and probably no other business is more widely diffused in its ownership among people not directly engaged in it. Thoughtful men, years ago, when the corporate method was first applied to ordinary business, looked upon it with apprehension and as an unwarranted use of public powers for private purposes. If the so-called private corporation is to continue in existence, it will not be upon terms and conditions which admit only the few to its benefits. Its ownership must become so widely shared that its welfare will mean the welfare of all the people.

Railroad legislation is to be found in nearly all the session acts, some of it relating to operation and some to rates. Much of that relating to operation seems to be very proper, but this is a question largely for experts. The propriety of rate legislation depends upon facts which would seem to be simple of ascertainment, but in the endeavor are not. The greatest differences imaginable exist in the conclusions reached by accountants. There is a difference of seventeen millions of dollars between the Railroad Commission of Illinois and the railroad companies as to the effect of the two-cent fare upon the net income from state travel in Illinois for one year. While the two-cent rate has been held to be invalid as non-compensatory by circuit courts of the United States in a number of cases arsing under laws enacted two years ago, and the cases are now pending in the Supreme Court, Indiana, Michigan and South Dakota have this year enacted the same rate. The question of fact involved it is not proper to discuss here, nor is that of the highest importance. If the rate is too low it can be enjoined before serious loss is suffered. But these laws have been assailed as if they were deliberate aggressions by the public upon vested rights of property, and if this criticism is at all warranted, the situation is a very serious one.

The people understand that the extension, and even the maintenance, of our railroad system is impossible if the companies are not permitted to earn a reasonable return upon the capital invested, and they are not averse to this, nor would they cavil as to the percentage of profit so long as it was near the usual returns upon capital. But they see enormous additions made to stocks and bonds, without a corresponding addition to or improvement

of the properties. Private fortunes are increased and in turn are squandered with lavish hand and vulgar ostentation. The people believe they are entitled, as much as mere financial manipulators, to share in the apparent prosperity, as they have contributed to it, but when they propose a reduction of rates, the cry is raised that the companies are already on the verge of bankruptcy. It is hard to understand this anomaly of rich proprietors of poor properties.

Certainly the public temper was not always a hostile one. In the beginning it was friendly in the extreme. It usually expressed itself in terms of grant, rarely in the way of restriction. For forty years after railroad construction was begun there was no interference with management. What caused the change which took place in the early seventies? It was the abuse by the companies of the liberty that had been allowed to them. The roads were public institutions for the purpose of exercising the power of eminent domain and of receiving public aid, but in other respects they were used as private. Discrimination as between individuals and localities was openly practiced and avowed, and to this more than to superior business ability many of the colossal fortunes of the present day owe their existence. The basic principle upon which modern regulation rests was stoutly denied. For more than ten years after the states acted, the companies were left free by Congress, and practices barred in the traffic of the state were continued in the larger field of the nation. When at last Congress interfered its enactments were as it is now confessed, generally evaded, and the abuses continued, until various amendments to the law, each more drastic than the one before, are said to have made an end of them. Why, then, are not the old relations restored? Because a confidence lost by a long course of bad practices cannot be at once regained by good professions.

So long as varying rates were made by the company whether directly or in the form of rebates, it was natural to believe that the low rate was a sufficient one. No schedule fixed by a Legislature or commission went below what had been voluntarily granted to some persons in some way for the same or a similar

service. At this day with all the protest made against two-cent passenger fares, they are freely accorded to whomsoever can indulge himself in a mileage book of sufficient proportions. Full fares are exacted only from the many who individually do not travel much and rarely on the fast train or in the best coach. The result is to make those pay most who get the least. I am glad to note that the far east state of Maine recognizes the prevailing discrimination as an injustice and has this year passed an act providing that if mileage books are issued, they "shall be absolutely transferable."

These considerations are not urged to vindicate the legislation complained of-that must be judged upon its own merits; but they go far to account for it, without impeaching the integrity of those who enacted it.

The science of government cannot be reduced to a few convenient and definite formulas. The appropriate bounds of legislative action will always be the subject of controversy. Men have never agreed, and perhaps never will, as to the measure of interference with individual habits which are harmless in moderation and in excess are hurtful to society. The adoption of our system of public education was criticised and every extension of it is criticised as paternalism. The common law governing the relation of employment was inhuman in its application to modern conditions of industry and yet every innovation was looked upon as sacrilege. Limitations imposed upon the power which advantage of position gives to one man over another are decried as in violation of the freedom of contract. Laws which look to shorter hours of arduous and dangerous labor, to the relief of women from the thrall of unwomanly drudgery, and to the care of children that they may develop into strong manhood and good womanhood, are said to be the bread and circus of decadent Rome, destroying the self-reliance of our people, and making them look to the state in every time of trouble. The gloomy forebodings of Macaulay are invoked, that the institution of property cannot sustain itself in our setting of Democracy. The bread and circus of Rome were but the bribes paid by political adventurers to idle and dissolute voters, themselves a privileged class; the great mass

of the people never shared in them and had leave but to live and to toil. The older civilizations failed because they meant only the uplift of the few, but our institutions are conceived in a nobler spirit and work to a higher end. Side by side, hand in hand, helpful each to the other, have gone our marvelous material development and the increasing humanity of our laws. The constructive energy of the age has erected monuments, not of vanity, but of utility, whose towering height mocks the endeavors of the builders of Babel-it has spanned the widest rivers that they may be crossed dryshod, tunneled the greatest mountains that they may be traversed on a level, and the very seas which God has put asunder it essays to unite. Industrial enterprise has been organized upon a scale, with forces and productive powers, not dreamed of before. Commerce has expanded its scope until the remotest hamlets of the world exchange their wares one with another. The accumulated wealth of this generation manifested in fortunes of mammoth proportions and myriad in number attests that never in the history of the world has labor been so bountiful in the return it makes for its hire. The march of legislation through these years has been sometimes halting, because it was hindered, and sometimes groping because the way was not clear, but it was never in deliberate aggression upon property and never will be, if Honesty and Justice are displayed in the acquisition of wealth and Wisdom and Moderation in the use of it.

APPENDIX

SUMMARY OF NOTEWORTHY CHANGES IN LEGISLA-
TION BASED ON REPORTS MADE BY MEMBERS
OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL.

CONGRESSIONAL LEGISLATION.

At the last regular session of Congress additional district judges were provided for in the Western District of Pennsylvania, the Southern District of New York, the Western District of Washington and the District of Oregon.

The most important legislation was an act to codify, revise and amend the penal laws of the United States.

Treaties for the settlement of controversies by the Permanent Court of Arbitration established at The Hague, not affecting the vital interests, the independence or the honor of the contracting parties, nor concerning the interests of third parties have been entered into by the United States with Sweden, Japan, Portugal, the Swiss Confederation and Italy.

By treaty between the United States, Belgium, Brazil, Spain, France, Great Britain, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Switzerland and Egypt, an international office of public health was established at Paris, the main object of which is “to collect and bring to the knowledge of the participating states, facts and documents of a general character concerning public health and especially regarding infectious diseases, notably the cholera, plague and yellow fever, as well as the measures taken to check these diseases."

The special session of Congress was almost entirely occupied with the tariff bill which, in addition to levying duties upon imports, provided for a 1 per cent excise tax upon the net income of corporations.

A census bill was also passed.

STATE LEGISLATION.

ARIZONA.

(1) In addition to qualifications of electors as heretofore, has been added the following: "And who not being prevented by physical disability from so doing, is able to read the Constitution of the United States in the English language in such manner as to show he is neither prompted nor reciting from memory, and to write his name . . . (Chap. 13, p. 18.)

(2) Party vignettes on ballots have been abolished. (Chap. 9, p. 12.)

(3) A direct primary law was also enacted. (Chap. 24, p. 60.)

(4) Admission to practice of law has been amended by strik