52 SHOULD THE NATION OWN THE EAILWAYS ? 



travel or transport goods thereon as a means of obtaining compensation for their 

 outlay; but a superintending power over the highways and the charges imposed upon the 

 public for their use always remains in the government." Again in Olcott vs. the Super- 

 visors it is held that: "Whether the use of a railway is a public or private one depends)" 

 no measure upon the question who constructed it or who owns it. It has never been con- 

 sidered of auy importance that the road was built by the agency of a private corporation. 

 No matter who is the agent the function performed is that of the State." 



Mr. Justice Bradley says: "When a railroad is chartered it is for the purpose of 

 performing a duty which belongs to the State itself. * * * * It is the duty 

 and prei'ogative of the State to provide means of intercommunication between one part of 

 its territory and another." 



If, as appears, such is the duty of the State (nation) why should not the StateVesume 

 the discharge of this duty when the corporate agents to which it has delegated it are 

 found to be using the delegated power for the purpose of oppressing and plundering a 

 public which it is the duty of the government to protect? 



The abilities of the man who cannot become a multi-millionaire with the free use, 

 for 25 years, of $33,000,000 of government funds must be of a very low order and it is no 

 wonder, that after having for so many years had the use of such a sum without pajTueut 

 of interest Mr. Dillon and his associates are very wealthy and like others who are re- 

 taining what does not belong to them think it an impertinence when the owner enquires 

 what use they are making of property to which they have no right. Had the nation 

 built the Union Pacific there would have been no "Credit-Mobilier" and its unsavory 

 scandal and it is safe to say that the road would not now be made to represent an expendi- 

 ture of $106,000 per mile and that Mr. Dillon and some others would not have so much 

 money as to warrant them in putting on such insufferable airs. When it is remembered 

 what use Oaks Ames and the Union Pacific crew made of issues of stock it is not at all 

 surprising that the president of the Union Pacific should think it an impertinence for a 

 citizen to question the amount of capitalization or the use to which a part of such issues 

 have been put some of which are within the knowledge of the writer so far as relates to 

 issues of that part of the Union Pacific lying in Kansas and built by Samuel Hallett who 

 told the writer that he gave a member of the then federal cabinet several thousand 

 shares of the capital stock of the "Union Pacific Railway Eastern Division" — now the 

 Kansas division of the Union Pacific— to secure the acceptance of sections of the road which 

 were not built in accordance with the requirements of the act of Congress which provided 

 that a given amount of government bonds per mile should be delivei'ed to the railway 

 company when certain offlcials should accept the road and it was a quarrel with the chief 

 engineer of the road in relation to a letter written by such engineer to President Lincoln, 

 Informing him of the defective construction of this road, that caused Samuel Hallett to be 

 shot down in the streets of Wyandotte, Kansas by engineer Talcott. It is within the 

 the knowledge of the writer that the member of the cabinet to whom Mr. Hallett said he 

 gave several thousand shares of stock held an amount of Union Pacific shares 

 years afterwards and that many years after he left the cabinet he continued to draw a 

 large salary from the Union Piicific company. Mr. Hallett also told the writer the argu- 

 ments applied to Congressmen to induce them to change the government lien from a, first to 

 a second nioitgag.,' of the Pacific Railway lines aud what was his contribution in dollars 

 to the fund used to enable congressmen to see the force of the arguments used. 



When issues of railway shares are used for corrupt purposes it is certainly an im- 

 pertinence for a citizen to make enquiries or offer any remarks in relation thereto. 



The seventh objection to state owned railways is that they are incapable of progres- 

 sive improvement, as are corporate owned ones, and will not keep pace with the progress 

 of the nation in other respects, and in his Forum article Mr. Acworth lays great stress 

 upon this phase of the question and argues that as a result the service will be far less sat- 

 isfactory than now. 



There may be force in this objection, but the evidence points to the opposite con- 

 clusion. When the nation owns the railways trains will run into union depots, the 

 equipment will become uniform and of the best character, and so sufficient that the traffic 



