Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/634

614 not result in good to the State or benefit to the public except in a remote collateral way.

On the other hand, it has been urged that roads, canals, bridges, navigable streams, and all other highways, have in all times been matters of public concern; that such channels of travel and of the carrying business have always been established, improved, and regulated by the State; and that a railroad had not lost this character because constructed by individual enterprise, aggregated into a corporation.

In rendering an opinion in the celebrated Loan Association vs. Topeka case, the court took up the question whether the grants of public money or credit which have been made by counties and municipalities in the United States in aid of railroad construction were not by parity of reasoning equally unconstitutional as similar grants for establishing or encouraging manufactures have been held to be; and remarked that in all such cases, which have been numerous before the courts in every State in the Union, "the decision has turned upon the question whether the taxation by which the aid was afforded to the building of railroads was for a public purpose. Those of the judges who came to the conclusion that it was, held the law for that purpose valid. Those who could not reach that conclusion held them void. And it is safe to say that no court has held debts created in aid of railroad companies, by counties or towns, valid on any other ground than that the purpose for which the tax was levied was a public use, a purpose or object which it was the right and the duty of the State governments to assist by money raised from the people by taxation." But, continues the judge, "Of the disastrous consequences which have followed its recognition by the courts, and which were predicted when it was first established, there can be no doubt."

It is interesting to note in this connection that since the decision in this case many States of the Union have been forced to prohibit loans in aid of the construction of railroads and like enterprises in the revision of their ConstitutionssConstitutions [sic].

When the purpose of taxation is evidently to primarily promote the interests of individuals—i. e., to establish a manufactory, a brick company, a hotel, and the like—the courts whose province it is to decide whether the purpose is public or private will as a rule undoubtedly declare it void.

A noted and the almost solitary instance in which the above proposition and precedents have been clearly antagonized by a judicial decision is to be found in a case in Louisiana, where an act of the State Legislature authorizing a municipal subscription to the stock of a company incorporated to build a theater was held valid, on the ground that "it would contribute to the wealth and embellishment of the city, afford a place of relaxation and