344 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



merits, or if we go on as we are going shall we not be forced to 

 admit it ? to the more steadfast types of civilization. 



Already the Toryism of Great Britain is looking with admiring 

 gaze to the Democracy of the United States, rapidly establishing, as 

 it is, a privileged and a favored class, and such leaders as Chamber- 

 lain and Morley, on the crest of a forward movement, men of office 

 and a great following, forge ahead on the line of equality and free- 

 dom such as the latter part of the nineteenth century has brought for- 

 ward, and give small heed to the teachings and institutions of the 

 United States. 



Back of all these facts and postulates is the question, How far 

 is transportation legitimately a subject of government, a branch of 

 government this as distinguished from being a matter merely of 

 commercial enterprise ? We see how easily transportation runs to 

 one head, to one leadership. Competition does not keep this back ; 

 we have thoroughly tried the competitive principle, with all the pre- 

 dilections of our people and our Government in its favor, and it has 

 failed ; competition has been eliminated ; nolens vole?is, the single lead- 

 ership is arriving or has arrived. The question, then, is, Is that lead- 

 ership to be held by a single individual intent on seeking his own 

 fortunes, building up bulwarks of private fortunes around him ; 

 breaking down resentment to his bizarre position by travesties of 

 courts, by legislators who smile and smile, and see their way to vote 

 for him, by douceurs to the placable, by dollars at elections, by free 

 rides, by telegraph-franks, by proprietary and subsidized newspapers, 

 by retainers to high-roller lawyers, by political economy manufact- 

 ured expressly for his benefit, by pillars of society droning of the 

 dangerous tendency of the times, by laissez /aire, by audacious self- 

 assertion and robbery, by chameleon politics, by lofty public spirit, by 

 smiles, lies, and entreaties, by the advertising generous hand, by the 

 adulations of intelligence and virtue which millions of dollars so easily 

 command, and when all else fail by sordid and brute force pressed 

 home on the weak or galled spot of the body politic or the private in- 

 terest ? This is the commercial side of transportation as presented in 

 the United States in the year of grace 1886. Would it not be well 

 to see what there is in governmental transportation, to pay some at- 

 tention to the experience of contemned monarchical governments, to 

 cry a halt on the liberty that permits one or a few to absorb the sub- 

 stance of the state ; to organize this, or commence it at least, by some 

 of the simple forms of regulation that demand publicity, that ferret 

 out discriminations that mean commercial theft and punish them, that 

 stop vibrations between low and high rates in accordance with the 

 whims of disturbed gall or exultant avarice of transportation rulers, 

 that stop the prior knowledge of a favored few of what is to be, and 

 so deprive them of enormous advantages in trade and transportation ? 



This is the way, or the most important step, in the limitation of 



