Part 26 (1/2)

”Since the pa.s.sage of the laws creating the railroad and warehouse commission, in 1871, Illinois has made very important advances toward the solution of the railroad problem.

”The questions involved in this problem have not only been before the people of this State, but in other States and countries.

”In England, after the railroad had become a fact, it was recognized as a public highway. The right of Parliament to fix rates for the transportation of pa.s.sengers and freight by railroad corporations was therefore a.s.serted, and schedules of rates were put into their charters. Those familiar with the subject need not be told that the attempt to establish rates in this manner was a failure. Then it was a.s.serted that compet.i.tion, if encouraged by the Government, would prove a remedy for the abuses with which the railroads were charged. The suggestion was acted upon. The Government encouraged the construction of competing lines. As a result, rates fell.

Compet.i.tion, however, finally began to entail disaster upon the compet.i.tors and compel them to become allies to escape destruction.

The compet.i.tors combined; railroads were consolidated; rival lines were united, and compet.i.tion was thus destroyed. The danger of great combinations of this kind, not only to the business interests of the country, but also to the State, was at once suggested, and occasioned alarm. This alarm resulted in a public opinion that the Government should own the railroads. But consolidation, to the surprise of the prophets of evil, did not result in higher rates. On the contrary, lower rates and higher dividends resulted.

”Thus by a logical process of attempt and failure to control railroad corporations, the conclusion was reached that wise policy required permission to such corporations to operate their railroads in their own way upon ordinary business principles. But at the same time a board of commissioners was wisely created and authorized to hear and determine complaints against railroad corporations, and to exercise other important powers. This board was created about five years ago; and the most notable feature in its career, says Charles Francis Adams, junior, is the very trifling call that seems to have been made upon it. The cases which come before it are neither numerous nor of great importance. It would, however, be unwholly safe to conclude from this fact that such a tribunal is unnecessary.

On the contrary, it may be confidently a.s.serted that no competent board of railroad commissioners clothed with the peculiar power of the English board, will, either there or anywhere else, have many cases to dispose of. The mere fact that a tribunal is there, that a machinery does exist for the prompt and final decision of that cla.s.s of questions put an end to them. They no longer arise.

”The process through which the public mind in America has pa.s.sed on the railroad question is not dissimilar to that through which the public mind of England pa.s.sed. But here compet.i.tion was relied on from the first. To all who asked for them railroad charters were granted. The result has been the construction of railroads in all parts of the country, many of them through districts of country without business, or even population, as well as between all business centres and through populous, fertile, and well cultivated regions. Free trade in railroad building, and the too liberal use of munic.i.p.al credit in their aid, has induced the building of some lines which are wholly unnecessary, and which crowd, duplicate, and embarra.s.s lines previously built and which were fully adequate to the needs of the community.

”In Illinois, railroad enterprises have been particularly numerous and have made the State renowned for having the most miles of railroad track--for being the chief railroad State.

”But compet.i.tion did not result according to public antic.i.p.ation.

The competing corporations worked without sufficient remuneration at competing points, and, to make good the losses resulting, were often guilty of extortion at the non-competing points. They discriminated against persons and places. Citizens protested against these abuses in vain. The railroad corporations, when threatened with the power of the Government, indulged in the language of defiance, and attempted to control legislation to their own advantage. At last public indignation became excited against them.

They did not heed it. They believed the courts would be their refuge from popular fury. The indignation of the people expressed itself in many ways and finally found utterance in the Const.i.tution of 1870. In this Const.i.tution may be found all the phases of opinion on the railroad question through which the English mind has run. The railroad is declared a public highway. The establishment of reasonable rates of charges is directed; compet.i.tion between railroads is recognized as necessary to the public welfare; and the General a.s.sembly is required to pa.s.s laws to correct abuses and to prevent unjust discrimination and extortion in the rates and pa.s.senger tariffs on the different railroads of the State, and enforce such laws by adequate penalties to the extent, if necessary for that purpose, of forfeiture of their property and franchises.

”The Const.i.tution did more than this. To correct abuses of the interests of the farmers from whose fields warehous.e.m.e.n in combination with corporate common carriers had been drawing riches, it declared all elevators or structures where grain or other property was stored for a compensation, public warehouses, and expressly directed the General a.s.sembly to pa.s.s laws for the government of warehouses, for the inspection of grain, and for the protection of producers, s.h.i.+ppers, and receivers of grain and produce.

”Promptly after the adoption of the Const.i.tution the Legislature attempted to give these provisions vitality by the enactment of laws to carry them out. One of these created the Railroad and Warehouse Commission and imposed on it important duties. Another was an act to regulate public warehouses and warehousing. By this act other important duties were imposed upon the Railroad and Warehouse Commission.”

After reviewing the attempt to enforce these laws the message continues:

”In 1873, the present law to prevent extortion and unjust discrimination in rates charged for the transportation of pa.s.sengers and freight on railroads in this State was pa.s.sed. It was prepared and enacted with the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of _Illinois_ vs. _C. and A. R. R._, fresh in the minds of the members of the General a.s.sembly, and every suggestion made by the court was observed.

”The Commission since the enactment of this statute has brought many suits against railroad corporations for violation of the law.”

After reviewing the various cases I proceeded:

”In 1871, the Railroad and Warehouse Commission was established.

Its creation was resisted by both railroad corporations and public warehous.e.m.e.n, and after its organization they treated it with little consideration. They refused to recognize its authority, but after the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States declaring the doctrine that the Government may regulate the conduct of its citizens to each other, and, when necessary, for the public good, the manner in which each shall use his own property, the railroad corporations and public warehous.e.m.e.n began to grow less determined in their opposition to the attempts to control them, until at this time there is very little opposition. They now give prompt attention to requests of the Commission for the correction of abuses called to its notice by their patrons; and thus the Commissioners not only settle questions arising between railroad corporations and those who patronize them, but it may as truthfully be said of this as of the English or Ma.s.sachusetts Commission, that the very fact of its existence has put an end to many of the abuses formerly practised by such corporations, and which were angrily complained of by the people. . . .

”It is a curious fact that the conclusion reached by the English statesmen in 1874, was reached in Illinois in 1873; the conclusion that railroad companies ought to have the right to control their own affairs, fix their own rates of transportation, be free from meddlesome legislation, and, as has been said, work out their own destiny in their own way, just so long as they show a reasonable regard for the requirements of the community.”

After a.n.a.lyzing the law of 1873, referring to the procedure under it, to the decision of the courts, and the fact that the Railroad and Warehouse Commissioners made under it a schedule of maximum rates of charges, I said:

”The schedule will require revision from time to time, and this work can only be done by men who can give it their whole time, and who will become students of the great subject of transportation.

”Before action by the Supreme Court it has not been deemed advisable that the Commissioners should revise the schedule, and put the State thereby to what might be unnecessary expense; nor that they should multiply suits under the law of 1873, against railroad companies for similar offences to those set up in the cases now pending.

”Ever since its organization the board has been putting into operation new laws founded upon old principles applied to new facts and it has been compelled to walk with slow step. It has been required, in the a.s.sertion of its authority to go from one court to another, and await the approval by the Supreme Court of the legislation directed by the Const.i.tution of 1870.

”It has won a victory in the warehouse controversy and secured the judicial endors.e.m.e.nt of doctrines which in this age of concentration and monopoly, are absolutely necessary to the public welfare. . . .

”Leaving out of view the benefits that have resulted to the people by the mere fact of the existence of the Board, which has prevented many abuses that would have been committed save for its presence in the State, it has been at work, and useful. It has perfected the organization of the Grain Inspection Department at Chicago; it has gathered statistics in reference to transportation that are of very great benefit to the public; it has adopted the policy of railroad examinations with a view to security of life; and, in my judgment, the authority of the Commission ought to be enlarged so as to enable it to compel the railroad companies to improve their tracks and bridges, when, in the judgment of the Commission, such portions of railroads become unsafe. The Railroad Commissioners act as arbitrators between the railroad companies and their patrons; and in the Commissioners' report they say they have succeeded in settling most of the complaints made to them in a manner satisfactory to all the parties to the controversies.

”In my judgment if the Commission were dispensed with by the Legislature, difficulties would soon arise, agitation would commence again, and controversies would run riot. New legislation would follow, another board of some kind would soon be created, and the track we have just pa.s.sed over would be again travelled by the people's representatives.

”The Board should be sustained in the interest of all the people.

Instead of being destroyed it should be strengthened. It should not only have the authority with which it is now vested, but more.