Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-01-28
Railway Administration.


lChicago Times, January 2lst.1
There is great deal of practical good
sense IN the paper on the railway prob
lem that was submitted to the special
committee OF inquiring Senators by the
President of the c., b. and Q. Company,
Charles E. Perkins.
Mr.. Perkins observation. study and ex-
perience of railway administration conduct
his judgment to the conclusion that, con-
sldering the development of the country,
the low rates that everywhere prevail, and
the facility with which persons and prop
erty are now transported, the wisdom of
any legislation that would look to a change
of the conditions under which have been
evolved results so beneficial, may we'll be
doubted. The problem is working out it.
self more rapidly than could have been
considered as possible twenty years ago,
and the cause for wonder is not that rail
ways, in common with human affairs gen
orally, are yet imperfect, but that they have
been able TO make so much progress
toward. satisfactory adjustment of their
relations TO society.
Any candid person who may take the
trouble to go back to the ante-war epoch
and make even a superficial study of the
railway system and its administration dur
ing the quarter of a century that has inter
vened will hardly fail to be impressed with
the truth of the foregoing observations.
Let him suppose, then, that Congress,
twenty-five years ago, had enacted a stat
ute, embodying the highest " collective wis
dom" of the country, changing the condi-
tons of railway administration by prescrib-
ing for its guidance an elaborate code of
rules and regulations, having all the posi-
bic force of public law. Could he discover
reason for an opinion that the railway
problem, thus hedged and directed by the
legislative power, would have made greater
progress toward a satisfactory solution
than it has made without any such legisla-
tive prescription of the road to be pursued
Nay, could he find reasonable ground
for doubt that even the best statutory
guide the legislative wisdom could have
provided would have been a hindrance, an
obstacle, a false guide leading to unforeseen
pitfalls and impossible abySses, that, so far
from fastening or facilitating the march to-
ward the desired goal. would have greatly
retarded it, cDnplicating it with difficulties,
and perhaps concluded in general disaster?
If the answer must be negative, then the
country has great cause TO be grateful to its
political agency, not for enacting solution
Of the railway problem, but for abstaining
from such an impossible undertaking. The
report of the special committee of Senators
enunciates very important truth in the
statement that the present century has wit
messed the introduction of many new forces
i'll the economy of civilization, but that
none has effected more marvellous changes
than the railway as an auxiliary and in
strumentallty OF commerce" Half a CEN
fury ago:
g Each nation lived almost wholly within
Itself. There was little intercomlnuiica-
Of
tied to an extent that can to-day scarcely
be realized. The commerce of the world
was for centuries conducted almost exclu-
sivcly upon the sea, and its proportions
were insignificant III comparison with the
foreign trade of any leading nation to-day.
BY the construction of turnpikes and ca
nails, and the development of river naviga-
ton, international trade gradually began
to grow up, but barriers existed at every
frontier; the transmission of intelligence
was uncertain and expensive; through
routes were almost unknown long-dis-
lance transportation was impossible except
by water, and there was actually but little
communication or trading between differ.
ent nations, or even between different parts
of the same country. All this has been
wonderfully changed within the last fifty
years. The commercial. social and politi-
cal relations of the nations have been rev.
by the development of improved
means of communication and transporta-
ton"
Nowhere else on the globe has the revo-
luton been so rapid or upon a scale so
great as in this American Republic. 1t is
the senatorial understanding that our rail
way system is the marvel of the world"
and the senatorial confession that g its ex-
pansion has been so rapid and unexpected
that 1t has been impossible, during the
progress of its wonderful development. to
determine with exactness or to regulate
with thoughtful consideration its proper
relations to the citizen or TO the govern
mental authority" But the supposition
that this impossibility has been Il conse-
quence of the rapidity and unexpectedness
OF its expansion is fallacious 1t has been
a consequence, rather, of the limitation of
human knowledge to things relative and
Senators and Representa-
tives fifty years ago may have known as
much politics and been as expert in apply
ing certain principles in regulating the re-
lation of things then within their knowl-
edge as they Know and are now. But
neither lawmakers or any other sort of men
at that day had knowledge of a railway
system. of the conditions of its healthful
or its coming relations to
matter in the sealed book of the future
a book that even the wisest Senator could
read only as its pages should be gradually
unfolded to his comprehension by the
hand of new experience-an experience
that hardly yet has passed the Introductory
chapter. Those that have studied the prob
lem most carefully and gained the greatest
experiential knowledge of its many and
peculiar complications are railway men,
who still confess the inadequacy of their
knowledge to announce the solution. If
legislators, that certainly have not learned
any more by experience, are the possessors
of greater knowledge, it must be by the
effect Of supernatural inspiration. But
even inspiration has not been found an al
togethe: satisfactory guide of human legis-
lators to the solution of problems that
transcend the limits of experience. That
it would prove to be a safe guide for gov
ernmental regulation of the railway system
there is, in the experience of other coun-
tries as well as in some of our own, great
reason to doubt.
The best guide for the statute maker that
experience has furnished is not found in
the working of reguiative enactments. but
in the surprisingly rapid progress that the
railway system has itself made in the di-
rection Of a satisfactory adjustment of its
relations TO the conditions and wants of So
ciety. The process in this country has
heen that of natural evolution, unhindered
for the most part by the governmental
meddling that has controlled and arbitra-
rily directed it in some other countries, and
it is universal testimony that the progress
made in this country toward the establish
ment of harmonious and satisfactory rea-
lions has been greater and more rapid than
IN any other. Is this a consequence of the
fact that here the political agency has abb
stained more than elsewhere from legislat-
ing 10y. inspiration without knowledge
gained by experience?
However that may be, when it is a fact
patent to all the world that the railway
problem is working out itself to a bene-
ficent and satisfactory solution with de-
gree of rapidity that, upon the comparison
of quarter of a century, is not less amaz-
ing than gratifying, it would seem to be
not irrational opinion that the legislative