TRANSPORTATION THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 345 



wealth in the United States. Place no embargo on enterprise by a 

 dead-line on which is written, " Thus far shalt thou go and no farther." 

 Let the incentive of ambition, of avarice, if you will, be keen to the 

 last, but hedge the opportunities so that no one man's opportunity 

 greatly exceeds that of others ; put the strain, not on getting a living, 

 a competence, but on getting enormous multiples of these. Even then 

 extraordinary fortunes may come, but they will come as the result of 

 circumstances that could not be guarded against, and as the result of 

 commanding and extraordinary talent that never comes in rafts (which 

 would be implied if the present great fortunes were taken as a crite- 

 rion of ability), and these sporadic fortunes will not be a threat to 

 and a corrupter of society ; they will not build up a separate class ; 

 they will be seen as only one of the unusual things in social develop- 

 ment. 



A government relation to and regulation of railroads is classed 

 with a larger general regulation of society by Government than we 

 have heretofore had, and which is in course of development in Ger- 

 many under the leadership of Bismarck ; which is constantly attain- 

 ing greater ground in England in the popular mind under the leader- 

 ship of Chamberlain and others, which is not strenuously objected to 

 by Gladstone, and which bids fair, when that at present disturbed 

 country gets rest from the exciting Irish question and has time to 

 recover itself from the excitement of its recent foreign complications, 

 to express itself in laws bearing on the internal polity of the country. 

 The United States has not greatly entered the lists in this respect. It 

 has not enlarged upon the principles of government incorporated by 

 it in the Constitution ; it has been almost the last to yield the prin- 

 ciple of slavery, and now stands by, seeing Germany, at least, try- 

 ing experiments in government which it has not ventured upon. It 

 must be ranked at present among the conservative governments of 

 the world. The national trepidation of " reforms " is greatest in Great 

 Britain, where there is not the absolutism to hold them in check that 

 there is in Germany. 



Suppose we want to stand on the ground of incorporating no new 

 principle in our Government, where does that leave the railroad prob- 

 lem? We see the consolidations that have taken and are taking 

 place. Those consolidations mean centralization, and centralization 

 has been the bete noir of the United States. The question is, Shall 

 that centralization remain in private hands, with the various ills and 

 violence to our institutions that we are positive of, or shall it come 

 under subjection to, or be shared by, tbe agents and representatives 

 of the people ? 



Certain things are natural in their regulation and government. 

 The first of them is the war-power, which is the starting-point of 

 civilization. Next is the preservation of order from disturbance by 

 internal outbreaks and violence, which is the function of the police. 



