more wretched, and brought an even chance of betterment. He may not even be equal to these ideas, but simply absorb the single idea that the master of his local union has money to occasionally pay him a per diem almost as great for not working as he receives from his employer for working. But he knows that he is the slave of somebody. The nearest railway company is to him the most prominent representation of massed wealth, and he accordingly selects it for the slave-driver against whom he is to rebel. Everybody saw the wrong, but the remedy was not so apparent. Everybody sees logically that the railway as an institution is innocent of all this chaos. But logic is one thing, and practical solution, quelling of clamor, amelioration of disasters, are quite another. So it was that when the complicated problem reached the floor of Congress, it was no longer a sentiment, a prejudice, or a jealousy; it was a mighty and imperious fact, demanding and insisting upon immediate attention. Congress passed the Act to regulate interstate commerce, the President approved it, and it was the law of the land.

On the first day of January 1888, the Interstate Commerce Commission handed in its first annual Report, for the substantial part of a year the government had held in its nominal control this vast interest. Who had been benefited? The best evidence attainable ought to be the statement of the commission appointed to administer the statute taking control of the railways. In this first annual report the Commission says (the italics are ours), "The Act to regulate commerce has now been in operation nearly eight months. . . . It has operated directly to increase railroad earnings, especially in the cutting-off of free passes on interstate passenger traffic. . . . Freight traffic has been exceptionally large in volume, no destructive rate wars have occurred but increased stability in rates has tended in the direction of stability in general business." In fine, then, it was the railway companies which had been benefited.

But this was not the object of the statute. The railways had not complained of ill treatment. They had, indeed, recognized the immense complications of competing systems, the damage

suffered by the people from the rate wars and unjust recoupments for the expenses thereof, and had themselves provided a remedy by the establishment of so called 'pools'; which, however, the Act of Interstate Commerce promptly and peremptorily abolished. It is something of a commentary on the words we have put in italics above, that whereas, at the date at which the statute took effect, the situation was tranquil and satisfactory (the 'pools' having lowered rates to a minimum never reached before), the passage of the Act sent tariffs upward at a bound; and before the report above quoted had left the binder's hands, a rate war began in the West whose bitterness, while it raged, surpassed in violence any ever known. Here was an opportunity for the Commission to step in and vindicate the necessity of its creation. By virtue of Section 13 of the Act, it needed not to wait for a complaint or a complainant. It could step in and of its own motion take jurisdiction and settle everything. Did it take such jurisdiction? Not at all. It went placidly on, carefully hearing and writing long opinions as to the petty grievances of individual shippers and of local boards of trade; but its ears were as adders' ears to that din of traffic battle in the West. The companies engaged were daily losing millions, until several of the roads involved ceased to solicit freights, to do no business at all being considerably cheaper than to move their trains for unprofitable transportation. No doubt by this time all dividends have been adjusted to this rate war, and so the people of the United States will pay all the bills; and the railways, relieved of their burdens are going on again. But such relief has not obviated the constant prospect of more wars and more bills for the people to pay. What did all this mean? Did it not mean that the Interstate Commerce Commission had no intention of raising a question between itself and the great Trunk systems of the United States-a question which would inevitably reach the Supreme Court of the United States, where a decision declaring both Act and Commission unconstitutional, null and void, would have undoubtedly been rendered? The Commission was willing enough, it seemed, to hear trivial complaints, but hesitated to argue for its life against eight billions of capital.

But waiving that question what has one year of Interstate Commerce control accomplished? It has been in operation a year. So far as the people of these United States are concerned, has it changed the situation (existing at its approval, and admittedly clamoring for remedy) in the slightest degree? Have strikes ceased? Are rates lower? Have private fortunes disappeared or ceased to be accumulated? Have the railways been curtailed in their alleged despotic sway over the lives, fortunes, and liberties of our people? Had any recipient of a pass over one of our railways, or of a drawback, rebate, or special privilege, complained to Congress that he had been so favored? (That concessions to the few were injuries to the many, and the 'pass' system an unmitigated wrong and nuisance, these were the complaints of the railway companies, not of the people; and Congress had heard them with ears as deaf as adders' ears for the last quarter of a century.)

To these questions some of us are still looking for an answer, others the commission itself has answered for us. The Interstate Commerce Commission (to its credit, everlastingly be it said) did not wait for the filing of its first annual report to come boldly forward and tell the people of the United States that they were in error that the railways were not their enemies; that, although bound to assume that it had been created for some wise purpose, and therefore to hunt around to find that purpose, the commission did not propose to share in the Hudson communistic cry of 'Down with the railways!' or even to admit that railways were a menace to the liberties of the people. It seized upon its first opportunity to assume that the statute of Interstate Commerce was of no practical value to anybody, but intended to be understood in that purely Pickwickian sense in which, as we have seen, the Commission interpreted the Interstate Commerce Act in the Louisville and Nashville matters; nay, more, in its first report was careful to point out what advantage it had been to the vast interests it had been created to control but had carefully avoided interfering with.

But have the railways been benefited? In holding that railways may, (nay, must, or get themselves into trouble with the

Commission) go on doing just what they always have done, what light has been thrown upon the railway problem in the United States? To say that a grocer may sell sugar, but that if another grocer across the way also sells sugar, the first grocer may not compete with the second grocer, is clearly to so embargo the first grocer as to close him out. To be sure, the law added a clause limiting the prohibition to "substantially similar circumstances and conditions; " but the limitation scarcely helped matters, since it merely substituted a question of fact for a question of law and opened an interminable and costly field for the taking of testimony and the examination of witnesses which could easily paralyze any interest forced to enter it. Besides, to recur to the simile of the grocer, it might be said to permit the retail trade in sugar only on condition that no wholesaling was attempted. Our grocer might sell a pound of sugar at any price he could get, but must be careful, if he sold a thousand hogsheads, not to diminish his rate per pound, either by quoting his commodity at less, or by rebating or offsetting for the comparative magnitude of the transaction, In view of the cheaper average cost of delivery, book-keeping, or consideration of interest, or discount, exchange, or the market value of money.

But if this is complication worth mentioning, what shall we predicate of the attempt to make the same hard and fast line apply to the railway transportation problem? Says E. P. Vining, Esq., late Commissioner of the Northwestern Traffic Association: "As a matter of fact, distance, while it is one of the factors in determining both the cost and the value of transportation, is not by any means the only factor, and is frequently of far less importance than many other elements in the problem. It often costs a railroad company more to stop a train and unload a package of freight, or set a car out, upon a siding distant only 10 miles from the point of departure, than it would to take the freight through without stop for a distance of 100 miles to the terminus of the train's run. Moreover, many of the most important elements in the cost of transporting property by rail, are wholly independent of the length of the haul. It requires as much work to load and

unload a car that is to be hauled ten miles as it does when the property is to be forwarded a hundred or a thousand miles, and the use of the car is required for practically the same length of time in one case as in the other; for it should be remembered that the time during which a car is in motion with a load constitutes but a small portion-usually not more than one-eighthof the time that the car is used by the shipper. It must often be brought empty from a distance; one day, or, more frequently, two or three days are allowed for loading it, then at the destination the same length of time is allowed for unloading, then the car may not be needed at the point to which it has been sent, and must be forwarded empty to the other end of the road in order to obtain a load. So it results that a road which can show that its cars are kept in motion with a load of freight for an average of three hours out of the twenty-four, can make an exceptionally favorable showing. Now all these disadvantageous circumstances are even more likely to occur in the case of short hauls than they are in long ones; as the chances are that when a car is stopped to be unloaded at a small local station, it will not find a load at that point, while if it is sent through to the terminus of the division, it probably will find a load there. In this important item of expense it will therefore be seen that the distance run, within reasonable limits, affects the cost but slightly. So too, the station expenses, the cost of keeping the roads, clerk hire, general superintendence, and many other elements of the cost are practically independent of distance. In fact, almost the only item that can be named as bearing even an approximate ratio to the distance is the cost of fuel for raising the steam by which the train is moved, and this cuts so insignificant a figure among the total expenses as hardly to be worthy of consideration.

"For many years our western roads have recognized the existence of established trade-centres, and have exercised the greatest care to place them all upon a common footing, and give them all a fair and equal opportunity to compete for business. Where it has been necessary in order to accomplish this result, equalization tariffs, so-called, have been carefully prepared, so that every