Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1882-03-09
COntiscating Railroad Property Law.

While the State of New York is still
celebrating as to the desirability or
the feasibility of regulating railroad
managemen by statues, other States,
and notably several of the Central
Western States, have been with varying
success trying the experiment. Proba-
bly, the experiment is worth the irving
and worth all the laundering that it has
thus far cost. The principle that it cor
porate citizens, like any other citizens,
should be subject to legislative author
ity, is sound one. The assumption
that the law-making power has the
disposition and the ability to do justice
is at the base of all organized society.
1t is better that railroad corporations
should be placed "at the mercy" of the
State than that the State and its people
should remain at the mercy Of railroad
corporations. Of any conflict that may
impend between the respective doc
trines of state sovereignty and railroad
sovereignty, there can be but one out
come. Yet, for the very reason that
the principle of railroad regulation by
the state is a sound and necessary one,
any manifest injustice in the way Of
such railroad regulation is the more to
be deplored.
The other States that have exerted
their authority in this direction have
either avoided all ground for serious
charges of injustice, or in the light of
experience, have SO modified their
statues as to relieve them of such
charges. Illinois has not. In that State
alone the worst principles, or rather the
worst blunders of the first crude and
unenlighted attempts to regulate the
details of railway traffic still remain in
force. The Railroad Commissioners of
that State under their singularly alb
solute powers, have recently, indeed,
established a new schedule of freight
rates, but this new tariff, taken as a re-
duction of the tariff of 1873, by almost
80 per cent, and this reduction is
effected at time when the Board of
Equalization has increased the assess
ment of railroad property in Illinois
81 100000 over that of the previous
year, and doubled the assessment as
compared with 1876. Here would seem
to be, without going into the details of
the respective tariffs, prima facie cause
for the complaints of the railroad own
ners that the State of Illinois is rapidly
confscating their property uuder the
forms of law.
A presumption at least as to the in
justice of the Illinois method of treat
ingrailway property may be fairly de-
rived from the fact that the railroad in
terests have no spokesman Or represent
ative on the commission that wields
such mighty powers and the nicely of
the interests involved, it would seem to
be no more than fair that one out o
the three members OF the Board of r all
road and Warehouse Commissioners
should at least possess some practical
acquaintance with railroad affairs. On
the contrary, that board at present con-
sists of druggist, an insurance agent
and a politician, and, what is much
worse, the law excludes all persons en-
plOyed by or connected with the busi-
ness of any railroad com pany or ware
house, and all persons owning so much
as a share in any railroad, from serving
as commissioner. This provision of
the law, as to logic and constitutional
ity, would seem TO be on par with
statute deprlvlng all citizens who own
any kind of property of eligibility to
the legislature or to the office of gov
ernor, or to any other office whereby
property interests may be affected.
Altogether there is indisputable evi-
dence that the history of railway regu-
lation in Illinois is little calculated to
advance the cause of railway regula ton
elsewhere or to sustain the fundament-
al confidence In the capacity of Amer
lean popular bodies to deal Justly and
go slow. Illinois would do better for its
reputation, as well as for its interests,
by observing the example of Massa-
chusetts, the pioneer state in the mat
ter of railway reform, where no statu-
tory freight tariff has ever been at
tempted, and by following the example
of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota,