The Railroad Question Part 25

"The Interstate Commerce Law was pa.s.sed for the purpose of controlling the railroads, but up to date no railroad has paid any attention to the law. Anarchy of the worst kind has prevailed. By that I mean a total disregard of the law, and that is what the corporations charge against the anarchists.

The courts hold themselves in readiness to obey the will of the corporations when a charge is made against the workmen, but no effort is made to carry out the mandates of the law when the provokers of strikes, the corporations, violate the law."

There is but little doubt, if the judges of the Federal courts would show the same zeal in holding railroad managers amenable to the law as Judge Ricks has displayed in this case with the employes, they would secure increased confidence from the people in the tribunals over which they preside.

All fair-minded persons will agree that labor as well as capital must be subjected to proper restraints, and that the public will demand nothing unreasonable from either.

Accidents are too frequent upon American railroads. The reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission give the following as the numbers killed and injured during the years named:

---------+---------------+---------------+---------------+--------------- | 1888 | 1889 | 1890 | 1891 |Killed. Injured|Killed. Injured|Killed. Injured|Killed. Injured ---------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------- Employees| 2,070 | 20,148| 1,972 | 20,028| 2,451 | 22,396| 2,660 | 26,140 Pa.s.seng's| 315 | 2,138| 310 | 2,146| 286 | 2,425| 293 | 2,972 Others | 2,897 | 3,602| 3,541 | 4,135| 3,598 | 4,206| .... | ....

---------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------- Total | 5,282 | 25,888| 5,823 | 26,309| 6,335 | 29,027| .... | ....

For the year ending June 30, 1890, the total number of employes was 749,801. There was, therefore, one death for every 306 men employed and one injury for every 33 men employed. For the previous year one was killed for every 357 men employed, and one was injured for every 35 men employed. While trainmen represent but 20 per cent, of the total number of employes, the casualties among them represent 58 per cent. of the total number of casualties.

For the year 1888, one pa.s.senger was killed in every 1,523,133 pa.s.sengers carried, and one injured in every 220,024 carried.

The corresponding rate in England for the year 1888 is one pa.s.senger killed for every 6,942,336 carried, and one injured for every 527,577 carried.

Railroads doing a large business should be compelled to adopt the most improved appliances for avoidance of accidents.

The occupation of trainmen is especially hazardous, and too long continued service should not be required, but proper intervals of rest should be allowed. It is to the want of this, undoubtedly, that a great many of the serious accidents are owing.

No more Sunday trains should be run than are absolutely necessary.

Provision should be made by law to enable trainmen to procure insurance at the lowest rate possible, for indemnity against loss of health, life or limb.

It was only a few days before the great disaster occurred on the Hudson River Railroad at Hastings, over a year ago, that an announcement had been made to the public of the extreme prosperity of the road during the year. The great slaughter that occurred there is another ill.u.s.tration of the disregard of public duty, and another instance of the sacrifice of life and limbs of pa.s.sengers and employes by a railway corporation in order to secure large dividends on watered stock. It is not only gross, but criminal neglect for a company with such an immense income not to provide greater safety appliances, and the coroner's jury in this case was too modest when it decided that the management of the road was morally responsible for the disaster.

Parliament has compelled the British railways to adopt, in the interest of the public safety, the block system and continuous brake, and great lines like the New York Central and Hudson River companies should be compelled to adopt such improvements.

The traveling public has another grievous cause for complaint. There are but few companies that make any efforts to have their trains connect with those of rival roads. On the contrary, a good deal of scheming is often done by railroad companies to so arrange their time-tables with reference to those of their rivals as to inconvenience pa.s.sengers as much as possible by delays at competing points. To remedy this evil the State should require that every time-table should have the approval of proper authorities, and no change should be permitted without their approval.

Railroad companies are chartered for the purpose of promoting the public welfare, and every violation of their charter should be punished.

It should be the main object of railroad legislation to compel companies to fulfill their public obligations without depriving them of their efficiency. Above all things these companies should be stripped of the power to use their great wealth for the purposes of corruption or the attainment of political influence. Our railroads to-day probably represent no less than one-fourth of the personal property of the country, and this vast wealth is controlled by a comparatively small number of men, many of whom have in the course of time become so arrogant and despotic that they have little regard for popular rights or the expressed will of a free people.

It is reported that when, a few years ago, a representative of the press directed Mr. Vanderbilt's attention to the fact that the public disapproved of his railroad policy, the latter gave vent to his contempt for public opinion by the no less profane than laconic reply: "The public be d.a.m.ned." Ex-Railroad Commissioner Coffin called on one of the Goulds to urge the adoption of the automatic car-coupler and other safety appliances for the roads controlled by them. He was very curtly told that not a cent would be expended by the Gould roads for such a purpose until the West had repealed its obnoxious railroad laws. The Gould dynasty thus intends to accomplish the repeal of these laws by coercion. Railroad magnates and their lieutenants often show still greater arrogance in dealing directly with their employes.

It may be difficult for railroad managers of the present school to adapt themselves to new conditions; it may be impossible for them to understand how any other practices than those which have long been established can succeed; yet in spite of them both the law and public sentiment have already undergone great changes, and still greater changes will follow. It may take years to accomplish this work; to bring about any great reform requires time and a deter, mined purpose on the part of its advocates. Yet I believe the era is not far off when railroads will be limited to their legitimate sphere as common carriers, when they will treat all persons and all places as impartially as does the Government in the mail service, when their chief factor in rate-making will be the cost of service, when they will respect the rights of the public and those of their stockholders, insuring perfect service to the former and fair profits upon the actual value of the lines operated to the latter.

The fact should, finally, not be overlooked that it is in the power of the General Government to prevent many railroad abuses, and especially excessive freight charges, by the improvement of our rivers and harbors.

That our water-courses act as levelers of interstate rates is apparent from the fact that railroad rates invariably rise with the freezing of the water-ways and fall with the opening of river and lake navigation.

By connecting, wherever feasible, our large Western rivers with the great lakes, the Government could greatly extend the reign of compet.i.tion in transportation, and thereby keep freight rates within reasonable bounds. Lake transportation even now plays an important role.

In 1892 it was not less than 20,000,000,000 ton miles during the season of eight months' duration, and it is almost equal to one-fourth of the total ton mileage of all the railroads in the country for the entire year. The average rate of lake transportation has been reduced to 1.3 mills per ton per mile, which is only about one-seventh of the average railroad freight rate in the United States.

Where the ma.s.ses hold the sovereign power, there, if anywhere, the welfare of the people should be the supreme law. Violent political commotions never disturb the government whose policy is to secure the greatest good to the greatest number. Thorold Rogers justly remarks that the strength of communism lies in the misconduct of administrations, the sustentation of odious and unjust privileges and the support of what are called vested interests. Lord Coleridge, in a remarkable article published not long ago, recommended a revision of the laws relating to property and contract, in order to facilitate the inevitable transition from feudalism to democracy, and laid down the rule that the laws of property should be made for the benefit of all, and not for the benefit of a cla.s.s.

During the middle ages, and even up to the beginning of the present century, nearly all the laws on the statute books looked towards the protection of the rights of the feudal lord. Provision was made for the expeditious collection of his dues and a severe punishment of his delinquent debtor. The peasant was forced to labor fifteen hours per day and three hundred and sixty-five days in the year to pay the baron's rentals and sustain life. The law permitted him to be flogged for failing to courtesy the feudal lord, and to be executed for injury to the lord's person, while to kill a peasant was no worse a misdemeanor than to kill his lordship's favorite dog or falcon. In short, all laws were made to protect and perpetuate the wealth and power of the few by impoverishing, humbling and enslaving the ma.s.ses.

The age of feudalism has given way to an age of democratic liberty, but there is many a feudal feature left in our statutes and many a feudal doctrine is enunciated by our judges and learned expounders of modern jurisprudence. In his decision in the Iowa tariff case Judge Brewer said:

"I read also in the first section of the Bill of Rights of this State [Iowa] that 'all men are by nature free and equal and have certain inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness,' and I know that while that remains as the supreme law of the State, no legislature can, directly or indirectly, lay its withering or destroying hand on a single dollar invested in the legitimate business of transportation."

Had Judge Brewer taken the pains to read on, he would have found in section 2 of the Bill of Rights the following:

"All political power is inherent in the people; government is inst.i.tuted for the protection, security and benefit of the people."

It is strange that the learned Judge failed to see the difference between "men," the creatures of G.o.d, "by nature free and equal," and "possessing certain inalienable rights," and corporations, the creatures of man, having no rights except those which the State sees fit to give them. Had the learned Judge perused the whole of the doc.u.ment to which he refers, he would have found in article VIII, section 12, the following provision:

"The General a.s.sembly shall have power to amend or repeal all laws for the organization or creation of corporations, or granting of special or exclusive privileges or immunities, by a vote of two-thirds of each branch of the General a.s.sembly."

It should thus have been plain to the learned Judge that in Iowa corporations have not human or inalienable rights, and government was not inst.i.tuted for their special protection, but for the protection, security and benefit of her people. Nor should it be otherwise.

The corporation for pecuniary gain has neither body nor soul. Its corporeal existence is mythical and ethereal. It suffers neither from cold nor from hunger, has neither fear of future punishment nor hope of future reward. It takes no interest in schools or in churches. It knows neither charity nor love, neither pity nor sympathy, neither justice nor patriotism. It is deaf and blind to human woe and human happiness. Its only aim is pecuniary gain, to which it subordinates all else.

Should the State sacrifice the welfare of all her people rather than lay its "withering or destroying" hand on a single dollar of corporate wealth? Are there no human rights, for the protection of which government was established, more sacred than the rights of a wealthy corporation's dollar? Have the people made the judiciary a coordinate branch of the Government in order that it may protect the vested or rather usurped rights of corporations against legislative attempts to curtail them? If the courts so interpret the power which has been delegated to them, they will awake one day to the painful reality that popular convictions of right are more potent than judicial decrees.

It is the duty of the State not so much to defend the so-called vested rights of corporations as to make such just and beneficial laws as will temper inequality, mitigate poverty, protect the weak against the strong, preserve life and health, and, in short, promote the welfare and the happiness of the ma.s.ses. Const.i.tutions have been made to accomplish these ends, to protect the lives, the liberty and the conscience of human beings, while laws have been sufficient to protect the dollars of corporations. It is a short-sighted policy on the part of the latter to take unfair advantage of their wealth and influence, for "As ye sow, so shall ye reap," is the inexorable law of Providence. There is no dynasty so mighty, no cla.s.s so privileged, no interest so influential or wealthy as to obtain immunity from its operation.