The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1904-05-24
What Public Service Corporations
Are Made For.

AT the banquet or the Illinois Man. |
ufacturers' association in Chicago last |
evening, Vice President Brown Of the |
New York Central railroad delivered |
an address on the relation Of the |
railroad to national commercial and
industrial progress, in which he COM
plains that the patriotic and disinter
ested activities Of the railroads have
not been appreciated by the public
as they should be; that their efforts
to better their service and foster
commerce by consultations to bring
the great grain-producing and man
ufacturing states in close connection
with the growing, exporting cities of
the northwest, have been misunder-
stood and combated.
There is no doubt that there has
been engendered much unreasonable
antagonism toward railways during
the last thirty-f1ve years by reason
Of unjust determinations and excess
sive charges, but that there was a
basis for regulative legislation must
be admitted. The interstate COM
merce law was the product of legiti-
mate and honest Indignation over
wrongs suffered by shippers from
many railway companies.
The law Of 1887 did not accomplish
what it's originators intended, altho it
removed some conspicuous forms Of
injustice. But it has been recently
amended SO as to give the commits
sion greater power in the exercise of
1,o;,, of ,1ots
Mr.. Brown is grieved over the SUI
preme court decision in the merger
case, as one which cripples the use
fitness of the railways, and he thinks
that, in the course of a few years,
the language Of the federal supreme
court will seem to reflect the clamor
of the public rather than the calm
judicial review of a great question
by the exalted tribunal" and he be-
lieves that there will be legislative
amendment or a judicial determine
ton as to the question Of reasonable
restraint of commerce, as against any
restraint whatever, in order to re-
move the Sherman law as an obstruc-
ton to commercial and industrial
progress.
Mr.. Brown is treading very close
to dangerous ground. The implied
assumption that the transportation
facilities Of the country shall be or
ganized and reorganized until they
have all been brought practically un-
der the control Of one man or one
small group Of men, and yet left free
of all restraint and government con-
troll, rests upon such a conception OF
fidelity to public interest on the part
of the management and operation OF
transportation lines as has never yet
been realized in human affairs, and
is not likely to be. When consoli-
dalton reaches that point, the state
may stop short Of public ownership
4 but it will not stop short Of such
measure Of control of the transpor.
make them serve the highest interests
for which they have been created
The persistence with which those en-.
gagged in the operation of these great
corporations, endowed with delegated
power Of an extraordinary kind, fal
beyond that of private citizen, neg
lect to recognize the fact that theil
powers are conferred, not for private
benefit but for the public good, is the
chief source of much Of the misunder.
standing and antagonism which pre-
walls between the public and the cor
porations created to serve it. Th'
organizers and the operators Of these
concentrations. regarding their ac
CURED and extraordinary rights as i
created for their personal benefit, de
part at once from the proper exercise
Of their functions and presently FIND