Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/152

 FEDKRAL REGULATION OF CORPORATIONS state commerce companies. If any kind of corporate combination can come within the authority conferred by the commerce clause of the Constitution, railroads, the very ve hicles of commerce, must be included. And if authority to regulate rates which is rec ognized as within the right of the States to legislate about may be exercised by Con gress, it would seem until the subject is carefully considered, as if it ought not to be difficult to devise the necessary federal legislation to meet that case. And yet the difficulty may be insurmountable. Impor tant as is the railroad interest, it affects a smaller number in comparison with that which concerns manufacturing, mining and other kinds of industrial corporations. They exist and do business under every conceiv able diversity, of geographical position sur roundings, interests, in fact of every essen tial condition. Laws relating to them fill the statute books of all the States. They are the subject of discussions before com mittees, of differences of opinion in legisla tive bodies. They may or may not meet with executive approval. Is it possible that they can be unified into a single sys tem, taking its authority from an Act of Congress? The time of Congress is too short now to deal with the questions which necessarily come before it and to hear those who are on one side or the other of all such questions. How is time to be made for intelligent consideration of a subject which admits of such endless variety and affects such diverse interests? And if, granting the necessary power, Congress were to attempt to act, will a State quietly acquiesce in being shorn of a power which concerns its own citizens, and which may be a source of large revenue?

If Congress is to grant a license or franchise, is it to fix the fee, and without limit as to amount? And is the State to be deprived of its right to impose a franchise tax? Is there to be a double tax and a double right to impose license or franchise fees? What official is to see that such reports as are called for are given, and what is to be the remedy if they are refused? If federal officials are to be appointed to the duty, it will require a large addition to the present official staff of the Government. And if the remedy, in case of a necessity for resorting to the Courts, must be prose cuted before Federal tribunals, it means an addition to their already overburdened ju risdiction which it would be difficult to handle, and litigants may as well make up their minds at the beginning that it is hope less to expect that the manifold questions which will arise can reach or be readily disposed of by the Supreme Court which already finds difficulty in keeping up with its work. Suggestions pointing to difficulties might be indefinitely multiplied. All that seems to be required now is to point out that there are serious, I think controlling, dif ficulties. We are at the parting of the ways. The tendency on the one side is to centralize at Washington; on the other, to stand by the doctrine that the original seat of power always has been, is and should remain in the States. Granting, as I do not, that it is permitted by the Constitu tion, much more convincing reasons must be adduced before I can reach the conclu sion that there is any necessity for such a change as is proposed in our political sys tem. NEW YORK, NT. Y., Jan., 1905.