The Power of Railroad Corporations.
The New York Nation, in a recent article upon the tyranny of railroads, declared that “the right of locomotion and transportation has to-day passed away from the citizens of the United States just as absolutely and entirely as if they had never possessed it.” “It has been taken away so gradually and insidiously that we did not become conscious of the process until now, when we seek to remove some petty or odious restriction, and find ourselves suddenly confronted with the alarming fact that we have, by law, statute, enactment, or charter, whatever the device may be called, actually, fully, and absolutely surrendered our rights to an irresponsible, unscrupulous tyrant, whose power is, for the time being, absolute, who laughs to scorn our claims for redress, and sets our efforts at remedy boldly at defiance.” This is strong language, but its purport, at least, is justified by the daily development of facts. The control which the Erie Railroad has obtained over the courts and legislation of New York; the power which the Pennsylvania coal railroads have got and abused in regulating the production and price of coal, simply by changing their schedule of freights; and the general disregard on the part of the large companies of the rights of the merchants and the people generally in fixing the cost of transportation, prove that the creature has grown independent of the creator, and that the servant has become the master. Within the past few weeks a series of articles have been issued by Mr. Rufus Hatch, a Wall street broker, exposing the situation, and warning the country against the despotism which is overshadowing it. The circular concludes as follows:— “The people’s representatives cannot refuse to grant protection against this usurpation by individuals of a power to tax and oppress the public for private gain, which even the Federal and State Governments would not dare exercise. We are told by one of our most prominent and widely-known public speakers that we have no Legislatures; that our legislators are bought and sold by the railway corporations as mutton is bought and sold in the market, and that the time will soon come when the controllers of the great line that spans the continent, connecting New York and San Francisco, will have acquired such wealth and influence that Congress will sit merely as a committee to register their decrees.” The officials and executioners of Ku-klux law in Mississippi have within a short period robbed forty school-houses and churches, and whipped and banished several school teachers.