ARE RAILROADS PUBLIC ENEMIES? 581 



Why, says Mr. Hudson, with admirable circumferentiality, from the 

 domination of railways. Clearly we must get this kernel out of Mr. 

 Hudson's crop if we are to proceed with him any further : and to dis- 

 pose of it may require a moment or two of our attention. 



The greatest of powers, undoubtedly, is the human brain ; and, so 

 long as it is the instinct of man to scheme for his own aggrandize- 

 ment, certainly the greatest brain will scheme to the greatest profit to 

 himself. A dozen men in the United States have been able to amass, 

 from management (or, if the word is preferred, manipulation) of the 

 railway systems of the country, the largest single fortunes known to 

 history : not in land, in interests in estimated wealth, but in actual 

 comfortable, convertible cash, representing no manual labor of their 

 own, no commensurate investment of capital, and no proportional 

 benefit to the race. But, because Mr. Hudson is virtuous, are there to 

 be no more cakes and ale ? Because Mr. Gould is very rich, are there 

 to be no more railway companies ? Because these dozen fortunes are 

 beyond any heretofore conceived relation of reward for personal in- 

 dustry, is the material by manipulation of which they have been accu- 

 mulated, noxious, bad in itself, and dangerous to the common weal ? 

 These fortunes are, for our present purpose, the pure result of brain- 

 labor, the rewards of pure thought. Let us leave out of the reckoning 

 whether they are honest or dishonest fortunes ; or, if Mr. Hudson 

 prefers, let us concede them to be dishonest. The fact, the only fact, 

 necessary to the discussion of his own questions on his own ground is 

 that they have been accumulated by the purchase, manipulation, and 

 operation of railways. The people make the laws, not the railroads. 

 To argue that railroads, quoad railroads, are hateful to public policy, 

 dangerous to the public peace, threatening to public morals, and des- 

 tined in time to destroy the commonwealth, as private luxury once 

 destroyed old Rome, seems to me the simple fallacy which logicians 

 call an " undistributed middle." As well condemn any other thing be- 

 cause at some time something of its species has been manipulated to a 

 personal and exorbitant profit. Banish corn, wheat, or coal, because 

 great " corners " have been planned in those staples, and hundreds of 

 thousands of consumers obliged to pay more than they ought to have 

 paid, when a few schemers, who had schemed for months, had sud- 

 denly sprung upon these unsuspecting thousands their long-perfected 

 plans ! 



Shakespeare makes one of his characters put the question, " How 

 do men live ? " and another answers it : " Marry, as the fishes in the 

 sea, the big ones eat up the little ones." The .struggle for existence 

 which our brute ancestors carried on with teeth and claws and fangs, 

 we still perpetuate with interlocked and grappling brains. They strove 

 and tore and trampled each other for the food their bellies craved, in 

 specie ; we fight for values instead. But the result is the same : the 

 strongest brain, as once the strongest limb, wins. And when, as within 



