New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1898-08-24
Wednesday, August "a, 1898.
Official paper of. the county of Brown.
A Changed Man.

opinion in faycr of governmental owner
ship or control of the great transporta-
ton facilities of the country, there is q
certain all-wise element throughout the
land, confined almost exclusively to
the republican party, that stands ready
to stamp him as a crazy dreamer or a
brainless populist. So strongly has this
element been i'm pressed with the corpo-
ration view of the rights of railroads
and other great monied interests, that
the man who hints at public regulation
or control is considered an enemy of
progress and an unsafe person to be en-
trusted with Legislative or executive Of
fee. =,
That this was not always the case is
evidenced by the career of Senator Cush-
man K. Davis. At the present time it
would be next to impossible to induce
this brilliant individual to 60 on record
in favor of stringent control of the rail-
way, telegraph, express and mining syn
dicates of the land, taking the bold
stand, as Judge Seagrave Smith did, that
the right to operate these gigantic enter
p1ises is not given for the sole benefit of
the owners, but, on the contrary, for the
equal benefit of the general public and
the state.
twenty-five years ago Davis would
have been willing to do this, and, in
fact, did do it.
In letter, written to the Blue Earth
City Post in 1878, he used the following
bold and significant language:
My lecture on "Modern Feudalism"
was designed to call attention to the
tendency of the modern corporation to
subordinate the government itself to the
function of the private monopoly.
Many predictions made in that lecture
seemed audacious when they were writ
ten, but events have moved so rapidly
that within three years the things which
to predict seemed venturesome have be-
come the stalest kind of history.
am satisfied that the great political
struggle of twenty years to come will De
fought on the question Of corporations.
The Dartmouth college case, which was
decided by the supreme court of the
United States years before a single rail
was laid in this country, is the really
great difficulty in the way of legislative
regulation of corporations. That deci-
sion, however, merely affected a private
corporation. 1t does not profess to touch
those bodies which, like railroads, are
public in their nature, and to which GER
tain elements of sovereignty (such as
the power to condemn property are dele-
gated. Whether the courts will draw
the distinction IS yet to be seen. My
own idea is that the state cannot contract
aray a single attribute of sovereignty,
and that when the public nature of these
institutions is conceded, the right to
control them follows logically.
1 do not think congress has any power
which will Effectively remedy the evils
The power to regulate commerce between
the different states unquestionably gives
that body the right to regulate through
freights, but it has no existencei in regarc
to freights, say between Mankato ano
Winona. .
In regard to the power of the state
the converse Of the above paragraph i:
true. That is, while the state may pos
sloly regulate from Mankato to Wlnona
it has no power to do so from Winon,
to La Crosse.
My own idea of the practical solutiol
of this question is almost as universal a
was the idea of emancipation. It i
that the federal government should, I'm
der the power of eminent domain, con
denim at least two through lines from tn
seaboard to the West, keep them in re
pair just as the state keeps its wago1
roads up, and suffer every one who has
locomotive or car to run over them un
der such regulations only as will insur
safety. :. -
Before this can be done there will b
a struggle to which that regarding slav
cry in the territories was mere baby play
1t may be that the railroad men will b
wiser than the slave holders their pre-
totypes- and when they know what
coming will make satisfactory conces
sions.
Today Senator Davis is an altered mar
He no longer sees the issue which b
foresaw a quarter Of a century ago, 9.
if he does, he no longer has the courag
or desire to meet it as he would hay
done then.
The issue is upon US, and, with it, a
the dangers predicted in that remarkabl
lecture; but the brilliant Davis is silen
Dreams of international alliances hay
usurped the attention that should hay
been directed against the tyranny
modern feudallsm which sshaunts the ii
situations of today in the great none
and railroad corporations, with the
control Of all our finances and Of th
national highways, their occupation