The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-09-12
THE WEEKLY JOURNAL. Issued Thursday. One Dollar 6 Year.
REeU1AroRY RECREATION.

REGULATORY LEGISLATTON.
 The first of series of cracks out of the court box was given yesterday in the courts of Pennsylvania upon the subject of the right of the General Assembly of that State to manage the Business of the Pennsylvania Railroad company. We say the first of a series of cracks for nothing seems surer than that the radical legislation of the past twelve months when it is sub mitted to final arbitration in the last court of resort will be declared un- constitutional. Had this not been the philosophical conviction of the great investments of the country there would have been crashing old panic months ago.
 The case of the Pennsylvania Rail- road company is interesting though in detail it will be found to differ from similar cases in other States where the legislatures have undertaken to manage the railroads as they think railroad property should be managed. The General Assembly voted a two- cent mile rate for the great railroad system. The act was signed by the governor and received with ill-con- cealed joy by the corporation chasers and baiters of the Keystone State. The railroad calmly prayed out an in- junction forbidding the State to en- force its arbitrary rate. The case was argued in the court of common pleas, higher court than that in Connecticut which wears the same name. The two presiding judges declare that the act is unconstitutional because it is con- fiscatory in character, unfair and un- reasonable and contrary to good pub lia policy In particular they deny the legality of the act because in 1S46 the State of Pennsylvania entered into a contract with the railroads giving them the right to fix rates at their own pleasure not in excess of three and half cents a mile. The oonstitu- ton of the United States expressly provides that Tho State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of a con- tract,h The court finds the act confls- catory because it deprives the com- pany of its property by reducing it's profits to touch below legal rates of investments without due process of law. Here the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution is bumped into and def1ed. For these and collateral reasons the court finds the act unconstitutional and therefore null and void,
 It does not appear to be necessary for one to have legal mind and le- gal education to appreciate the justice of this decision It is not of the slight est consequence that the company in- terested is the great Pennsylvania railroad, though that fact unques- tionably baits the appetite of many trust busters for gore. It might have been the New Haven railroad had our legislature so far lost its head in the well-nigh universal assault which has been made from high places on all large investments and sat into the game of persecution. It is true that the legislative creator is greater than it's creature, but there is well defined limit which the courts are slowly but surely pointing out tt it's power. It cannot unduiy persecute main, weaken and destroy. Public policy steps in at that point and saves the investment from ruin just as the courts of Pennsylvania have now stepped in to protect a great railroad investment from harm. Tn that cast there was previous contract witt the railroad company that it should up to certain fixed rates exercise 1t. own judgment in the making of rates but no such contract is necessary tt prove to the average man that tn, arbitrary fixing of rates by a politica body is contrary to human experienc, and mature judgment. If the State O Connecticut, which enjoys equal pow CT with the other States of the Union has the right to establish the wortl of railroad ticket it has the right t establish the price men shall pay fo the food they consume. The righ once admitted or seized and enforce and there is no limit to the power
 State might exercise over private en terprise. It is conceivable that might determine the dues privat clubs could charge their members.
 No legislature not made up of ex pert railroad managers is fit to pas