ARE RAILROADS PUBLIC ENEMIES? 155 



pass over their property. . . . No railroad of greater importance than 

 a mere switch ever has been or ever can be built without invoking the 

 sovereignty of the Government in its behalf" (page 111). Under such 

 circumstances, where a man's neighbors have decided that they want a 

 railway, the law so far from taking anything from anybody simply 

 steps in and applies the well-known maxims that a man must use his 

 own so as not to injure his neighbors ; and that, in civilized commu- 

 nities, every citizen yields a fraction of his rights for the general good 

 and society of all. To enable the railway to enforce the general con- 

 sent, it is convenient to apply these maxims against the recalcitrant 

 citizen by the fiction that the Government endows the railroad com- 

 pany for the emergency and for the emergency only with a portion 

 of its own (the Government's) right to take the property of its sub- 

 jects in cases of necessity (as for the public good in times of peace, 

 or the public defense in time of war, etc.). This force is applied, how- 

 ever, not at the expense of the Government, nor even at the expense of 

 the recalcitrant and unpleasant citizen who will not accord with his 

 neighbors, but at the sole expense of the railway company. The 

 result is that, instead of the citizen suffering for his obduracy and 

 obstinacy, he is actually rewarded since he ultimately receives a 

 greater value for his land, without being mulcted in any of the ex- 

 penses of the taking. So far as he is concerned he has lost nothing by 

 his contumacy ; whereas the railway, by his contumacy and without 

 fault on its part, has been put to the costliest plan of acquiring the 

 land. For the purchase of any strip of land, at almost any price, is 

 invariably cheaper than the process of condemnation by private 

 "view," which, both in time and money, is by all odds the very 

 costliest known method of obtaining a railroad's right of way. These 

 " views " are, by statutory requirement, made by persons of the vicin- 

 age, who, in estimating their neighbor's land, estimate their own ; as 

 individuals it can be readily imagined they are not over-solicitous to 

 save the corporation expense, nor to estimate at all without liberal 

 compensation to themselves for their own services : and the result can 

 be readily computed. The laws of eminent domain, as appertaining 

 to railway companies, and their operation in cases of land condemna- 

 tion, are too technical to be elaborated here. But it may be said, as 

 a matter of fact, that their application ceases with the single act of 

 the acquirement of land. Nor is the power of the Government over 

 the citizen ever, except in this solitary instance, exercised by the rail- 

 way company from the beginning to the fine and term of its career ; 

 and, moreover, the grant itself is not only not against public policy 

 and interest, but is directly in favor of the public : being positively 

 granted to the railways as against themselves rather than in their 

 favor, so far as a possible question between the railways and the public 

 can possibly arise. 



What is known as the police power of railways, which is derived 



