religious differences and almost identically so by social condition, is unfortunate, especially so for those who, in any event, have to fight the battle of life under natural disadvantages; but unfortunate also for the more favored class, who need, for their own good and for the good of the state, to be brought into brotherly relations of sympathy and of insight with the others, I most strongly believe. But we must remember that, though the state has both the right and the duty of seeing that the obligation of primary education is discharged by somebody, it has no right to determine by whom. The Catholic has the same right to his parochial school that the fastidious Protestant has to the ordinary private school or seminary. And, as a mere matter of policy, he must be a dull student of history or of human nature who does not know that any attempt of the state to use unfriendly legislation against the parochial school will arouse that spirit of religious partisanship which has ever proved stronger than laws or even arms. We must, therefore, frankly and heartily concede to the Catholics all we claim for ourselves, and seek to win and not to coerce.

I do not believe it wise to indulge in any panic upon this question, still less to introduce any shibboleth about it into party politics. If we are patient, I have faith that the American system of public education of the masses in common schools will triumph over the old-world theories of training by ecclesiastics. One thing is sure: the Roman Catholic layman in this country of the people must have a recognition not accorded him in Europe; and the style of Catholicism which will ultimately predominate will not be ultramontane. To the practical judgment of the Catholic masses must the determination of this question finally be left, and all that we can do is to maintain and increase the superiority of the common school. I, for one, do not believe that the American citizen, whatever his ancestry or his creed, will, in the long run, be inclined to pay for an inferior article when he can get a superior at the public expense.

ROBERT C. PITMAN.

NATIONAL CONTROL OF RAILWAYS.

THE first railroad in this country was built in the year 1826. It was four miles long, including branches, and its cost was $50,000. The railway system of the country to-day comprises 150,000 miles of track, represents about $8,000,000,000 of capitalization, and affords employment to nearly a million of men. In the way of statistics these figures stand alone; the history of the world presents nothing to compare with them. They show that for sixty years we have built and equipped, on an average, 2,500 miles of railway per annum-that we have laid down nearly ten miles of track every day for 18,000 consecutive working days. Within the lifetime of a not very old man our railway system has had its beginning, and has grown to be the most important and dominant interest of the country.

Though the railroads have probably contributed more than all other agencies combined to make the United States what they are, no one will deny that the incalculable benefit which we have derived from their growth and development has not been, and is not, wholly "unmixed of evil." Leaving out other considerations, it is not unfair to say that three-quarters of all the legislative corruption from which we have suffered during the past fifty years have been directly chargeable to the railways; and that a very large proportion, perhaps nearly as much as half, of the litigation that has occupied our courts during the same period has been directly connected with railway matters. We could forget and forgive both the corruption and the litigation, if we now enjoyed a perfected railway system, smoothly working like a vast machine for the general welfare. But the machine does not work smoothly; on the contrary, it is sadly out of joint somewhere all the time, often out of joint in a dozen different places, and in as many different ways, at the same time; and the machine is so vast and complex, it so completely covers

the whole country, and is so directly and so intimately connected with all our financial and business interests, that there is never a time when some of these interests are not in a state of uncertainty or disquiet; and not infrequently they are in a state of anxiety, and sometimes of collapse, by reason of trouble, financial or otherwise, among the railroads.

To demonstrate, let us go back, say, fifteen years. Since 1873 the time of the national Congress has been largely taken up with discussion of, and legislation about, railroad matters, and during the same time the legislatures of almost all the States have been, to a great extent, occupied in the same way. How much corruption has been connected with this legislation. nobody knows precisely, but that there has been corruption, 'goes without saying." The court records show how large a proportion of all the litigation of the country since 1873 has been about railway matters. Much litigation is a boon to the lawyers, but it involves a corresponding expense to the people.

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In the year 1873 a financial panic swept over the country. Its cause was the overbuilding of railways. Following it, and as its immediate result, came several years of terrible business depression throughout the country, during which much time, labor, and money were spent in trying to clear away the wrecks and to rebuild the roads, both old and new, that had collapsed with such fearful loss of the people's money. In 1877, when the general business of the country had begun to recover from the shock and losses of '73, it was seriously disturbed and depressed again, and so continued for a long period, by reason of the troubles between the railroads and their operatives, which, in many instances, involved riot and bloodshed. In 1878, the past had been so far forgotten that railway building was resumed, and by 1879 we were again constructing roads far beyond the country's needs. As a result, of course, general business was stimulated to an unnatural degree, and a period of wild speculation ensued, which culminated in 1881. After that, railway building stopped, the rolling-mills shut down, and all the industries dependent on railway construction were paralyzed. There were railway breakdowns on every hand, with the general financial suffering that such collapses always imply. "Hard times"

came again, and with them the memorable railway war which disturbed every business interest, caused countless millions of loss, and reached its crisis in the panic of 1884. Toward the close of 1885, peace among the railroads having been achieved, business prosperity began to be re-established; but in 1886 there were again disquiet and alarm everywhere, because of the many threatened and actual strikes on the part of railway employees. And, more recently, who does not recall how, during the summer of 1887, every interest in the country was set back and halting, because of a widespread fear that another panic was near at hand, the direct cause of the alarm being still the overbuilding of railways? These are only the more prominent features of the past fifteen years' experience. Want of space, of course, prevents any attempt to recount the innumerable minor occurrences in our railway world, which, during the same period, exerted, to a greater or less extent, a continually disturbing influence upon financial and business affairs.

Thus it will be seen that for fifteen years not only have railway matters largely occupied the time of Congress and the State legislatures, and, to a great extent, of the federal and State courts, but that, because of the overbuilding or underbuilding of railways, because of their capitalization and financiering, because of their combinations and consolidations, because of the rivalries and wars between them, because of the uncertainty and instability of their tariffs, because of their troubles with employees, because of their bankruptcies and reorganizations, the financial and business interests of the country have not been permitted, for any length of time, to "rest upon an even keel;" that, in short, for fifteen years, the railways and their concerns have been a constantly disturbing element in the country's affairs.

Such having been the case with reference to the past, what are the probabilities as to the future? Clearly that, with the increase in our area and population, and with the further growth of the railway system, together with its consequently greater complexities, we shall continue to suffer to a greater extent, and in a still more aggravated form, all the evils that we have suffered in the past. Now, if our fair land was created for no

purpose other than as a field for the construction of railways, and if our chief end upon earth, as a people, is merely to serve as passive factors in the working out of great railway problems, further consideration of the matter is useless, and there is nothing for us to do but to bear, as best we may, "the ills we have," and all that are to come. But, neither the country nor the people in it were created expressly for the railways. On the contrary, the country exists for the people, without reference to the railways, and the railway system ought to be merely one of the many agencies working for the people's daily comfort and business convenience.

The existing state of things is clearly due to the want of proper regulation of the railroads and their affairs. What we call our railway system is not a well-organized and smoothly working system, in any sense of the word. It cannot be denied, perhaps, that the best-laid track, the finest equipment, and the most efficient transportation service in the world are all to be found here; but what we term our railway system merely represents, so to speak, a mob of interests constantly struggling among themselves for supremacy, and frequently, in their struggles, trampling other and just as important interests under foot. While such is the case, of course there never can be any improvement of the relation between the railroads and the people. On the contrary, as already stated, the larger the mob becomes and the longer it continues without control, the fiercer and more damaging will be its struggles. The vital necessity of the hour, therefore, is to quell the mob, to put it under control, and to establish order in the place of the strife. This done, the mob, which has been so long a cause of so much disturbance and anxiety, would come to be a source of strength and help. But how can this change be accomplished? It never can be accomplished while the railways are subject to the laws of forty different States, those of no two States being alike. On the contrary, the greater the number of miles of track that are operated, and the greater the number of States controlling them, the worse will always be the confusion among the roads.

No two nor more men can possibly, together, drive a team of a dozen horses. The only way in which such a team can be