The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1902-01-28

ferring power on the In.
terstate Commerce COM
mission to compel railroad companies
to live up to the requirements of the
interstate commerce act. 1t is now
should be enacted.
There is expended in this country on
steam road freights annually Il sum
five times the yearly customs collec-
tions of the Federal government and
equal to one-ninetieth of the entire
wealth of the country. TO transport
the products entering into the internal
commerce of the United States the rail-
roads and water carriers charge in
round numbers one billion dollars an
nually. 1t takes but scant knowledge
of business to understand how neces-
sary it is from the standpoint of pub
lie policy that this immense collection
of tolls should proceed equitably and
without discrimination as between man
and man. Transportation is a prime
necessity of civilization. Without it
business could not exist. Yet today, in
the United States, the strange fact is
presented of an almost entire absence
of effective regulation of charges for
transportation. 1t is in the power of II
railroad management by practices con-
demned by law but not now punish
able, TO make or mar Il city or an indi-
vidual by the manner in which it re-
spends to calls for transportation and
nv tba discrimination If ObSarvas in do
termining its charges Inhabitants Of
the anthracite region do not need to be
convinced that what has just been said
is not an eXaggeration of the truth.
From sad and oft-repeated experience
they know how impotent is the indi-
vidual shipper when the power of the
railroad is directed against him.
Then there is another consideration
calling for II more effective exercise of
the general governments constitutional
right TO regulate interstate commerce.
1t is found in the recently developed
tendency toward Il Capitalization of the
control of railways in the hands of
few men or groups of interests 1t is
estimated that at the present time
three-h hfrhs of all the railway mileage
in the United States is controlled abso-
lutely as to policy of management by
five men, 1t is, happily, the general
judgment that these five men. into
whose hands have come for tiduciary
handling the wealth of many thousand
less efficient investors or captains OF
industry" are inclined to be fair and
just upon the whole. But it is none the
less an unwise policy to leave so great
a power in the hands of any man or
group Of men without surrounding its
exercise with safeguards OF the public's
interests, At any time this power is
liable to abuse; and the history OF
hearings before the now impotenr In
terstate Commerce commission is elo-
quent in instances wherein the abuse
has been flagrant and defiant
The principle has been we'll estab-
lished by decisions of The Federal
courts" writes II. r. Bacon, that the
railways of the country are public
highways, and that the corporations by
which they are constructed and oper-
ated were created for public purposes
and are performing public service
which is primarily Il function OF the
government This service should be
performed in the same manner us II
performed by the government itself,
With equal charges and privileges TO
all and at no greater charge than Is
necessary to cover the cost of main-
tanning the service, including a reason-
able return upon the capital actually
invested in the property used for the
purpose. 1t devolyes upon the govern
ment TO exercise effective supervision
over these corporations to enforce the
practical observance of this principle"
Unless that shall be done, there viii