The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-04-26

serves, nave made a FaWfu1 order tO public service corporation to adopt means to stop unnecessary bloodshed, the same corporation may plead fnan- ciaI inability and keep on killing.
 There is a law in this State which requires factory owners. for the pro lection of life to guard elevator shafts. 4 corps, of factory inspectors are maintained who may make orders nec- essary for the health and safety of e1n- .ployes.
 Has any voice ever been raised in favor of rule which will enable a manufacturer to disobey such an or der, upon the ground that <he cannot afford to carry it out?
 Upon what meat, indeed. have these. our public service nnonopolfes, been fed that they have grown so great? On Thursday last the so-called ten tative bill was presented to the Bridge port Business Mems Association. On tho following day was heard. at the county court house, the appeal of one from a verdict of guilty of murder.
 In that trial life was involved. But the only appeal from the finding of the court, given to this, or any other man, is upon the ground that some essential thing done during the trial was unlawful. That man had a right to a lawful trial, and to noth- ing else.
 A public service corporation must obey the lawful order of the state: and no other. A public service cor poration is to be subject to the law of the land just as all are subject.
 Whenever 1t shall come in this state that a man charged with killing an other to rob him, may plead in de- fense that he needed the money, then, and not until then, an appeal by a public service corporation from a law full order by the state, upon the ground that 1t can't afford to obey it, will be in accordance with good pub lie policy.
 Again, Senator Manwaring and his colleagues, although the bill is a ten tative bill, apparently believe that it should not be changed by the inclu- sion of provisions against stock water ing and to provide audit and publicity for the accounts of public service cor porations.
 Senator Manwaring's objection to a section in the bill to prevent stock watering, as he stated 1t to the busi- ness men. was as follows:
 '"The New Haven railroad does not want a bill which prevents stock wa tering. It will beat such a bill.''
 Suppose somebody should propose a bill for the prevention of burglary, and some wealthy citizens should ob- ject to the bill becoming law. That citizen should be searched. And the opposition of the New Haven Railroad to a law preventing stock watering is not more respectable. Stock watering is a kind of theft not yet forbidden, in this state, by law, just as the green goods game, in the time of the late Jinny McNal1y was a form of theft not forbidden in this state by law un- til the legislature made a statute to railroad does not desire to issue water ed stock, or it does. If 1t does desire to do so, more need for law pre- venting it. If it does not desire to do so it can have no objection to such a law.
 But Mir Vincent urged that the in tirnate management of the affairs of a corporation will not be undertaken by the state. and ought not to be. But the state, and the city so far as it has power, will undertake the intimate management of any business to the extent necessary to protect the health the safety and the morals of the pub lie.
 The board of health of Bridgeport tells every citizen how he shall keep his dooryard, store his garbage, handle his ashes. Neither can that man ap- peal from lawful order upon the ground that he can't afford to obey it.
 Possibly MT. Vincent is familiar with the new building code, which will be- come a law when as many as 13 alder men vote for it and one mayor signs it. From cellar to the capstone on the chimney the city, the state, concerns itself intimately with the business of erecting buildings, pre- scribing in very minute detail what may and what may not be done.
 The claim that the state will not dictate the details of a mans business when necessary for the public welfare is mere batter of corporation lawyers who have spent a life time in the work of placing monopolies above the law.
 What is the peculiar sanctity that attaches to the business of running a railroad, a trolley line. a lighting company or a water company that should make it in the eye of the law superior to the business of building houses?
 MT. Vincent especially suggested that the detail of what kind of cou- piers a railroad should use is not a matter that should receive the atten- tion of the state. But if the difference between one coupler and another is the difference between the lives and deaths of many brakeman as it ac- tual1y is. how then?
 Should not the same state which says to the manufacturer, you shall not unnecessarily kill people in ele- vator shafts, says to a railroad com pany that it shall not unnecessarily crush brakemen to death between cars?