the injury done, or both, according to the circumstances of the case. If the carrier shall be willing to accept the adverse finding of the commission and to settle with the complainant or those injured, without further contest, it is given an opportunity to do so. This is to the ininterest of the complainant, as it saves him the delay and uncertainty of litigation, and the basis of settlement is always under his control and must meet his approval. If, however, the carrier should decline to make settlement in accordance with the finding of the commission, or should presist in violating the law after notice to desist, the commission is required to certify that fact to the district attorney of the proper district, and to forward him a copy of its report in the case. If may be claimed that, if resort must finally be had to the courts, the complainant gains nothing by the creation of a commission or by appealing to it for relief, but that does not fairly state the case.

In the first place, we are justified by the experience of the State commissions in believing that the mere fact of the existence of such a tribunal would have the effect of materially diminishing the causes of complaint. In the second place, we are justified in believing that under the course of procedure which has been proposed, and with the aid of the great force of public opinion, the commission would be of great service to the people in bringing about an amicable adjustment of the larger portion of the complaints submitted promptly and to the entire satisfaction of the complainant. But, in the third place, even in those cases in which resort to the courts should happen to become necessary, the complainant would gain rather than lose by prosecuting his case before the commission. All he could lose would be the time occupied in the investigation, while he would gain an immense advantage by having a prima facie case established and by the summary methods provided for its prosecution, and by having his case prosecuted by the Government.

SECTION 13.

Section 13 provides that when a case has been certified to the district attorney he shall forthwith bring suit in the name and on behalf of the parties aggrieved for the recovery of the damages sustained. In cases in which the carrier has persisted in violating the law after notice from the commission to desist, it is also made the duty of the district attorney to apply for and of the court to grant a temporary injunction restraining the carrier from further violation of the law until the matter can be fully heard. Without this provision for a summary injunction upon the prima facie case established by the report of the commission, the railroad company could afford to continue violating the law and use all its energies to delay the litigation, and would have the same object in adopting these tactics that it has to-day. But under the provisions of this section the carrier would have nothing to gain by delay, and would in any event be immediately compelled by the courts to desist from what the commission declared to be a violation of law until the courts could determine the question.

THE REMAINING SECTIONS.

Section 14 relates to the conduct of the work of the commission. Section 15 provides for the salaries and expenses of the commission and its employés.

Section 16 authorizes sessions in any part of the United States whenever necessary.

Section 17 requires annual reports to be made to the commission by the carriers, and specifies in detail particular information that such reports shall contain.

Section 18 requires an annual report to be made by the commission,

which is to contain such information and data as may be considered of value in the determination of questions connected with the regulation of commerce, with such recommendations as to additional legislation as the commission may deem necessary.

Section 19 requires the commission to specially investigate the subject of pooling, and to report to Congress whether any legislation on that subject is advisable.

Section 20 exempts from the provisions of the act property carried for the United States, State or municipal governments, or for charitable purposes, or to fairs or expositions for exhibition, as well as mileage, excursion or commutation passenger tickets.

Section 21 relates to the appropriation that is asked to be made. Mr. President, I have undertaken to state specifically the provisions of the bill in detail, with a mere suggestion of the reasons for each section of the bill.

I am led to believe that the bill as it stands is perhaps a more perfect bill on this subject than has ever been introduced in the Congress of the United States before. There may be many suggestions of amendment by honorable Senators during the consideration of the bill; and if any Senator has any suggestions of amendment to make, of course it is within the privilege of the Senate to adopt them; but I am very anxious that this bill shall be as promptly considered as possible and as promptly acted upon and passed as possible if in the judgment of the Senate it ought to be passed at all.

As the Senate know, this subject has been up for consideration from one term of Congress to another almost time out of mind, until the people of the United States have come almost to believe that there is no real purpose on the part of Congress to do anything more than introduce and report bills and discuss them awhile and then let them die before any final action is reached upon them.

I said in the outset that in my judgment there is no public question before the American people to-day about which there is greater unanimity of sentiment than there is upon the proposition that the Congress of the United States ought to enact some law looking to the regulation of commerce among the several States, and I trust without taking up the time of the Senate longer that every Senator will give attention to this subject until we can pass some bill and get it to the other branch of Congress in the hope that before this session adjourns we shall get some legislation on this subject that will be of some service to the people and reasonably satisfy the public expectations.

Mr. PALMER. Mr. President, I expect to give my vote to this bill not because its scope is all that I could approve, but because I regard it as looking in the right direction and because I trust that its operation will educate and prepare for more comprehensive legislation. The necessity for the enactment of this measure recalls an Oriental tale which lingers in my memory from boyhood: Some fishermen one day drew to the shore in their nets a chest from which sounds proceeded, and on listening the sounds became articulate and intelligible. In reply to their questions a voice told them that its possessor was dwarf endowed with wondrous powers, that he had been imprisoned by a wicked Genie, and if they would release him he could and would labor for them and enrich them. They forced open the lid and there emerged a misshapen being, black, feeble, and unattractive. Its docility and intelligence were remarkable. It showed the greatest eagerness to serve them. As its strength increased it brought coal, precious stones, and fragrant woods from the mountains, and fish and amber and coral from the It evinced such capacity, tact, and tractability that they reasoned

sea.

if he did so well as he was what would he do if they could increase his strength and stature.

Acting on this idea, they fostered him, brought the most nutritious food for him, and did everything they thought would conduce to the desired end. He thrived, and grew apace. He expanded, became erect, and in time towered above them all. Then there came a change in his demeanor, and instead of being their servant and benefactor, showing them hidden sources of wealth and teaching them how to cheapen the necessaries of life and multiply its luxuries, he proclaimed himself their master and compelled them to bring to him for his use gems, spices, and costly bales, and assumed all the pomp, circumstance, luxury, cruelty, and rapacity of an Indian prince.

THE BENEFICENCE OF RAILROADS.

Among the servants of our civilization none have approached in efficiency the railway. It has annihilated distance; it has not only made the wilderness blossom as the rose, but also has enabled the rose to be readily exchanged for the products of cities. It has conduced to the widest diffusion of labor and rendered nations measurably homogeneous. In our own country the cost of transportation of a year's food from the agricultural west to the seaboard has been reduced to the price of a day's labor, so that the mechanic of the manufacturing centers may by the sacrifice of a single holiday be said to practically live by the side of the farm..

It has rendered possible the establishment of great manufactories at centers of population, where labor is abundant and capital present to superintend, instead of the former necessity of placing the manufactory at the point of supply of raw material. The natural advantages of production in each locality have, by minimizing the cost of transportation, been allowed to be exercised to their utmost, and values added to cereals in remote and isolated districts. The surplus corn of the Northwest, which was formerly so cheap as to be used for fuel, has, by reduced transportation, been enabled to compete with that raised near the seaboard. Ores are profitably shipped from the mountain fastnesses, where a plant is undesirable, to Saint Louis, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh, for reduction.

Frederick List, in urging upon Germany a necessity for developing a railroad system in 1841, mentions among others the following advantages:

First. As a means of national defense, it facilitates the concentration, distribution, and direction of the army.

Second. It is a means for the improvement of the culture of the nation, as it facilitates the distribution and promotes the rapidity of distribution of all literary products and the results of the arts and sciences. It brings talent and knowledge and skill of every kind to market, increases the means of education and instruction of each individual and each class and age.

Third. It secures the community against dearth and famine, and against excessive fluctuations in the necessaries of life.

Fourth. It promotes the hygienic condition of the community, as it destroys the distance between the sufferer and his means of cure.

Fifth. It promotes sectional intercourse, and brings friend to friend, relative to relative.

Sixth. It promotes the spirit of the nation, as it has a tendency to destroy the Philistine spirit arising from isolation and provincial prejudice and vanity. Seventh. It binds nations by ligaments and promotes an interchange of food and commodities, thus making it in effect to be a unit, The iron rails become the nerve of a system which on the one hand strengthens public opinion and on the other strengthens the power of the state for police and governmental purposes.

PRIMITIVE METHODS OF TRANSPORTATION.

It is within the lives of most of us that man was mainly dependent for the transportation of material and product for exchange or use upon

water ways, natural and artificial. Primitive man was necessarily limited for the supply of all his wants to his immediate neighborhood. Shepherds and hunters moved in circumscribed areas, and it is probable that the exchange of products by personal intercourse was their only relief from self-supply. When man abandoned nomadic life and became a hewer of wood and drawer of water he sought a fixed habitation, where the wood, either hewn or crude, could be easily floated to its destination.

The first great commercial people, the Phoenicians, built no roads, but carried letters to and impressed their civilization on all the tribes, cities, and nations bordering upon the Mediterranean and Red Seas. The Persians built but limited roadways for commerce. The Romans were the first to appreciate the value of a vast system of roads to secure the permanency of their conquests and fasten their civilization on peoples rendered subject.

The conquered provinces were retained by her because she gave more than she took away, and chief among the benefits conferred was her system of roads. The history of the intellectual and commercial progress of Europe will show that its earliest and fullest development was along the line of the old military roads. They were not only the arteries of the empire, but also the conduits through which the wealth of the world flowed to Rome. They were the tentacles which grasped her territory and transmitted to and took from the Eternal City intelligence of the status of the provinces, political and otherwise. The saying that "all roads lead to Rome" was an epigrammatic assertion of her universal dominion.

The Incas of Peru developed a nation of thirty millions of people by establishing speedy intercommunication with all districts as soon as subjected by means of roads radiating from Cuzco, one of which was 1,000 Spanish leagues long, 20 feet broad, and built of heavy flags of freestone.

From the days of the Caesars until the present, the substantial, the intellectual, and the moral progress of districts and of peoples has been clearly measured by their facilities for commerce, by canals, by improved water ways, and by substantial highways. The possibilities of exchange have been enlarged and the transfer of the best product of each people to the others has carried with it an elevation of laws, of manners, and of customs. The introduction of steam as a motor to ships and carriages has multiplied opportunities of development without changing the great commercial laws affecting the progress of mankind.

Railways and steamboat routes are improved highways, not a new but a developed feature of the advancement of the race. The question at the front to-day in this country and in Europe is not how to cripple or restrict railroad building or railroad operations; is not how to do away with the vast commercial power, extending over 265,000 miles of rails laid through developed and developing territory, but how best to promote them, that they may continue to serve rather than to rule the interests of individuals and communities.

REGULATION OF RAILROADS IN EUROPE.

That the experience of a little more than half a century under various conditions and under every civilized form of government has not been sufficient to remove the regulation of railways from the field of experiment is shown by the various methods of to-day on trial in Europe and America. In Belgium the government has either built or purchased the main trunk lines of the kingdom. Branch lines are allowed to be built and operated by private capital, the government guaranteeing

4 per cent. interest upon the investment and retaining the practical supervision of the management.

The competition of the canals and of the government lines, together with the obligations of the governmental guarantee, would seem to provide a system of checks and balances most desirable. It is reported that the roads are managed satisfactorily to the people, that the rates are fixed and stable; but an early absorption by the government under provisions in the charters of the private lines is predicted, which would indicate a dissatisfaction on the part of private capitalists.

In France the main trunk lines were originally assigned a district or field supposed to be profitable without competition on condition that they should build branch lines into the less productive districts. This proved impracticable, and the government was obliged to lend its aid for the development of the territory. The charters provide that at the expiration of ninety years all railways should revert to the state, the state purchasing the rolling-stock at an actual valuation. Already the government has advanced 600,000,000 francs to the railways, and its policy looks toward an earlier appropriation than that nominated in the charters.

Already a perpetual committee supervises the management, arranges the tariff of charges, and settles disputes between competing lines and between the public and the railways. Rates and time-cards are required to be published, and no change against the interests of forwarders or passengers can be made without thirty days' notice and the consent of the commission. No private arrangements with individuals or corporations are permitted.

In North Germany all concessions are made by the minister of commerce, unless there is to be a largess or guarantee of interest when an act is required. In Prussia, at the commencement of its railway system, each railway chartered was given a field without competition, the state reserving the right of purchase of the road after the lapse of thirty years. In 1882 there were 9,500 miles of State lines, 1,320 miles of private lines under state management, and 2,400 miles of private lines. The control of the government may be considered practically absolute, and is given over to a special board at the head of which is the minister of public works. Special tariffs are prohibited, correspondence in timecards in railways insisted upon, persons and merchandise conveyed in the order in which the application is made. No variation in rates or time-table can be had without the consent of the board.

Austria followed the course of France in allowing concessions for the period of ninety years, and in addition the government built several trunk lines, which it retains. It also maintains supervision over passenger and freight traffic. Switzerland has no state lines, but an effectual system of supervising the tariff charges and a perpetual commission to regulate the relations of the corporations to the stockholders and the public, and provide for the constant publicity of railway transactions. Italy owns a portion of its railways and is in negotiation for the remainder. The policy of the government is ownership by the state.

In the history of English legislation on railroads and its results we find the closest resemblance to our own. In 1836 England had, next to Holland, the most complete canal system and service in the world, and its restrictive endeavors were guided not by a proper conception of the problem before it, but by its experience in dealing with oppressive methods in canal management. The popular belief in the power of competition to cheapen rates and control commerce in the public interest was accepted, and in spite of the warning of the astute Morrison and the terse axiomatic statement of George Stephenson, that "where com