456 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and upon them is made incumbent and peremptory the duty of 

 "regulating" the affairs of the railways. What is, and what 

 must he, the result ? The average politician knows fully as little 

 or as much about railway management as he does about photo- 

 graphing the moon or applying the solar spectrum; yet, once 

 upon a board of railway commissioners, he is required to excogi- 

 tate and frame rules for an industry which not only supplies 

 the financial arteries of a continent, but holds the lives as well as 

 the credits of its citizens dependent upon the click of a telegraph 

 or the angle of a semaphore — an industry which adjusts at once 

 the most volatile and the most ponderous forces of nature to 

 every necessary or luxurious service of our people ! And, since 

 thirty-eight boards of these accomplished commissioners were not 

 enough, the General Government has kindly added another — not 

 to regulate or supervise these thirty-eight, but to act in independ- 

 ent chaos to their tergiversations, and to contribute to the gen- 

 eral value of their independent conclusions, ordinances, rules, 

 and codes. What must, or rather what must not, be the result, 

 when the country asks, as it appears to be now asking, to be 

 furnished with railway experts and traffic accountants at the 

 polls ? 



When the socialist programme shall be carried out to its full, 

 it is understood that there is to be no inequality between the capi- 

 talist and the tramp. This equality, however, need not wait the 

 perfection of that programme. It can be achieved to-day by two 

 extremely simple methods. Either the tramp can go to work, 

 earn money, economize, and become a capitalist, or the capitalist 

 can divide with the tramp. But while the capitalist, for his part, 

 opposes no objection to the first plan, the latter appears to be the 

 only one the tramp will listen to. Both seem to be at present in 

 abeyance. But, as to those aggregations of operated capital we 

 call railway companies, I am not so sure but that the entering 

 wedge for the second plan has been inserted. Let us see. 



The interstate commerce act, with its administrative commis- 

 sion, does its fine work by forbidding two things; namely, 

 "pools" and "discriminations." The State acts, with their 

 administrative boards, also deny these two, but add edicts as to 

 almost everything else: charges for service, size and cost of 

 equipments, ratio of salaries, etc., to be charged, made or paid by 

 their pupils the railway companies. I shall attempt in this paper 

 to show that all this tutelage can have but one logical and politi- 

 cal outcome ; and that outcome — confiscation ! The terminal 

 sounds harsh, extravagant, impossible ! But let us lead up to it 

 and see if it be either. 



The word " discrimination " means almost everything, and can 

 hardly be limited to anything definitive. If I invite one of my 



