersey than the czar
OF Russia is of his dominion; and the con-
federated local railroad kings are likely to con-
troll Congress whenever Congress shall attempt
| TO exercise the right of eminent domain in be-
| half of the national industries and commerce.
! Fictitious stock dividends and pooling earn
| lngs, are the upper and neither millstoneS,
| which are grinding the people to powder in
this country, and snatching the bread from
| millions of hungry mouths in Europe.
Is there any remedy, any means of immedi-
| ate relief and protection?
| Is the largest people on the globe, with per-
haps three exceptions, absolutely in the power
dustries without limit? This question the peo-
| pie are asking with most intense earnestness,
east west, north and south.
| But there is no hostility to railroads any
| where. As well be hostile to air, sunshine or
| ran.- AS we'll be hostile to any of beneficent
natural forces; to thought, invention, skill and
progress; to that which is Indispensable For
railroads are Indispensable absolutely inds-
| pensable to civilization.
This country could never have been devel-
| oped without them. 1t is ten times richer to-
day than it could possibly have been without
them. If it were possible to stop for half a
| year transportation by rail, millions of the An
| glo-SaxOn race would probably starve, as mil
lions have in China, and both European and
| American commerce would utterly collapse.
1t is not, therefore, against railroads, railroad
| builders, or railroad owners, or, as Judge
Black says, trustees" per Sc, that anybody
raises voice. But it is against the abuse of
the railroad corporate powers that we complain.
! These mighty nerves and arteries of industrial
| and commercial life, and modern civilization,
are absolutely indispensable to existence, and
| the exercise of their normal functions would
| be altogether benefcent. And that is the rea-
| son why perverted, abnormal action, Is un-
| speakably injurious and alarming.
How can this abuse be checked or prevented?
Judge Black has given us his reply to this
| question, viz: The railroads belong to the
oON0IClSuJy, tuo COTpOIdblOuS dE0 DOul6S, 6A6T-
cisng trust po wers only; the trust can be limit
| ed or revoked, when abused, or when the pub
| lie good requires it.
! This is no doubt the law-the proper defni-
tion of the power or right of eminent domain.
| And its proper exercise would, no doubt, bring
| relief and protect the public.
| But when snail we reach the sublime point
of obedience to this great law of salvation?
This Jordan is a long and difficult road to
travel. Hooker defined law as having its seat
| in a h0sOnn Of God and a vOica which ic tha
| harmony of the world. But it is long way
| from where the world now is to the realization
of Hookers or Blacks ideal view of law and
its results. 1t will be long day before the
| sovereign power will enforce Judge Blacks
law of eminent domain, as applicable to rail-
| roads, however true and sound his view may
| be.
| But hear multitude of voices shouting:
"Let the government buy and run the rail-
roads at cost" This is only another method
| or applying Judge Blacks law of eminent do
main; only compelling the corporations to sur
| render control to the government, the govern
ment compensating the corporate trustees as
equity shall require.
1t is quite as long distance to this consum-
| nation, however devoutly to be wished, as to
| the other form of the proposition. Industry
will be robbed, enfeebled, Impoverished, de-
| StrOyed, and the people reuuced to serfdOm,
long before they can by means of elections,
legislation and courts, secure either successful
| control or purchase of railroads.
Well, exclaim some of our radical writers on
the question, then revolution must come, and
| the quicker the better, and settle these ques-
| tiOns! But revolutions unsettle everything,
and settle nothing. Aggregated money is quite
| as much master of revolutions, as of railroads.
| 1t is a long way to successful revolution. Rev
| olutlon in Republic would be the most mex
| cusable of crimes. Universal impoverishment
| of the masses must come before revolution
would be possible. Eleven-twelfths of the
| earnings of the industrial classes of France was
taken by taxation before the revolution of 1892
| came.
Revolution against railroad monopoly in this
country is impracticable, uncertain, remote,
absurd and supremely criminal. 1t can never
come.
The people must look for a solution OF this
| question in some practical business competi-
ton, and in such legislation as may be possi-
BILE. There is no possible abstract ideal solu-
ton of this question. Competition is possible.
Competition is practicable. Competition may
afford comparative if not complete remedy
for high freight to the seaboard. And how
such competition may be secured shall try to
| point out. The sovereign power, if it could be
moved to proper action by the people, might
forbid pooling and watering shares. 1t might
fix maximum rates. 1t might prevent unfair
Determinations. But some States have at
fA,,,x tod 1rr h,,N 1a.r