i89o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
719 
SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT OWN 
THE TELEGRAPHS AND 
RAILROADS ? 
( Continued .) 
It is said that government ownership of 
railroads is incompatible with the spirit of 
our institutions, because it? would mean 
the forcible seizure of individual property. 
But who doubts the government’s right of 
eminent domain ? Was not a part of this 
very property taken from private citizens 
by this same right on the plea of public ne¬ 
cessity ? It is also alleged that while the 
general government may have a constitu¬ 
tional right to assume the ownership of 
railroads which cross State boundaries, it 
has no such right with regard to railroads 
which are confined to the limits of any 
single State. Is it to be supposed for a 
moment that the constitutional clause re¬ 
lating to the regulation of “ commerce 
among the several States,” can be so con¬ 
strued as to limit governmental control to 
railroads which cross State boundaries ? 
Because a road does not actually cross a 
State boundary, while it is connected with 
other roads that do, is it on that account 
any less necessary to commerce between 
the people living in the interior of the dif¬ 
ferent States, or is it less a post-road ? Would 
it not be the hight of stupidity to limit 
the power conferred on Congress so as to 
enable corporations controlling public 
roads to nullify it, by changing the names 
and nominal ownership of them at State 
lines ? The right to regulate inter State 
commerce evidently implies the right to* 
control it along every part of its course, 
whether it lies wholly within the limits of 
any single State or extends beyond it. 
But granted that the government of this 
country*, like that of other countries, has 
the right to take possession of the rail¬ 
roads on the payment of reasonable com¬ 
pensation to their owners, should it do so ? 
It is more than probable that already a 
considerable majority of the people of this 
country would vote for such a measure, 
and the belief in the necessity for it is 
steadily and rapidly spreading. The same 
is the case in England, where the people 
more closely resemble ourselves than any 
other, and where liberty is loved and 
officialism hated as much as in America. 
In 1873 a commission was appointed to in¬ 
quire into the matter, and, though the 
reasons for the transfer there are less 
cogent than here, it is the opinion of im 
partial judges that the State ownership of 
the railroads of the country, which 20 
years ago was looked upon as almost 
chimerical, is now regarded as a very prob¬ 
able contingency. Nearly 20 years ago the 
English government assumed possession of 
the telegraph service, and since then it has 
so greatly extended its scope, lowered its 
tariff and improved its operations that a 
proposition to restore it to private owner¬ 
ship now would be universally scouted. 
In the colony of Victoria, Australia, where 
the form of government is popular like our 
own, and its methods equally partisan, and 
where the people are the counterpart of 
ours, the governmental management of the 
railroads has been a brilliant success. The 
first results of the government’s acquisition 
of the railroads in Germany were uniform¬ 
ity of tariffs throughout the empire, the 
impossibility of obtaining special rates or 
of personal favoritism, and the cheapening 
of transportation charges. Wherever the 
government of other countries has taken 
control of the railroads from private man¬ 
agement the same story is repeated. Why 
should the people of this country be any 
longer deprived of the advantages enjoyed 
by those of other nations, especially as in 
no other country have the abuses of the 
private ownership of the railroads been so 
outrageous ? 
What other people have just grounds for 
complaint of such exorbitant charges, ren¬ 
dered necessary here by the desire to pay the 
highest interest on capitalizations which, 
owing to corrupt and wasteful methods of 
construction and excessive stock-wateriug, 
greatly exceed the value of the roads ? 
What other people would tamely submit to 
the overbearing, unjust and arbitrary 
treatment the public, from one end of this 
country to another, constantly receive from 
the railroad management f What other 
people would, year after year, consent to 
be arbitrarily taxed to pay interest on vast 
amounts of fictitious capital for the rapid 
enrichment of unscrupulous railroad man¬ 
agers ? In the years 18S0-IS82, 29,000 miles 
of railroad were built in the United States, 
upon which a paper value of $70,000 per 
mile was placed, but which actually cost 
less than $30,000 per mile, and the amount 
of watered stock in the Erie alone is $77,- 
000,000, while the proportion of “ water ” 
in some of the other roads is still greater. 
Probably the most detrimental and vex¬ 
atious of the abuses of railroad manage¬ 
ment is the unfair and iniquitous discrim¬ 
ination it has exercised in favor of particular 
places and persons. So outrageous has this 
often been that there are few sections of 
the country in which particular towns have 
not been greatly injured or ruined by it, 
while rival places have been proportion¬ 
ately benefited. Thousands of smart, ener¬ 
getic, wide-awake merchants and other bus¬ 
iness men have been badly hampered or 
driven to the wall and forced to abandon 
their vocations, while some of their much 
less capable neighbors have prospered 
mightily owing to the same baleful influ¬ 
ence. Indeed, wide areas have been greatly 
injured by the unjust discrimination of 
railroads by which shippers nearest the great 
markets or at points removed from compe¬ 
tition have been compelled to pay nearly as 
high, or the same, or even a greater rate than 
shippers situated farther away or at compet¬ 
ing points. Where unjust discrimination has 
been made in favor of large concerns, such as 
the Standard Oil Trust, there is little or no 
doubt that it has always been the result of 
a corrupt bargain with the management 
of the railroads to the injury of their secur¬ 
ity-holders. Indeed, not the least of the 
abuses of railroad manipulators has been 
the unscrupulous or absolutely dishonest 
way in which they have frequently neg¬ 
lected the interests of the latter or posi¬ 
tively swindled them out of their invest¬ 
ments. So far has this disreputable prac¬ 
tice been carried that certain railroad 
magnates have notoriously accumulated a 
large proportion of their millions by rail¬ 
road wrecking—by purposely bankrupting 
the roads, and then re-organizing them, 
freezing out most of the security-holders 
in the process. 
Another of the great evils of the times is 
the demoralizing effect on our politics of 
the vast money power of the railroads, and 
their unscrupulous use of it to influence 
legislation. Not only do they maintain an 
expensive lobby at every State capital as 
well as at Washington, to purchase the 
votes of corrupt legislators, but at every 
election they spend large sums to secure 
the nomination and election of candidates 
for our State and National legislatures, 
who will favor their interests. Then 
again, who can doubt that the vast patron¬ 
age within their control is frequently used 
to secure the same end ? Are the passes 
and other favors lavished so freely on our 
legislators, judges, editors, and on a multi¬ 
tude of others in influential positions, dis¬ 
interested gifts for which no returns are 
expected ? To the seen observer it is diffi¬ 
cult to exaggerate the magnitude of this 
abuse or the danger arising from it to the 
public welfare. In fact the railroad power, 
by the unscrupulous use it is ever ready to 
make of the vast influence at its command, 
has become a menace to the Republic. 
For years the public have been instructed 
to weariness on the benefits and evils of 
free trade with foreign nations ; but what¬ 
ever opinion they may entertain on the 
subject, all agree on the desirability of free 
trade within our own boundaries. But 
while multitudes grow excited over the 
iniquity of a comparatively small and defi¬ 
nite tax on our trade with foreign coun¬ 
tries, even though it goes into the public 
treasury and is levied in the name of the 
Nation, how few seem to see anything ob¬ 
jectionable in the taxation of our domestic 
trade, by private persons, at private ca¬ 
price, for private profit! Surely most of us 
will agree with Bellamy, that it is only nec¬ 
essary that the people should see this 
matter in its true light, to bring about a 
practical unanimity of opinion in favor of 
untaxed free trade within the Union, and 
of the only means of securing this—a na¬ 
tional railroad service to be run at cost and 
not for profit. 
(To be continued.) 
Read the second cash prize offer , 
under Publisher's Desk, on page 716. 
The 
hters 
Written and Edited by 
Mrs. Margaret Bottome, 
President of the Order. 
A NEW DEPARTMENT IN 
•7, 
*71 
*7] 
33 
f] 
$ 
$ 
<[\ 
Yj 
<\ 
<\ 
*7j 
f) 
3 
Entirely devoted to the best interests of the order of the “ King’s Daughters,” and of striking 
interest to every “ King’s Daughter” in the land. It will be written and edited by Mrs. Margaret 
Bottome, the founder and President of the Order, who in this department, will give each month 
“talks" similar to those which she made famous last winter in the drawing-rooms of the best New York houses. 
Is a department which 
is read every month by 
thousands of girls who 
buy the Journal for 
this feature alone. 
Every point in a girl’s 
life is here treated: 
what is best for her to 
wear; most becoming 
manners in society; behavior; all told in a chatty manner by one of the brightest writers in the land. 
CONTENTS FOR THIS DEPARTMENT IN THE OCTOBER ISSUE: 
HOW TO LEARN TO TALK WELL; A MISTAKE YOU MAKE; 
HOW TO BE PRETTY THIS FALL: SAYING “GOOD MORNING;” 
MANNERS WHEN AT CHURCH; MY GIRLS’ MOTHERS. 
E 
E 
it 
& 
1 
i 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
| 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
i 
•f 
if 
f 
if 
f 
f 
if 
if 
it 
1892 —that is, the balance of this year E 
iSgi, to January ist, 1892. Also, our E 
handsome 40-page Premium Catalogue, illustrating a thousand articles, and including “ Art Needlework ^ 
Instructions,” by Mrs. A. R. RAMSEY ; also Kensington Art Designs, by JANE S. CLARK, of London. 
1m CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY, Philadelphia, Pa. 
^hf if if if if if if if if if if if if if iff if ifififififififififififififif t if if if if*7itt 
r f)nn fin!In r» We wil1 mail the J ournal from now to January i, 
rUS FREEi and a FULL YEAR from January xst, 
