manufactures of the southern Alleghanies to the factory towns and to the ports. The five transcontinental railroads have been reduced to three. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé was successfully reorganized after the collapse of the original management in 1893 and maintains an independent status. The extension of the line to San Francisco establishes direct connection between Kansas City and the most important ports in California. The Great Northern operates the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba under a nine hundred and ninety-nine year lease, and thus lays hold on the wheat lands of the Dakotas and the Columbia River basin, the timber ranges of the Cascades. A working agreement with the Southern Railway enables the Great Northern to carry cotton and hardware from Alabama to Puget Sound without transhipment. In this direct commerce from sea to sea, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy serves as the connecting link. The Harriman system covers a vast territory between the Missouri River and the Pacific coast. Eighteen thousand miles of track and $350,000,000 of capital are represented in this vast consolidation. Control of the Northern Pacific has been in dispute, both Hill and Harriman seeking to secure a majority interest in the stock of this important competitor. The Northern Securities Griffin, Company, through which Hill hoped to merge the management of the Northern Pacific in that of the Great Northern, Railroads, was declared illegal by the Supreme Court. In the redis- 57-68. tribution of stock neither party has been able to establish complete mastery. List of Ref erences on Commerce, 29-131. The defeat of the Northern Securities Company will Hatfield, probably prevent further merging of parallel lines, but the Lectures on consolidation of connecting roads into a continuous system and the leasing of branch lines greatly conveniences the traveling public, and is only protested on the ground that so vast an accumulation of wealth and power may transcend government control. Rate Regulation. Recent charters of incorporation, both state and national, and the general incorporation laws adopted in lieu of special charters by the several states, have done Griffin, List of Ref- Federal much to determine the relations of the railroad to the community it is intended to serve. The franchise is usually granted for a limited term and is revocable on failure to comply with its specifications. Provision for the security and comfort of passengers, safety appliances in the interest of employees, regulations as to speed, grade crossings, whistles, signals, etc., the convenience of time schedules, the adequacy of accommodations, notably in freight car Rept. Indust. service, all these requirements have been successfully enforced. The pooling of the interests of competing roads by maintenance of uniform rates, parcelling of the territory and distribution of the traffic or division of earnings, has The Railway been attempted by both state and national authorities, but without much avail. The limitation of charges on passenger and freight traffic, the publicity of tariffs, and the prevention of rebates and of discriminations between shippers and shipping points are matters that even more deeply concern the public welfare. Com., IV, 1-105, IX, 897-920. Problem. Clark, Commis sions. The fixing of rates by direct legislation has not been State Railway attempted since the repeal of the Granger laws, but some thirty states have established railway commissions authorized to investigate charges of discrimination preferred by shippers, and to secure justice as to rates, classification of freight, distribution of cars, etc. The exceptions to this general practice are significant. Eight Cordilleran states and two territories where the need of transportation facilities overrides every other consideration, and five Eastern states where the railroad interests rule the legislatures, have as yet provided no supervising commission. Dixon, State Railroad Control, Pt. II, III. James, State authority, whether exercised through the limiting statute or through railway commissions, regulative or advisory, has proved quite inadequate to the control of interstate commerce, notably since the epoch of consolidation. FedAppendix IV. eral supervision of interstate commerce was provided by Hadley, congressional enactment in 1887. The law requires full Workings of publicity of rates and forbids pooling as well as discrimination between places, persons, and shipments, so far as interstate traffic is concerned. An Interstate Commerce the Interstate Commerce Law. Interstate Rept. Interstate Com Commission appointed by the president of the United Rept. Senate States is empowered to investigate all charges brought be- Com. on fore it as to preferential tariffs, rebates, etc., and to denounce Commerce, an unjust rate. The concomitant function of declaring a 1905. reasonable rate that shall go into immediate operation is proposed in the Townsend-Esch bill, now before Congress. The difficulties in the way of securing even-handed justice for the shipper, the railroad, and the general public are tation of many and great. When to the complexities of rate regula- Freights, etc., tion are added the elusive methods of discrimination in- 1904. volved in terminal facilities and private-car service, the problem seems to transcend the wisdom of state and federal legislatures. Business Monopolies merce Com. on Transpor Concentra Concentration of capital in the hands of successful entrepreneurs has been the most significant tendency in the past thirty years of our industrial history. The wealth of the United States, according to the census of 1900, is $94,300,000,000, three times that reported in 1870. Per capita wealth has increased from $780 in 1870 to $1235 in 1900, but riches are less evenly distributed than before the Civil War. In 1890 there were in the country approximately four thousand millionaires and multimillionaires, whose property aggregated $12,000,000,000. At that time the rich numbered 9 per cent of the population and held Holmes, 71 per cent of the wealth; the well-to-do were 28 per cent of the population and owned 20 per cent of the wealth; Wealth. the poor made up 63 per cent of the population, but could claim only 9 per cent of the wealth. It is probable that the inequality is now still greater. The equalizing influences of the pioneer period have passed. The public lands that may The Public be cultivated to advantage by the small farmer are ex- Domain. hausted. The arid Cordilleran area can be developed only President's by irrigation companies commanding large capital. The Message, Cong. self-employed artisan is at a hopeless disadvantage in competition with the machine product. The small enterprise is being driven from the field by large-scale producers. The tion of West, Record, xxxvi, Pt. I, II. |