Monopolies and the People

by D. C. Cloud

CHAPTER V.

GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF RAILROADS.

Since concluding what we desired to say on the subject of controlling and regulating railroads and railroad corporations, our attention has been directed to a circular from The New York Nation, of July 27th, 1873, entitled: "The Railroad Discussion, and Common Sense." This singular article challenges attention. If it is put forth in the interest of railroad corporations, we can readily account for the views expressed, and the covert foreshadowing of national control of railroads; but if it be published and circulated in the interest of the people as The Nation would have us understand, it is not calculated to assist them in their efforts at reform, but on the contrary will tend to divide and distract their counsels, and delay the relief sought.

We copy the circular, that the reader may judge of its merits, and to give a more intelligent understanding of our remarks upon it:—

THE RAILROAD DISCUSSION AND COMMON SENSE—THE LATEST DEVICE FOR FIXING RATES OF TRANSPORTATION.

(From the Nation [N. Y.] of July 17.)

We have followed, and shall continue to follow, the "farmers' movement" with great interest, but it must be confessed that it seems at times of no little difficulty, owing to the very heterogeneous composition of the organizations which are carrying it on, and the wide diversity of their character and avowed aims. When Judge Lawrence was turned out of office in Illinois by the "Grangers," and Judge Craig put in his place, we took it for granted that they were going to deliver themselves from the tyranny of the railroads by putting judges on the bench pledged to interpret the state constitution in a particular way, or in other words, as one of the local papers put it, by showing that "the people" were superior to both laws and judges. It has, however, since been stoutly denied that this interference with the bench was anything more than a local accident, and we have been assured that the farmers seek changes of a much more legitimate character, and resting on more solid foundations than the creation of a subservient judiciary. The recent platforms have certainly had a much wider sweep than the earlier ones, and, unless language has been strangely abused in making them, embrace grave modifications in fiscal as well as in railroad legislation. But the question how to reduce the railroads to the condition of public highways, controllable by and existing solely or mainly for the convenience of the community, is still apparently as far from solution as ever. It is by no means surprising that this should be the case, but that it is the case we are forced to conclude by the extraordinary character of the latest plan propounded by the reformers, which has had sufficient plausibility to command the approval of so sober-minded a paper as the Chicago Tribune.

The farmers have been accused, partly in consequence of their escapade about the judges in Illinois, of seeking to rob the railroad companies of their lawful earnings by forcing them to carry on their business at a loss, under the operation of cast-iron rules, drawn up without reference to its peculiar nature. This was a charge of which the farmers soon began to see the gravity, and they accordingly now announce that they have no scheme of spoliation or confiscation in their minds, but that they have at last hit upon a mode of ascertaining what are "reasonable rates," which consists in discovering what was the amount of capital "actually invested in constructing and operating the roads," and treating a fair percentage of this as a proper return to the stockholders, and all charges which bring in more than this as "unreasonable," and therefore open to prohibition by the courts and state legislatures. Under this theory of railroad property, all stock which does not represent money actually invested is treated as "fictitious," and all attempts to earn dividends on such stock as attempts at extortion. For instance—to put a case of frequent occurrence—a corporation obtains a charter for a road which will cost two million dollars to build. It accordingly borrows the two millions on mortgage bonds, and constructs the road, while the members divide among themselves two millions of stock more, and they work the road so as to make it pay interest on the four millions. The farmers now say that no road shall be so worked as to pay interest on anything but the proceeds of the bonds, or, in other words, the actual cost of construction and equipment. This, stripped of details, is the new plan, as gravely propounded by the Chicago Tribune.

Now, if anybody will get up and propose a general railroad act of this nature, applicable to all roads hereafter to be built, we think we can promise that he will have the hearty support of everybody who has seriously reflected on the railroad problem. Forbid the construction of any road except with the proceeds of paid-up stock, and forbid any higher dividends than a certain fixed percentage on this amount, and we shall have a rule of which nobody can complain. We do not believe that a single mile of railroad would ever be constructed under such a rule in a new and thinly settled country like the west or south. Safe investments are not so scarce as to induce people to go into one of the most unsafe of investments, and one promising in most cases no return at all for several years, for the mere chance of seven or even ten per cent at the outside. But we should, nevertheless, be heartily glad to see the plan tried, and believe it would, by stopping railroad construction for the present, bring the western farmers to a healthier comprehension of their relations to the roads, and railroad companies to a healthier comprehension of their relations to the community, and might tend to a solution of the railroad problem, which would be both permanent and satisfactory.