THE PEOPLE AND THE RAILROADS. 14:7 



tation — the right to it in the freest way — in the cheapest way con- 

 sistent with justice to the capital invested in transportation enter- 

 prise. 



We are in our present imbroglio, in respect to railroads, because 

 we have lost sight of the fact that there are two distinct interests- 

 vested in them. 



The people have not heretofore asserted their rights; and, of the' 

 people's rights, the railroad corporations have been willingly igno- 

 ran t. 



The railroad position, at least in the northwest to-day, is that of 

 denial of all public right in the railways and of defiance of all con- 

 trol over them. 



The open contempt exhibited by the railway companies for the 

 recent legislation of the people, and the tone and import of the 

 latest reports of the presidents of the leading railroad companies is 

 the suf&cient evidence of this fact. The issue is joined on this plain 

 question — whether railroads are a private concern entirely. The 

 people maintain that the railroad corporations stand in a relation 

 of trust to themselves to whom they must give account of the deeds 

 done in their corporate body, as well as the operators who manip- 

 ulate their stocks. The people maintain that railroa-d property is 

 not private property, like a farm or a stock of goods in a store. 

 Whatever of private property there is in them is property laid doicn 

 on the foundation oj a public use as no other property is. It is prop- 

 erty' laid down over an old time right of the people — a right that 

 13ermeates it eveiywhere. 



De Witt Clinton's idea was that transportation was wholly a 

 public business. It would be instructive to have the history of our 

 unfortunate departure from the principles and practices of De Witt 

 Clinton. Our recent legislation is charged in certain quarters with 

 being an unjustifiable attack on the rights of private property. j 



The Hon. D.ivid A. Wells says that objection to that leiiislation 

 is founded ultimately on the command "" thou shalt not steal." It 

 ill becomes those who are attempting to convert an old time com- 

 mon law right of the people to their own especial use and behoof, 

 to talk about theft. 



As between the obliteration of a right and the regulation of a 

 rate it does not require much ability to decide where the most^wan- 

 ton meddlesomeness lies. 



