No system has ever been devised better calculated to introduce corruption into our state government than the present method of regulating railroads by special laws. Every senator knows what influences are brought to bear to promote and defeat the various projects of special legislation. No! Mr. President, I have over-stated—I am sure that no senator at this board does know all the "ways and means" that are used to influence members to secure votes for the passage of various bills in the interest of railroads. Every senator is aware how powerful and wide-spread is the pressure when public railroad legislation is under consideration. If these influences were confined to the questions of special or general railroad legislation, great as the evil is, it would not be irreparable. But unhappily the evil does not stop here. Hardly a question of special or general legislation is decided by either branch of the legislature without being affected in a greater or less degree by these railroad questions. It prolongs our sessions and fills our lobbies with the advocates of private corporations, and these special guardians of the rights of the people in the service and pay of railroad corporations astonish the members from the rural districts by their disinterestedness in their "labors of love" and benevolence—making their stay at the capital so pleasant and agreeable without money, but not without price—as to create a strong desire to serve the "dear people" another term, and obligations are exchanged that demand the presence and service of these men. No I not men alone, but men and women at our town caucuses and conventions, that favors granted may be reciprocated in securing the nomination, and thereby the election of the men who are willing to be run by rail road interests.
If this state of things does not corrupt legislators, it is because legislators are incorruptible. We know its results in other States, and we may well fear it here. Special legislation has totally failed in securing the results intended, and left behind a train of unmitigated evils which must increase with the increased magnitude of the railroad interest, and the growth of railroad corporations. The establishment of such a corporation as is provided for in the majority bill may well be dreaded. The creature will be more powerful than its creator.
The committee were clear and unanimous in the opinion that the State should under no circumstances part with the absolute control of the Tunnel to a private corporation.
The majority bill is the first step in giving up the control of the Tunnel to a private corporation. It gives to that corporation control of the whole line, except the Tunnel; and entrusts it with the operators of the Tunnel itself.
The pressure upon the State to part with the Tunnel will grow with the increase of business; the whole power and usefulness of the line must rest in the hands of the corporation which owns the railroad entering the Tunnel on either side. I am not old in railroad tactics—but, Mr. President—with the bill reported by the majority of the committee, I think I should have no difficulty—with less than one-half of the amount of the money expended in the efforts to pass the bill—to capture the Tunnel from the State in three years, and it would be accomplished in such a manner through the representatives of the people, that no one would presume to question my honesty.
The Commonwealth, owning the Tunnel,—the most valuable portion of the line, the key to the whole line,—has no voice in its management except a minority in the board of direction; no voice in fixing rates, no influence in its operations. This is all placed in the hands of a private corporation, governed by stockholders, whose stock is at all times in the market, and may be purchased at any time by any parties who deem it for their interest to control the line. The corporation may at any time combine with existing corporations to fix rates, and thus the main object sought by the State in constructing the Tunnel—an independent and competing line—be defeated.