THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



JUNE, 1887. 

 ARE RAILROADS PUBLIC ENEMIES? 



By APPLETON MOKGAN. 

 (second papee.) 



SINCE a paper printed in the March " Popular Science Monthly " 

 was in type, the Interstate Commerce bill has become law. This 

 law establishes a Commission, to whose decision is now committed the 

 regulation of the railways as to their relations with the individual ship- 

 per. Since the law permits the railway to apply to the Commission for 

 leave to discriminate as to hauls and shippers,* or otherwise to pursue 

 the tenor of which experience has taught the expediency, it need not 

 prevent a final ventilation of the remainder contents of Mr. Hudson's 

 scrap-book against railroads, nor impose upon us the technical dis- 

 cussion hereafter reserved for the Commission itself. Our last paper 

 left over for consideration : 



I. Discriminations by long haul and short haul. 



II. Stock-watering (which Mr. Hudson, however, prefers to nomi- 

 nate " the fictitious element in railway policy " ) ; and 



III. " Eminent domain " (that is to say, a modicum of the power 

 of the State, by acceptance of a grant of which a railroad company is 

 understood to accept the burden of certain public obligations). 



It should be premised, perhaps, even at the risk of becoming ele- 

 mentary, that one railroad company is not all railroads. Such syllo- 

 gisms as : 1. A railway corporation which charges more for a long haul 

 than a short haul is a public enemy. 2. The A B and C D Railroad 

 charges more for a long haul than a short haul ; ergo, all railroads are 

 public enemies or, 1. A corporation which " waters " its capital stock 

 is a public enemy. 2. The E F and G H Railroad once "watered" 

 its stock ; ergo, all railroads are public enemies and the like, are 



* Section 4. 



VOL. XXXI. 10 



