37Q THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In " The Prevention of Railroad Strikes/' * as the title indicates, 

 the author confines himself to the want of harmony existing be- 

 tween railroad companies and their employe's, and suggests a plan 

 for improving their relations by bringing the officials of the roads 

 into closer personal contact with the men. 



An examination of the evils, as above given from various 

 sources, proves them to be symptoms of a chronic disease, at once 

 suggesting a complication of disorders arising from two forms of 

 original stimulation, which, although more or less reciprocal in 

 their operations, are susceptible of a tolerably distinct line of divis- 

 ion : viz., (1) legislative stimulation of railway construction ; (2) 

 legislation tending to push capital into unnatural combinations. 

 These two groups of laws give rise to evils independent of each 

 other, although when coexisting they interact, and not unfre- 

 quently the one furnishes the means while the other affords the 

 occasion for dishonesty, as the construction companies heretofore 

 alluded to make plain ; e. g., while our loose laws, encouraging the 

 construction of new railroads, have afforded the opportunity or 

 occasion for directors to insidiously absorb the profits of stock- 

 holders by the extension of systems, the laws which have united 

 " unbusiness-like and immoral forces " for the control of railway 

 properties have placed in the hands of designing men the tools 

 and means of doing so dishonestly. 



In this present article let us confine the inquiry to the evils 

 arising from laws intended to induce the speedy construction of 

 railroads, and we will leave to a future number the examination 

 of those evils which have developed within the railway corpora- 

 tion itself, of which railroad wrecking, false reports, bribery in 

 railway election, and railroad strikes are familiar phases. 



The splendid opportunities which the railroad afforded for the 

 development of a country's resources were very quickly recognized 

 by society at large, and, being impatient of the reasonable caution 

 exercised by capital before embarking into vast and costly enter- 

 prises, the people through their Legislatures enacted laws espe- 

 cially calculated to promote and hasten the construction of rail- 

 roads, never imagining that any evils could arise therefrom. The 

 Western and central States particularly enacted laws providing 

 for State subsidies and local aid, while the General Government 

 joined the States in the surrender of the public lands to railroads. 

 Nearly all the States passed general railroad laws substantially 

 granting railway charters to any one who followed the legal forms 

 in making application for them. These various laws have all con- 

 tributed to destroy the equilibrium between the normal wants of 

 a developing commerce and the natural development of railway 

 systems within prudential limits to meet the growing demand, 



* Charles Francis Adams, "Scribner's Monthly," April, 1889. 



