Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1891-12-25
FRIDAY MORNING, DEC. 25, 1891
THE KENT RAILROAD Bill.

III tLO lloiiNlO VI Ui1C v IL lCS lSldUuIe
and will be one of the measures earliest
discussed in the new year. We regret to
see that our esteemed contemporary the
Richmond Dispatch, so long power fol
good in this Commonwealth, has decided
after examining the bill, to cast the influ.
ence of its opinion against it. In making
this decision it cuts loose from the mature
ly considered opinions of the representative
commercial body of its own city, and also
from the opinions, the result of long and
trying experience with the railroads, of the
great bulk of the farming community of
the State. In this struggle of the people
against-not the railroads, but-the undue
and unfair exercise OF power by the rail
roads, our contemporary is for the railroads.
Our regret is not mere polite expression,
it is a matter of sincerity, for the people of
this State living outside of the metropolis
know to their cost how many measures of
great Importance to them have been lost in
the legislature at Richmond for lack of an
encouraging word from great paper at
the capital. Like most others who oppose
the bill, our contemporary is willing to do
anything but give a Commission power
over the Railroads.&c. calls it .sautocratic
authority"
But nobody seems to take exceptions to
railroads retaining 'autocratic authority''
over the lands Of the State and their pro-
ducts. The railroads have the absolute and
unquestioned power to give any rate they
please to the products OF the great West,
and thereby favor and create a competition
which presses down the price OF Virginia
products, and then they have the added au-
tocratic and unquestioned power to put up
the rate as high as they please upon the
Virginia farmers products. Nobody seems
to take exceptions to the possession of this
autocratic authority which unwisely used
Can affect the value of the hundreds of mil
lions of dollars worth of Virginia farming
lands. When this authority is questioned.
we are told that the railroads are business
corporations and would do nothing to in
jure the lands which furnish them freight
for traffic. Well, ism t it to be naturally
supposed that the owners of the hundreds
of millions of dollars worth of lands also
have business interests and sense, and
wouldnot wreck OF ruin the roads which car
ry their produce to market? The Virginia
farmers are not savages, ignorant of the
value and uses of railroads.
We cannot say with precision how the
producers Of other sections of Virginia
cfo 11t To fbo
ty'' of the railroads, but speaking for those
OF this section, we can say that from their
eeperience-not theories nor hypothesis,
but actual practical eXperience-with rail-
roads, the Kent bill would receive an al
most unanimous vote from them in sup
port of its passage. 1t is reflection on
the Intelligence Of the farmers of the State,
to tell them that they cannot be trusted
with power over corporations which their
representatives charter, but that these cor
porations can be trusted with power over
their lands and the making of the prices of
what those lands produce.
AS far as the will of the people of this
State is concerned, the passage of the Kent
conclusion. How that will may he evaded
by the present legislature, largely chosen to
execute it. we cannot say; but if 1t is eva
ded, it will be that much the worse for the
railroads in the end. If our city cotem-
poraries could form an accurate i'd d of
how much, for many years past, the dealings
of the railroads with it his formed the
staple topic of converi alton among the
farming community, they would under
stand that tie best thing for the railroads
Tow, is the passage of the Kent bill.
On one point we should like to repeat
what we have said before. The Dispatch
apprehends that the railroad commission
will be ''essel italy POLITICAL" We pre-
sumo that in the present condition of pol
itics in Virginia IL can only mean by that
composed OF men put on it Tor the lromi-
nence they have gained in party politics.
If that is to be the outcome we shall des-
pair of the maximum of good being reached,
OF even the minimum. If We are not
to have Commission of practical
men, then their service will profit the
impatient people but little. We have said
that of the three Commissioners. one should
be a practical railroad man chosen by the
railroads; one should be a shipping mer-
chant (chosen, if you please, by the Rich
mond Chamber Of Commerce) and the third
should be practical farmer. They should
be fresh, active men, engaged in the diff
ferent occupations from which they are
taken, and in as strong contrast as possible
to stale, rancid, politicians, who will he
after the place for what there is IN it.''
We have no fears about the final working
of the bill if it becomes law, with aproper
Commission under it, 1t has been tried
elsewhere with success and hurt nobody.
1t is far more liberal to the railroads than
the successful Georgia law on which it was
modelled, and of which a correspondent of
the Dispatch has this to say:
TO the Editor Of the Dispatch
There is, perhaps, no Southern State in
which the railroad question has been more
fully considered and discussed than in Geor-
ga, where the railroad commission act invest
ing the commission with the rate-making
power was passed twelve years ago. 1t NAV,
therefore, be pertinent to our consideration of
the question to refer to the situation in that
section.
In an argument before the Railroad Com
mittee of the Georgia legislature. MI Patrick
Calhoun, the gifted and able attorney for the
Terminal system. said. in reference to the
Railroad Commission Of that State:
II think the Commission tends to produce
uniformity and steadiness of rates.
81 stand as the advocate of the Railroad
Commission.
Il stand for governmental control, prevents
ing discrimination and attempting to produce
uniformity OF rates, and then l stand for that
wide class OF competition among the produc-
ers of all classes, which inures to the benefit
OF the consumer
The Georgia railroad commissioners have
Cor at that time had) arbitrary powers, among
them the power to Elk rates, from whose
decision there is no appeal. The Kent bill as
prOpOSed in our legislature gives the commits