776 Gubernatorial Messages 



During the year 1899 not a single corporation has 

 received at the hands of the State of New York 

 one privilege of any kind, sort or description, by 

 law or otherwise, to which it was not entitled, and 

 which was not in the public interest; nor has cor- 

 porate influence availed against any measure which 

 was in the public interest. At certain times, and in 

 certain places, corporations have undoubtedly ex- 

 erted a corrupting influence in political life; but in 

 this State for this year it is absolutely true, as shown 

 by the history of every measure that has come before 

 the Legislature from the franchise tax down, that no 

 corporate influence has been able to prevail against 

 the interests of the public. 



It has become more and more evident of late 

 years that the State will have to act in its collective 

 capacity as regards certain subjects which we have 

 been accustomed to treat as matters affecting the 

 private citizen only, and that furthermore, it must 

 exercise an increasing and more rigorous control 

 over other matters which it is not desirable that it 

 should directly manage. It is neither possible nor 

 desirable to lay down a general hard and fast rule 

 as to what this control should be in all cases. There 

 is no possible reason in pure logic why a city, for 

 instance, should supply its inhabitants with water, 

 and allow private companies to supply them with 

 gas, any more than there is why the general govern- 

 ment should take charge of the delivery of letters but 

 not of telegrams. On the other hand, pure logic has 

 a very restricted application to actual social and civic 



