Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1890-09-19

A SHORT time ago the TRIBUNE con-
tanned an editorial pointing out the evils
of some of the acts of the last legislature
in regard.t to common carriers, and show
ing how impossible it would be, under
the present laws, to build up wholesale
or distributing points in North Dakota.
The st. Paul Globe of recent date, under
the heading of Following in the Wake"
says editorially:
: The determination of the statesman of
North Dakota to legiSlate everybody into
good behavior is maze beautifully plain in
the treatment accorded by the last legisla-
ture to the common carriers Of that state.
Every granger statesman, in proceeding
against the railroads, begins by taking the
rlOng and short hauI' provisions of the
his operations, and building around them
a fabric of penal enactment which, it is
hoped, will result in effective suppression
of railway monopoly. This plan, which
has already really become something of a
chestnut in legislation, was that adopted
by the North Dakota Legislators in their
"act to regulate common carriers" Now,
the discovery is made that the sword of
legislation cuts both ways, and that the
statesmen have effectually prohibited the
railroads from doug certain things which
the statesmen would, had they understood
clearly what they were about, have forced
the railroads into accomplishing.
The distinctions between through and
local rates are now, we believe, virtually
wiped out in the state OF North Dakota,
and no city or locality, whatever the ex-
tent of its carrying traffic NAV
be, is allowed rates which are even propor-
tionately less chan those given to other
cities or localities over the same line of
road: This, of course, means, if it means
anything at all, that the North Dakota
granger has determined that there shall be
no central distributing commercial points
in the new state. The statesmen set them
selves up as barriers against the inevitable
progress OF events III commercial and in.
dustrial life, and, of course, the balance of
the people must take the consequences.
Law making on subjects of greatest pub
lie concern is the one industry apparently
in the conduct of which no preliminary
training or education whatever is neces-
sary. For a great number of years through
out the west successive legislatures have
been passing and repeating laws, the pas
sage and repeal being effected in each in
ceived to be the necessities
of the hour. AS a result the code of rail
road legislation which is scattered over the
statute books of the several states from
ocean to ocean constitutes, without doubt,
a monument to the %absurdity, the incoa.-
petence, and the utter u%nreJiability, from
the public point OF view, of the influences
and agencies which have governed in the
public control of railways.
AS the Northwestern Railroader very
properly points out, the moral of recent
North Dakota Legislation consists chiefly in
the demonstration which it affords that if
the railroads OF the state are to. be con-
~ I 1.l H..
those agencies should be the best educated
and the best equipped for the task, rather
than the most ignorant and the most dan
gerous agencies which can be invoked.