People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1895 — Government Ownership. [ARTICLE]

Government Ownership.

One of the favorite arguments against the government ownership and control of railroads —advanced, it need hardly be said, by the railroad companies themselves —has been that for the government to take over the railroads would be to infringe upon individualism. It has been said, again and again, that governmental control of railroads would put a stop to individual investment, and therefore to that competition which a much-misunderstood adage declares to be the life of trp.de A railfbad is, primarily, only a transportation agency, that is, means to an end. Its legitimate functions are comprised within the providing of adequate means for carrying passengers and freight from point to point on its route. Had the railroads of the United States been content to confine themselves to their legitimate sphere the era of government control might have been at least postponed, but so far from so doing they are found concerned in improvement companies, in development companies, in express companies, in coal companies, and even in ice companies, rll of which industries they monopolize and control, either by the creation of wheels within wheels, as in the case of the Contract and Finance Company, the * Pacific Improvement Company, the Western Development Company and the like, or by putting the screws to other corporations until they are forced to yield the lion’s share of their business to the railroad companies. Under governmental ownership such secret and vicious partnerships iould not obtain. The government would operate the roads under the wellknown principles which should control common carriers, and would have no special favors to extend to pet corporations, because it could have no interest in them. Individualism would be promoted rather than repressed, and all patrons of the roads in the same line of business would be put on equal footing. A coal-mining company or an ice-making company or any other industry would not be compelled to take railroad magnates into partnership in order to secure fair and equitable rates. Genuine competition would be favored and the consumer would derive an ad-

vantage which now he will seek in vain, for the railroads will favor themselves and their officials to the detriment of the outside competitor.—S. F. Chronicle.