New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1907-06-12
THE TWO-CENT FARE VETO.

Governor Hughes showed courage as well as
conscience yesterday when he vetoed the two
cent railroad fare bill. 1t would have been
easy TO win the applause of the unthinking by
signing legislation arbitrarily limiting the
charge to lie made by the railroads for pas
senger service to two cents mile. Similar
legislation has been put on the statute books
this year in other states amid frOthy demon
STATIONS of popular approval. The railroads
have had few friends recently, and have been
considered fair spoil by lawmakers anxious
10 reflect the impulses and antipathics of the
moment. IN retaliation for past neglects or
abuses the public has shown a disposition to
insist hasty and punitive action. 1t has
forgotten that there is no coStler luxury than
revenge, and that with the Intimate inter
mingIing of It's own interests with those of the
great agencies of transportation, no wautOn
blow can be struck at the railroads and their
stockholders which will not react dlsastrously
on travellers and shippers.
The Governor plants himself firmly on the
proposition that two wrongs do not make
right. If railroad management has III the
past been derelict or oppressive, it is the part
of prudent policy TO establish some efficient
scheme of regulation under which the trans
portatlOn companies will be constrained 10
fulfil more faithfully their obligations to the
public. But il is not wise nor fair nor profit
able 10 attempt reprisals simply for the sake
Of reprisals If the state is to exact justice
from the railroads ii must be prepared To give
them justice and TO impose on them no bur
dens which will deprive them of a fair return
on their lawful valuation or cripple their use
fulness as common carriers. The Serviceability
Of the railroads to the public must not be for
gotten, nor the role they play in sustaining com
merce and industry. 1t is the extreme of folly
TO imagine that the transportation interests can
be dealt with as If they were Isolated agencies
whose fortunes or misfOrtunes concerned nobody
but themselves. They are, on the contrary
vitality interrelated with all other interests and
as Governor Hughes justly says, nothing could
be more opposed to the interests of the COM
'munity a whole than to cripple transporta-
''tiOn companies by arbitrary reductions of earn
''ings"
The two-cent fare bill was an attempt Mt ar
bitrary reduction. 1t was passed without IN in
CURRY OF any sort into its possible bearings and
effects. 1t ignored the wide dissimilarjtv I'm the
conditions under which railroads are operated in
various parts of the state. 1t took no account
of discrepancies in cost and character of ser
vice or of the density Of population along one
line as compared with the density along an
other. 1t imposed a fiat maximum rate without
any thought Of the disturbance likely to be
caused In an attempt to adjust existing min
imum or Communication fares to the new max
imum 1t embodied in fact, almost all the most
Migrant faults with which legislation Of this
sort can be taxed, and in addition it presumed
to anticipate offhand a task for the working out
OF which the state about to create a special
expert commission with enlarged powers and
privileges That commission will have an OPP
portunity to study railroad rates in detail and
to amend and modify them to sut conditions
While creating a commission for this specific
DUInOSa II uoS n ORC ct,,,Jcr,
tslatures part TO prescribe an arbitrary ana
universal maximum passenger charge Gov
ernor Hughes deserves all possible credit for
denouncing this policy as seriously mistaken"
and for challenging and endeavoring to repair
so patent and inexcusabe a bluuder