^909.] HAUPT— NATION AND THE WATERWAYS. 53 



This question of cheap transportation becomes, therefore, one 

 of international importance, deserving of the careful consideration 

 of all classes of people and, although much has been said and done 

 to meet the demands of commerce, our retired President has char- 

 acterized the results as being " largely negative," which he attributes 

 to the absence of a comprehensive plan which led to the policy of 

 " repression and procrastination," and he adds : 



" In spite of large appropriations for their improvement our rivers are 

 less serviceable for inter-state commerce to-day than tliey were half a century 

 ago, and in spite of the vast increase in our population and commerce they 

 are on the whole less used." 



This pregnant paragraph represents a condition resulting from 

 a change of policy which has rendered these lamentable results pos- 

 sible, and which is so diametrically opposed to the fundamental 

 principles of this democracy that a brief statement of these innova- 

 tions seems essential to point out the proper remedy. 



Fundamental Principles. 



In his excellent analysis of the dangers threatening the utilities 



of the railroads, from legislative restriction, Mr. Stuyvesant Fish^ 



calls attention to the words of Washington, when retiring from 



public life, as follows: 



" It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking, in a free country, 

 should inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration, to confine 

 themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the 

 exercise of the powers of one department, to encroach upon another. The 

 spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the depart- 

 ments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real 

 despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and a proneness to abuse 

 it which predominates the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the 

 truth of this position . . . If, in the opinion of our people the distribution 

 or modification of the constitutional powers be, in any particular, wrong, let 

 it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the constitution designates. 

 But let there be no change by usurpation for though this, in one instance, 

 may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free 

 governments are destroyed." 



Now, more than a century later, our distinguished Secretary of 



' " The Nation and the Railroads," address before the American Academy 

 of Political and Social Science. No. 553, 1908. 



