TRANSPORTATIONTHE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 343 



In this service of transportation the individuals who are served 

 cohere, they become the public ; the transportation company, acting 

 in its proper sphere, is the " servant " of the public as the President 

 and all executive officers are servants of the public and of the people. 

 If transportation companies favor one it does not end there, it injures 

 somebody else ; the favor received is an injury to the business com- 

 petitor of the favored one. This is positive evidence, as the condem- 

 nations of public and private property for their use is negative evi- 

 dence, that they exercise public functions. 



If it was not profitable for individuals to establish the most ap- 

 proved means of transportation, it would be the duty of the State to 

 establish them. On this theory the United States Government grants 

 lands and its credit for the construction of the Pacific Railroads, indi- 

 vidual States have built canals, and cities construct water-works and 

 sewers. 



All this, in connection with the character of the power of railroad 

 and other transportation managers, means that they riot in the exer- 

 cise of public power, and in the execution of public functions, the 

 same as kings rioted in their power before it was satisfactorily demon- 

 strated that their only or most legitimate use was to exercise for the 

 interest of the public a delegated power. 



The United States, standing on the ground of laissez /aire more 

 than any other civilized nation, has been the slowest in asserting itself 

 in regard to the public functions of railroad companies, and, while we 

 can not weigh accurately the value to us as a nation of over-construc- 

 tion and over-competition in railroads, presuming that there has been 

 a value in them, we have had violence done to the spirit of our insti- 

 tutions ; we have had the conditions of life, actual or relative, made 

 harder to the average man ; we have had suspicions cast upon the die- 

 turn of Lincoln, that this is a government of the people, by the people, 

 and for the people ; and we have seen the transportation corporations 

 usurp or control the wealth, the honors, the Government (of their own 

 specific and of a general kind) of the United States in a way that is 

 abhorrent to the general sense of justice of civilized, or at least Eng- 

 lish-speaking, people. We have arrived at that position where we can 

 not claim much advantage except our virgin soil, and what comes from 

 our extent and isolation, over the governments of Europe that emerged 

 into civilization from the dark ages, whose people have been afflicted 

 with the theory of the divine right of kings, and who are, in one 

 country or another, now loaded with primogeniture, entail, aristocratic 

 orders in society, church government imposed upon state government, 

 and a system so prejudicial to personal advantage that years of youth 

 are condemned to participation in, or preparation for, war. The special 

 kind of humanity that, it has been claimed, grew and would continue 

 to grow on American soil, seems to have many departures from the 

 boasted type, and we assimilate more and more to the older govern- 



