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326 that the Commission was appointed measures were taken to abolish passes on railroads. Another evil was to be cured by law. On February 4, last past, the newspapers brought us reports of a speech by President Stickney of the Great Western Railroad, in which he said that everybody from the President of the United States down to college professors had gone on using all the passes they could get, although it is a criminal offense to use one. In the period which has elapsed since the Commission was appointed, the Supreme Court has rendered a number of decisions which seemed to have far-reaching effects on transportation interests, but not one of them is known to have really affected the situation to any important degree. No sooner is a point settled by legislation or a judicial decision, than the threatened interests plan to secure themselves against its effects. They have in their service the ablest men under the largest pay; they find means to attain their purposes. We must expect that they will do so. Their wishes, and the means they possess to satisfy their wishes, are a part of the case with which we have to deal. The Commission, however, will not be abolished. There will be no abandonment of the policy of regulating interstate commerce. Things do not work that way. We rarely reach a conviction that we have made a mistake and turn back and give it up; we try to develop and complicate the contrivance and to put more steam into it. The political regulation, having failed to make everybody happy, is to be re-enforced and the two parts of the industrial system, the economic and the political, are to enter into a fight with each other.

It would be very interesting, if it were possible, to trace the growth of a popular conviction; newspapers and magazines sometimes try to produce one and fail. Then