Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/788

758 of capital, as though their pockets had been picked by the gangs of sharpers, who, as though unconsciously influenced by the rule similia similibus, make the cars upon these railways their favorite resorts for the practice of their profession.

But though in all cases this simple means is not used for obtaining the charters, yet the management of our railways, in the hands of irresponsible capitalists, tends unquestionably in a direction as injurious to the public interest as if they had obtained them thus.

The baron who, in feudal times, obtained control over a well-travelled road, came to look upon the industrial exchange of the country to which it served as a channel, as his private property, and would jealously prevent the laying out of any other road that in his opinion would interfere with his tax. The history of the New Jersey railway monopolies, of the Central Railway, and others, which need not be suggested, will amply show that this analogy holds good.

The baron, also, was the only judge of the tax he laid on the traffic passing, and frequently his spirit of greed destroyed the very trade which gave him his income. We flatter ourselves, here, that in some measure our legislatures have set a limit to the tax the railways can extort from us. The attempt of the New York Central Railroad to obtain permission from the Legislature to raise its rates of fare was nearly successful. The management probably learned a lesson from this failure, and the next time they try will be careful to buy up enough incorruptible legislators to succeed. In the case of our street railways, how prompt and how successful they were in taking advantage of an excuse to raise their scale of prices one-fifth. This extra cent gives them many thousands of dollars a year, so that they are by that much more able to continue the theft, if any attempt were made now to dispossess them. The Long Island Railway is, perhaps, as favorable a specimen as any of what the spirit of greed may do in delaying and obstructing all the best interests of a country that depends upon a railway.

When, in feudal times, two robber barons got into a dispute; when their passion got the advantage even of their greed, and they tried in any and every way to injure each other, then the poor patient people were subjected to still greater burdens, and were robbed on both hands. A slight misunderstanding, quite recently, between some of our rival railroad magnates will bear out the analogy in this point, while those who suffered during its continuance will agree that it is perfect.

This analogy might be continued still further, but enough has been said to show that though modern society has invented the railway, it has not progressed equally in the march of social advance, in which the public interest should be the paramount aim of industrial energy. The tyranny and spoliation of the barons in the middle ages, as it was established by the sword, was conquered by the people uniting and using the same means. The free cities of Europe, established, as they were, by the people for their own defence, gave the first blow to the feudal spirit, and by the general increase of intelligence its domination was finally overcome. The dominion of the roads passed from the hands of a privileged class to the public, until, as is the case with our country roads now, these avenues of circulation and exchange were built and managed by the public, in their own interest; and the people enjoyed the benefits of this destruction of a monopoly.

The modern world finds itself caught in the toils of quite as tyrannous a set