The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1888-02-24
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS..
franklin B. Gowen Before the Inter
State Commerce Commission.

Franklin B. Gowen Before the Inter-
State Commerce Commission.
Mr.. franklin B. Gowen recently
made an extended argument before the.
Inter State Commission at Washington
in the celebrated case of George Rice,
an oil refner, of Marietta, Ohio, against
the Louisville and Nashville and sew
eral other Southern railroads, Mr.
Rice claimed that the railroads should
charge him no more because he ship
ped refined oil in barrels than was
charged the Standard Oil Company
which shipped oil in tank cars. The
Philadelphia Inquirer publishes the
whole speech from which We make a
few extracta.
RAILWAYS ARE PUBLIC HIGHWAYS
What is railway? "A public high
way-nothing else. Just like the riv-
= - 2 p 4
ers. The rivers are public highways,
Nobody in this country, Standard Oil
Trust or other inferior character, at
tempss to put tourniquent upon them.
When the first public roads were made
IN this country they were turnpike or
wagon roads /; but they were public
highways. No company attempted to
make different charge for toll to one
man as against the like vehicle. When
the railroad companies were organized
they took the private property Of the
citizen, under the right Of eminent do
main, because the property was taken
for public highway in trust for the
uses of the public /; aud the first railway
companies in this country were organic
ed simply with the right to maintain a
public highway and to charge toll for
its use. 1t was expected that the trans
porters should furnish their own cars
and their own locomotives or horses be.
cause originally the service on railways
was done by horses. Railroads are
simply advanced and improved avenues
of transportation; but, with reference
to the rights of the community to
equality of rates, they preserve
throughout the same features as the
rivers and turnpikes. Now why should
there be any difference now existing?
God made the rivers and man laid the
rails, | suppose our friends will say,
and hence the Standard Oil Company
deserves to have the monopoly of low
rates.
Why, if the Commission please, look
at the development and prosperity of
this country wherever the public high
ways are natural highways and open at
the same rates to all Look at the
lake cities. Where will you find, ex.
cept as to one or two places on the sea
board, such industry and prosperity as
that which clusters around the shores
Of our great lakes. Why is this? Be.
cause every man has free right to
transport over the natural highway on
terms of perfect equality; because no
one great monopoly, with its power
over weak freight agent. can trample
upon the rights of other men in the use
of those highways which the Almighty
created without the Intervention of man.
You see prosperity wherever there is
equality and freedom. Where, upon
the railroads in this country, does such
freedom and equality exist? Yet they
are public highways, just like the river
and the turnpike. Every man is en-
titled to the same rate every man
should be entitled to the same service
by paying the same rate.
| THE GROWTH OF MoNopoL1Es.
What is the admitted great evil in
this country? Any student of social
and political science will say that the
one great evil in the United States is
the unjust accumulation of wealth by
means of railway discrimination. The
President of the United States, in his
recent Message, referred to the growth
Of syndicates and trusts monopolizing
the business of the country. Now the
point | should like to impress upon
your Honor is this, that in manuiac-
tured article not protected by patent
right, and the basis of which is one of
the great natural products Of the conn