SHOULD THE NATION OWN THE RAILWAYS? 51 



GmiUl niul the S;inta Fe be repeated of building 240 miles side by side for construction 

 profits, uiucli of which is located in the arid portion of Kansas, where there is never 

 likely to ho traflic for even one railway. Mucli of the Republic is covered with closely 

 parallel lines which would never have been built under national ownership, and this pro- 

 cess will (!ontinue as long as the manipulators can make vast sums out of construction. 



A nrth olijeetion is that with the amount of red-tape that will be in use it will pe 

 impossible to secure the building of needed lines. 



While such objection is inconsistent with the fourth, it may have some force but as 

 the greater part of the country is already provided with all the railways that will be 

 needed for a generation it is not a very serious objection, even if it is as difficult as asserted 

 to procure the building of new lines. Il is not probable, however, that the government; 

 Would refuse to build any line that would clearly subserve public convenience ; the con- 

 duct of the postal service negativing such a supposition, and for party purposes the ad- 

 ministration would certainly favor the construction of such lines as were clearly needed 

 anil it is high time that only such should be built, and what instrumentality so fit to de- 

 termine this as a non-partisan commission acting as the agent of the whole people? The 

 sixth objection is that lines built by the government would cost much more than if built 

 by corporations. 



Possibly this would be true, but they would be much better built and cost far less 

 for maintenance and "betterments" and would represent no more than actual cost, and 

 such lines as the Kansas Midland, costing but $10,200 per mile, would not, as now, be cap- 

 italized at 153,024 per mile, nor would the president of the Union Pacifie (as does Sidney 

 Dillon in the North American Review for April) say that "A citizen, simply as a citizeni 

 commits an impertinence when he questions the right of a corporation to capitalize its 

 properties at any sum whatever," as then there would be no Sidney Dillons who would 

 be presidents of corporations pretending to own railways built wholly from government 

 moneys and lauds, and who have never invested a dollar in the construction of a property 

 which they have now capitalized at the modest sum of |106,000 per mile. After such an 

 achievement iu making much out of nothing, it is no wonder that Mr. Dillon is a multi- 

 millionaire and thinks it an impertinence when a citizeu asks how he has discharged his 

 trust iu relation to a railway built wholly with public funds, no part of which Mr. Dillon 

 and his as.sociates seem in haste to pay back ; their indebtedness to ibe government, with 

 many years of unpaid interest, amounting to more than $50,000,000, which is morp than 

 the ca.sh cost Of the railway upon which these men have been so sharp as to induce the 

 government, after furuishiug all the money expended in its construction, to accept a 

 second mortgage, and now asks the same accommodating government to reduce the rate 

 of interest— which they make no pretense of paying — to a nominal figure, and to wait 

 another hundred years for both principal and interest. To make sure that the govern- 

 ment's second mortgage shall be no more valuable than second mortgages usually are, 

 and to make it more comfortable for the manipulators, Messrs. Gould and Dillon now 

 propose to put a blanket first mortgage of .$250,000,000 on this property built wholly from 

 funds derived from the sale of goverumeut lands and hoods, and to pay the interest on 

 which bonds the people are yearly taxed, although Mr. Dillon and his associates con- 

 tracted to pay such interest. In his conception of the relations of the railway corpora" 

 tiiius to the public Mr. Dillon is clearly not in accord with the higher tribunals which 

 hold, iu substance, that railways are public rather than private property and that the 

 share-holders are entitled to but a reasonable compensation for the capital actually ex- 

 pended in construction and a limited control of the property and in this connection it 

 may be well to quote briefly from decisions of the United States Supreme Court, which, 

 in the case of the Wabash llailway vs. Illinois, uses this lauguage: "The highways in 

 the state are ihe highways of the state. The highways are not of private but 

 of public institution and regulation. In modern times, it is true, government is 

 iu the habit, in some countries, of letting out the construction of important 

 highways, requiring a large expenditure of capital, to agents generally corporate 

 bodies created for the purpose, and giving them the right of taxing those who 



