1 Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 487 
think, that neither Government who made the grant? nor those who 
made subscriptions in aid of the roads, have had a voice in their 
management. It is true that in theory every holder of stock has a, 
voice in the corporations of which he is a stockholder, but somehow 
it has not practically resulted that way to any great extent with 
municipalities that have subscribed the aid. 
It is not material now to know whose fault it has been that it is 
so, and it is by no means certain that it is the fault of anybody. 
We have only mentioned the fact to show why it is that our people 
who now own but little of any stock in any of the roads of this 
state, feel that somehow they belong in part to them, and that they 
have, or should have some voice in their management. It is true 
that all the roads in the state are not land-grant roads, but there is 
scarcely any road but has been the recipient of generous aid from 
our people, full up to the extent of their means, and always up to 
last winter, the legislation of the state has been liberal and gener¬ 
ous to them, believing all the time that their interest and the inter¬ 
est of the roads were identical, as when rightly considered they re¬ 
ally were and are. Some complaints, however, had been made. It 
would therefore, we suggest, be assuming too much to say, that in 
what was done last winter, the people were all at fault and the rail¬ 
roads free from blame. 
If the interest of the people and the railroads are identical, and 
everybody says they are, we may be sure that they will not long re¬ 
main in hostility to each other, no matter what may be the legal 
power of the state over the question, and on that subject I will sim¬ 
ply quote what I have said in the discussion before the courts: u I 
am quite sure that the state has sufficient power over corperations 
to secure the people against wrong and injustice, against extortion¬ 
ate rates and unjust discriminations, and if our constitution gives 
more power than this, it gives too much, and therefore the power 
never should be exercised even if it exists. Of what avail is it for 
this court to hold that the legislature has absolute power of life and 
death over corporations * * * when the exercise of such pow¬ 
er would in any imaginable contingency be as oppressive to the peo¬ 
ple of the state and to every material interest in it, as it could be to 
the corporations against which such legislation is aimed.” 
Again, when we reflect that the interest of the people and the 
railroads are identical, we can all see and appreciate that any legis- 
