The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-11-07
Report Of Railway Commission.

Inc commissioners report OF their
stewardship bears evidence of an en-
deavor to do their duty under the law
faithfully, as they have construed their
duty. The task of beginning the adj
ministration of a statute extending the
domain of state control over very inn
portant, very powerful, and very COM
pick interests that have hitherto been
law unto themselves, required wis
dom, prudence and discrimination, as
well as resolution and judicial temper.
The commissioners seem to have ex-
hibited these desirable qualities in the
performance of duties new to them, in
their contact with affairs of which they
were themselves students as well as
the laws executors.
The commissioners view of the re-
lation the railways sustain to the peo-
pie is tersely expressed, and conforms
to the opinions of the most intelligent
and competent legal and judicial opin-
ions on this point of fundamental i'm
portance. The people of Vermont, too
familiar with judicial leanings to the
side of the corporations, will read with
pleasure the commissioners sound and
wholesome statement of the status of
the railways in respect of their obliga-
tons to the power from which they
derive their privileges. 1t is i'm
portant, at the beginning of this bust
ness of state railway control and regu-
lation, that the right of the state to
control and regulate is clearly under
stood by the people and acknowledged
by their agents, even though the right
may not, at present, be fully conceded
by the corporations. 1t will help the
establishment of the right relation and
a better understanding between the
creature and its creator.
The reasonableness of state regula-
ton of railways, and the force and
strength of the reason, are made in
telligible, if any ones ideas are con-
fused on this point, by the commission
ers' statement of how "every citizen in
Vermont is concerned in the railway
affairs of the state, directly or indi-
rectly, and with degree of intimacy
that can not be overestimated." This
intimacy of the concern of every citi-
zen of Vermont in the states railway
affairs is the basis of the states right
to see not only that the people are pro-
tected in life and limb, but that their
pecuniary interests in the very i'm
portant matters of freight rates and
passenger fares are also jealousy
guarded. To save its people from
pecuniary loss, the state imposes many
restrictions upon the banks and insur-
ance companies and subjects them to
very rigid inspection. The railways
have practically a monopoly of the
carrying business. They take all the
surplus products of industry to market
and bring back the needed products of
other communities. If unrestrained by
a watchful government, they may,
through excessive charges for freight
or passenger carriage, infict greater
pecuniary injury upon the people
than can result from the most reck-
less or dishonest management by
banks or insurance companies. A
slight overcharge for passenger car
riage, very small fraction of cent
"per ton per mile" for freight traffic,
takes thousands of dollars from every
community in the course of year and
constitutes the difference, to the farmer
or manufacturer, between a profitable
and an unremunerative prosecution of
his business. The loss comes in small
sums, many times repeated, on great
variety of commodities. This insidi-
ious character of excessive transporta-
ton charges has made the state less OBJ
servant of this drain upon industry than
of the losses resulting from the occa-
sional failure of a bank or insurance
company. The transportation question
is one of prime importance to the inter-
ests of the state. The commissioners
could not do everything in the first
term of their office, but certain circum-
stances were favorable to an investiga-
ton of the facts about transportation,
and people were looking for informa-
ton officially obtained respecting this
matter. We have no doubt that their
next report will show that the thor
oughness and independence exhibited
in their investigation of means for heat
ing cars will be faithfully employed on
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