THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 73 



any case where a State Legislature or the people en- 

 deavor to deprive them of any of the privileges specifi- 

 cally conferred by their charters. But they will make 

 a mistake if they presume that any law bars out the 

 people from ascertaining whether or not they are com- 

 plying with their obligations under the contract. The 

 courts will extend to the people the same protection 

 that they extend to the corporations ; and, in the con- 

 flict between the railroads and the farmers, the princi- 

 pal thing to be determined by evidence is whether the 

 rates charged by the railroads represent a profit on the 

 actual investment, or a percentage on fictitious capital 

 not authorized under the charters, but created in a 

 variety of ways without the investment of money. If 

 the former, the railroad rates will be sustained; if the 

 latter, the rates will be changed, in one way or another, 

 and the railroads will be forced to be content with 

 earnings that will pay a fair interest on the actual in- 

 vestment. 



" In the eyes of the law a corporation is a fictitious 

 person, created for special purposes and strictly limited 

 to the terms of its charter. It can take nothing by 

 implication. It can form no copartnerships, enter into 

 no business transactions, spread out into no field not 

 explicitly defined in the law which originally brought 

 it into being, or in amendments thereto. Now, we 

 know of no railroad charter which authorizes the cor- 

 poration to earn a percentage on fictitious capital, and 

 the courts will not construe this to be an unexpressed 

 or implied privilege of the railroads. On the contrary, 

 the law expressly holds that railroads must make fair 

 and reasonable rates and rates can be neither fair nor 

 reasonable which represent dividends on capital that 



