The age-herald., 1901-08-14
history of England and America for a definition of thai term,

history of England and America for definition of that term,
 It is frequently assumed that railroad companies enjoy the benefit of some pe- culiar and exclusive franchises from the state This assumption probably grows out of the incorrect idea just noticed, that railroad transportation is a govern mental function. In fact, the railroads have no peculiar or exclusive franchises. Under the laws of Alabama it Is just as easy for any number of individuals de- siring to form a corporation to operate railroad to get authority from the state for that purpose as 1t is for the same in- dividuals desiring to form a corporation for the purpose of conducting a wholesale grocery business to get authority therefor from the state
 It is frequently assumed that railroads are monopolies. There are certainly not legal monopolies-that Is institutions hav- ing exclusive legal rights. To be sure, they have the exclusive legal right to use their own property just as wholesale grocery corporations have the ex- elusive legal right to the house which it acquires for business purposes But the railroad company has no exclusive legal right to carry freight or passengers between any two given points, for any one else desiring to con- struct and operate a railroad between
 
 the same right which the existing railroad has. It is no doubt true in many in- stances where there is only one railroad between two given points that the trans portation service afforded by the railroad company is so superior to that afforded by any other means of transportation that for practical purposes people living at that point use the railroad to the exclusion of other means of transporta tion. @
 It is. therefore, understandable in- oeed It IS absurd, to attempt to base any practical, and especially any radical regulation of railroads, involving as if does, important property interests of the individuals owning those railroads, upon the purely abstract and thoroughly falla- clous and misleading argument that rail- road rates are public taxes. The true basis or the regulation of railroads in the mat ter or their rates, as we'll as in other directions. Is that railroad companies are common carriers and that the business of common carriers Is affected with a pub lie use. Exactly the same right exists to regulate ferries, bakers, millers. wharf, fingers, inn-keepers, bridges turn-pike roads. etc.. etc., because all those lines of business are likewise affected with a pub- lie use. This basis of the right to regulate the rates of common carriers, warehouse men. etc., is clearly shown by the case ol M uiiil .NS. 1iliiiOlS, Jf U. D., pages IA to l30. It is not necessary to miscall a railroad rate a tax In order to regulate the right to regulate railroad rates. The real question to be decided Is whether there is substantial public necessity for the radical stap of taking the manage ment of the, railroads entirely out of the hands of the owners and putting their affairs into the hands of public tribunal
 When it comes to showing the necessity for such a radical interference with the owners eof railroad property, the pamph- let in question fails absolutely to make out it's case. It lays great stress upon the fact that numerous other States have made provisions of this character Obviously this does not demonstrate the necessity for such a step in Alabama. It may well be that many years ago in some of the States, the railroads did not ap- preciate their duties to the public, and were arbitrary and oppressive and, there fore. the State Legislatures deemed 1t ad- visable to make laws of this character It Is more than probable that many States having such laws have adopted them without such substantial necessity. It Is certainly true that many of the most uni- formly prosperous States in the union have never found 1t necessary to make such laws. Whatever may have been the motives or the acts of other States, the question in Alabama is whether local conditions necessitate radical action of thi~ character.
 The pamphlet in question. however prefers throughout to deal in speculative theories rather than in actual conditions It declares that railroad competition Is a thing of the past, and that 1t Is now within the power of railroads to arbi-