THE PEOPLE AN"D THE EAILROADS. 115 



on the foimdation. "No taxation withonfc representation." But 

 here is taxation, and that too without representative voice in it 

 before which, that against which the patriots of the Revolution 

 fought, pales into nothingness. 



We never could have come where we are in respect to the mat- 

 ter of transportation, had we not practically lost sight of one of 

 the most fundamental principles of common law. 



The right of the people to transit was a right that the common 

 law always asserted and protected. It said the rivers should be the 

 people's free highways. It has kept them open up to to-day. 



The common law was always a jealous protector of the right 

 of private property in laud. But beyond any right which a man 

 might have in his acres, it asserted the right of the people some- 

 how and somewhere to find transit over them as their needs might 

 require. 



Behind every individual right lay the public right of eminent 

 domain for the purposes of transit. The river was open to the peo- 

 ple; any man might put his boat thereon and go up or down the 

 stream at his pleasure. The road was open to the people; any man 

 might put his carriage thereon and go whither he would. 



In the development of human industry and art a new method of 

 transit has come into use which supercedes both the old methods. 



The simple question at issue is, ivhether the people are to prespyve 

 ani] of their old rights of transit in this new mode of trail spurtat ion ^ 

 or ivhether they are all to he swallowed up in the private interests of 

 the capital that built and manages the roads. 



Have the masses at large any rights in the new inventions which 

 revolutionize modes of communication and commerce? Did Watt 

 think out the steam engine in the interests of capital only? Did 

 the old vegetation of the coal measures "suck the fire of forgotten 

 suns" only to lodge in the hands of a fortunate few the power to 

 obliterate one of the most cherished rights of the people. 



It is no answer to this inquiry to say that the river and the road 

 are still open to the people, and they can travel on them as of old. 

 The nevv mode of transit has rendered the old compartively useless. 

 The humblest living cannot be earned without making use of the 

 new system of communication. The right of the people to transit 

 it a right inhering in them as to all modes of transit. 

 10 w A s 



