CHAPTER XLI. 



GOVERNMENTAL OWNERSHIP OF RAILWAYS. 



ITS CORRUPTING POWER. 



One of the most chimerical schemes, though plausible on 

 its surface, for regulating the inter-state transportation of the 

 country, is the proposition that government shall buy and 

 work the railroads of the country. This idea is a great pet 

 with those who have plundered the people of untold millions, 

 through the sinking in their own pockets of the local aid 

 secured in building their roads, and who have gobbled up im 

 mense tracts of land obtained through corrupt legislation, 

 and other nefarious plunderings. If the railroads of the 

 country with their fictitious and inflated stocks were to be 

 turned over to government, and bonds taken therefor, what 

 a vast debt would be created, to be added to the load now 

 borne by a people already taxed far beyond the limits of 

 patient endurance ! 



Let us imagine the situation with the scheme actually 

 consummated : The interest on the lands must be paid ; the 

 salaries of the officials and they must be experts must be 

 paid ; the system must be extended ; the wear and tear must 

 be made good; machinery, buildings, and the thousand and 

 one etceteras, which none but a railroad expert can even 

 name, must be provided for; defalcations and peculations 

 would constantly occur; there could be no rigid economy 



(484) 



