The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-02-21
VARIANT OPINIONS.

A suoFt WAiAc a&O knS ncWspdpeES and some of the politicians led us to believe that there was a very general. if not almost universal agitation throughout the country in favor of some kind of railroad legislation by Congress. Speaking of it, The Kansas City Journal says it is .interesting to note how the agitation for railway rate legislation has simmered down since the discussion in Congress showed how little good can be expected from the measure"
 It is no wonder that interest--if there was really as much as we have been led to suppose--has abated since the discussions in Congress have shown the imperfections and real absurdities of the Hepburn bill which passed the House by an almost unanimous vote. But was there really any widespread demand for such legislation? General Grosvenor. one of the best informed men in Congress rather ridicuIes the idea that there was any great demand for railway regulation legislation and says the alleged agitation was "the greatest fake Issue that had ever been launched to fool the people" Other well informed congressmen have spoken of the matter in pretty much the same way. and The New York Press. a Republican and Roosevelt or- gan. says of the bill:
 When hardly any two members of the Interstate Commerce Committee are agreed as to what the Hepburn bill will accomplish, though the whole eighteen of them joined in a unani- the rest of the House has gone ioony aboux this fraudulent rate pressure. What mess has been wantonly made
 q garoad sba legisiaon daat may be seen 1 py Representative who defends the Hep burn biIl gives a different reason for doing So, and none of It's champions Is the chance that his explanation of what ieNwili do clashes violently with each account given by ths speakers who have gone before him.
 Of course the Congressmen could not agree on what the bill would or would not do. when the author of 1t declared that he didn't understand it himself. None of them understands it. Senator Lodge declared that the bill would not cure the evils complained of, and Con- gressman sibley. in his picturesque style, characterized the bill as 'the apple of -discord thrown among the sister States; the opening of Pandora's box, the sowing of dragons teeth, the breaking of the Union and the ties of interdependence and the arraying of section against section, State against state. city against city and town against town" And 50 it goes. None of them seem to understand it, and the wisest among them are suspicious of t. If it dies natural death we are not sure that any harm will be done.
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 If we wanted to give New Jersey a distinctive and appropriate name. we should call it "The Corporation State" We have no means of knowing the ex- act number of chartered companies or businesses in the State. hut on Feb ruary 14th the Comptroller gave notice through The Newark Evening News that certain corporations therein named had failed for two years to pay the States taxes assessed against them. A tolerably close count gives the number of defaulting corporations as 1,375, and the notice declares that their charters are repealed for failure to comply with the law. We do not suppose there is anything like general noncompliance on the part of corporations, so we may form some idea from the above of the great number in the State. If they all could be made to pay reasonable license or tax the revenue from this source alone should go far to pay all the expenses of the State, even if they would not entirely pay 1t. It is great State for corporations. beyond a doubt