their pains." Indeed, it would be the part of wisdom always for minority shareholders who are "in the toils" to forego their rights, rather than to waste their time and money in trying to obtain redress.

This state of things is shameful, and it never can be remedied as long as the affairs of the railways are subject to the cumbrous machinery of forty different sets of laws; but with the railways under national control, why should not their minority shareholders enjoy the same protection that the government now accords to all the holders of stock in the national banks? With a railway commission at the seat of government, why should not railway shareholders, when wronged, be spared the expense of counsel and the interminable delay of litigation, and have the right of direct appeal to that tribunal? And upon such appeal and statement of the wrong suffered, why should not the commission, through its examiners, immediately investigate the matter, and either compel fair play for all the shareholders, or put a receiver in charge of their property?

Among the many national banks, where is there one in which the holders of the majority stock are running the bank in their own interest at the expense of the minority? Is there a single instance of a smaller national bank being controlled by a larger one in such a way that all the profits of the smaller bank are diverted into the till of the larger? And yet that is precisely what is going on about us in railways all the time. Big roads are "skinning" smaller roads, majorities are freezing out minorities, the rich and strong are robbing the weak and poor; and for the smaller roads, for the helpless minorities, for the plundered poor there never can be any hope of better things except through the intervention of the national government.

Finally, why should not every officer and director of a railway be held just as strictly accountable as every national bank officer and director is to the government, for proper care of the property in his charge, and for honesty in the performance of his duty as trustee for the owners of that property? How strict is that accountability to the government on the part of nationalbank officials every one knows, because gratifying evidence of it has been afforded whenever and wherever a national bank has got into trouble. In such cases there are no needless delays,

there is no waiting for stockholders to combine and employ counsel, no nonsense, indeed, of any kind. On the contrary, upon the mere rumor that there is "something wrong" with a national bank, the government takes immediate steps for the protection of both stockholders and depositors. The examiner goes through the bank's affairs. If all is not well, a government receiver is put in charge of the institution at once, and if there has been "irregularity" on the part of any official, he is quickly hustled into a prison cell, no matter how "respectable" he may be; unless, indeed, he has taken time by the forelock and left the country. There is no compounding of felony with Uncle Sam, and, unlike the financier who has "manipulated" a fortune out of a railroad, the bank thief cannot, by surrounding himself with a "brilliant array of counsel," enjoy the privilege of remaining a prominent figure upon the scene of his conquests, while he laughs to scorn the distress of those whom he has robbed. As a result of this rigor of law and celerity of action on the part of the government, our national banks are, as a rule, models of excellent management, and they have proved to be, with only here and there a rare exception, thoroughly safe and sound; and nationalbank stocks, though carrying with them a liability of double their par value, are quoted at a premium, and regarded everywhere as the choicest of investments. The record that has been made by our national banks is such as to fill every American with pride.

But the managers of our railways are responsible to nobody; they are a law unto themselves. Without in the least detracting from the credit due to those of them who have tried to be honest. in their offices, and who have sought to be faithful to the great trust reposed in them, it is no exaggeration to say that some of them have been guilty, during the last five-and-twenty years, of stupendous frauds and infamous swindles unparalleled in the history of finance. Their countless dishonesties, their shameful trickery with the properties under their control, their wholesale robbery of stockholders, their brutal trampling under foot of others' rights, their bold defiance of all responsibility, have stripped railway shares of what ought to be their value for investment, have caused the loss of countless millions of the people's money, have debauched public sentiment here at home, and have

disgraced us before the world. If any evidence in support of the last assertion be needed, it is surely furnished in the following, from a recent issue of one of the prominent London journals:

"The inhabitants of these isles have become thoroughly sick of the dishonest jugglery of American railway boards. The truth is, that the majority of American railway directors utilize their positions for their own speculative ends. . . . The American railroad system is the very Sodom and Gomorrah of finance. Neither fifty nor forty nor thirty nor twenty nor even ten 'righteous' are to be found among American railroad directors, and one may well say their sin is very grievous.' They are using the property of others for their own nefarious purposes, to the utter discredit of the whole American railroad system and of their great country. It is time, indeed, that brimstone and fire should rain on this financial Sodom and Gomorrah, and that the great American nation should rid itself of this immoral and discreditable incubus. . . . An honest and industrious people should stamp out this dishonest system of railroad jugglery, this disastrous financial robbery, and thus remove a stain from their honor."

These are burning words, but their truth ought to fill every American reader of them with shame. Because of the fact that virtually no responsibility attaches to the perpetration of any kind or amount of fraud in connection with railway matters, the field of railroad finance offers peculiar advantages for the exercise of his cunning to every unscrupulous scoundrel in the country. As a result the field is, to a certain extent, occupied by men who, though in other fields they could not, because of legal restraint, have achieved any particular prominence or wealth, are acquiring riches through all sorts of dishonest trickery and jugglery with railway properties. The evil effects of this state of things are manifold, and chiefest among them is the creating and fostering of a restless spirit of communism among what we term our lower classes. Those who are barely able to earn a subsistence by honest toil are angered at witnessing the pomp and parade of those who revel in millions acquired in questionable ways; and, pooh-pooh it as we may, this aspect of the matter is worthy of the most serious consideration. Of the existence of this communistic sentiment among certain classes of our people we have had abundant evidence; there is reason to fear that it may be increasing, despite all our efforts to stamp it out; and we cannot afford to regard with indifference any condition of things calculated to encourage it. For this reason, if for no other, an end should be put to the wrongful methods by

which so many have made, and are making, fortunes by railway management and financiering.

It were worse than idle to argue that public sentiment may be relied upon to correct the evil. Public sentiment has become debauched until it contemplates with indifference to-day that by which it would have been shocked twenty-five or thirty years ago. Public sentiment can no longer be regarded as a factor in the situation; if not stone blind, it has certainly lost its memory. The crime of to-day is forgotten to-mor row. He who last year marketed, by means of all sorts of misrepresentation, millions of worthless bonds, has this year no hesitation in asking, nor difficulty in securing, subscribers to another "choice loan." The manager who lately made a "stake" by going "short" of the property he controls, will easily procure proxies enough, when the next election comes round, to continue himself in office. The Judas who, for thirty pieces of silver, erstwhile sold out the stockholders of one railway, has no trouble in obtaining, while still chuckling at thought of how he "euchered the boys," a position whence he can sell out the stockholders of another railway. Indeed, the betrayal of shareholders' trust has come to be such an inconsequential trifle that it is no longer remembered as a bar to place; while, for the fortunate individual who has made a million or two in a railway deal, by a trick however foul or by a fraud however stupendous, all doors swing wide open, and there is a welcome without question everywhere.

It is unnecessary to individualize. Every reader who is at all familiar with railway affairs knows that more than one of our magnates deserve state-prison for their robbery of shareholders, their wrecking of properties, and their general defiance of the laws of meum and tuum. They occupy the finest houses, they give the showiest entertainments, they drive the handsomest turnouts, and all of us do them honor. We are proud of the entrée to their homes, we delight to sit at their boards, we clasp hands with them at the clubs, without so much as a mental protest against their crimes. So it were folly to rely upon public sentiment to frown down the rascality of railway managers. With every fresh deal that makes a new "magnate," or adds to the millions of a magnate already made, the moral sentiment of

the community becomes more lax. If the railway managing methods which have done us so much wrong are to be checked, if there is ever to be a reform in the matter, the check can be accomplished and the reform can be brought about only in one way, and that is, by making those who control and operate the railways responsible to the national government for honesty in their offices.

If the railways were the property of those who manage them, the rascality of the managers might be contemplated with comparative equanimity, because in that event they would be the only sufferers by their wrong-doing. But whatever tends to discredit railway securities, or to depreciate their value, hurts all who are interested in them, from the millionaire to the thrifty working-man who has saved up a portion of his scant earnings.

The older we grow as a people the richer we become; and the solid wealth of the country is not made up of the millions of the few, but of the hundreds of the many, as is evidenced by the fact that there are to-day in the savings-banks of two States-Massachusetts and New York-very nearly one thousand millions of dollars. The increasing wealth of the country is constantly demanding ways of investment. Outside of government and State bonds, real-estate and bank stocks, there is, comparatively speaking, hardly anything into which money can be put except railway securities; consequently thousands of millions of the people's money are perforce invested in the railroads. proportion of these millions is the money, not of the capitalists, but of those in moderate circumstances, and of those whose little hoardings are piled up in the savings-banks, and are, by the banks, invested, to a certain extent, at least, in railway securities. It is, therefore, a sacred duty which the government owes, not to the capitalists nor to the rich, but to the common people, to protect their invested money, to prevent tricksters and gamblers from robbing them of their savings.

A large

But the duty of the national government in this matter is not restricted to the prevention of robbery and wrong by the railway managers. There exists in some of the western States a disposition to oppress the railways by every species of adverse and unreasonable legislation. Against such injustice the roads are powerless, and the government should protect them. The