San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-05-20
BOOMING TIE COMMISSION.

weekly, comes out as mOnGnly, lIS
forty-eight columns devoted to Hogg's
candidacy and its circulation claimed
as 100000. There is no doubt that the
commission candidate has gone III tc
win. His friends, or himself, or both
together are using every means al
command to Overawe, or over per.
suade the state into accepting the
situation as inevitable, and quietly
submitting to the power that seems to
be. The LIGHT understands very
we'll that this is not republican
fight. That the battle against rail
way commission and HOgg must be
fought on the floor of the democratic
convention that meets in this city in
August, and that as the convention
dominates so will the vote of the
state ratify. Notwithstanding this,
the repu blicans of this state are not
unmindful of the issue, and cannot
supinely witness suicidal policy
formally adopted as the policy of this
great state without some remOns-
trance, no matter how futile. The
one idea of the boom for Hogg is the
hostility to railway enterprise. This
fact is denied, but it is fact, and a
patent one, despite the denial. The
policy proposed would single out
railroads from all other classes of
business and bring them under the
dominion and subject to the dictum
of foreign corporation, a corporation
without either the knowledge of rail-
way business necessary to success
fully manage a road, or the financial
interest in such roads necessary to
compel favorable consideration Of
their claims. 1t is policy that
would hand over the roads body and
substance to an irresponsible corpor-
alton of three men, chosen i'll spirit
Of hostility to railways and for the
avOwed purpose of interfering with
their business. To what end? That
they may work their will on these
public carriers until such times as the
courts grant the legal redress which
every complainant has a right to seek
before the law. The present law, ere
ating arailwaycommissloner and max
ing him the agent of the state to act
for and on behalf Of the state, guard
ing its interests and bringing to the
properly constituted courts all in
ngements of law by the railways,
this law IS dead letter on the statute
book. Why? Possibly because the
law does not clothe him with inquisi-
toriaI power and make him an ire
sponsible agent to wreak the popular
vengeance upon railroads. The in
sane idea that railways are enc
mics to the agricultural progress
of state has somehow gained
q hold in the mind of the Texas
farmer aid granger, and the
demagOgues who echo an ignorant cry
of the masses, for political effect, have
taken it up. This disease is like the
measles, or whOOplng cough, or itch,
bound to have its run when it gets
started, and it seems to have got a
mighty good hold in Texas. That a
railway commission in Texas seems
to be inevitable no one can deny, and
that it will prove either dead, inert
thing, or an active destroyer of rail
way enterprise, is as certain as death
aud taxes. The outlook is by no
means hopeful. At this particular
season Of her development, when all
promises 50 tavOrably for this state,
to have all her railway promise
thwarted by a railway commission
created, constituted, and managed,
as is now proposed, in fact the mere
creature of man like the present
attorney general of the state is very
much to he deplOred.
THE Post thinks the unseemly
scramble for Beck's shoes was fully
offset by the scramble for Sabin's
slippers. At all events there was no
drunken scramble in the procession
and around the coffin of the dead
iurist. He was saved from that I'M
seemliness.
THAT 100000 year for twenty
five years for drainage of New Or
leans, promised among other things