ginia and Georgia, with some 2,000 miles of railroad, covering the territory from Bristol, on the line of Virginia and Tennessee, to the Mississippi River, and a line through Georgia from Chattanooga to Brunswick. The Queen and Crescent Line from Cincinnati, Ohio, to New Orleans, with branches. The Louisville and Nashville, from Saint Louis, Mo., covering a good part of Kentucky and Tennessee, and down through Alabama into Florida.

I have not the figures before me, but taking the Central as an illustration, and it is one of the largest combinations of the six; and its capital stock is, in round numbers, $7,500,000. The purchase of a little over three and three-quarter millions of dollars, gives the party purchasing control of the entire line and its branches.

The stock of some of the other combinations is a long way below par, and I presume I might safely say that five millions of dollars each would buy a controlling interest in the stock of each company. So that thirty millions of dollars in round numbers would purchase the controlling interest in the stock of the six companies covering the whole territory above mentioned, or a little larger sum would buy them under the marshal's hammer. One single man in the State of New York is able to pay thirty millions for the stock, and control the whole of this vast combination, including the lines with all their branches, which would leave but a few short railroads in all that vast territory which would not be embraced in the purchase. And this would end the necessity of pooling. Say, for instance, that Jay Gould becomes the purchaser of the controlling interest in the six great companies. What is the result? No pooling is necessary front the Potomac to the Mississippi, and from the coast to the Ohio. As one man controls the railroads in the whole territory there would be perfect harmony in the management. In other words, the silence of despotism reigns, and the monopoly by consolidation and combination is complete; and you have driven the different companies which were able to sustain themselves under the pooling principle, into bankruptcy, by forcing upon them a ruinous competition, and the result has been the grasping of the power of the whole combination into the hands of one man or one company, and thus obviating the necessity of a pool.

What law will you then enact to put these lines in ruinous competition with each other? The stock is the legitimate subject of purchase in the market. One company in New York, or, as I have shown, one single man there is able to own the whole of it and defeat your cherished object, and you have no power to divest him of his title, or to take from him the management. Bear in mind the prediction that the enforcement of a provision denying to the railroad companies the right to pool their business will result in the consolidation and monopoly which I here predict, and a like consolidation and monopoly in each section of the United States. There is no escape from it in the very nature of things.

Mr. Adams, in his book on railroads, tells us that the Northeastern Railway of England is composed of thirty-seven lines, several of which formerly competed with each other. Before their amalgamation they had generally charged high rates and paid low dividends. They were consolidated under one management, and the system is now the most complete monopoly in the United Kingdom. From the Tyne to the Humber, with one local exception, it has the country to itself, and it has the lowest fares and the highest dividends of any large English railway. It has had little or no litigation with other companies. While complaints have been made from Lancashire and Yorkshire, where there

are so-called competing lines, no witnesses appear to complain of the Northeastern, and the general feeling in the district it serves appears favorable to its management. Unbridled competition drove thirtyseven companies in England under one management. What do you suppose will be the result of unbridled competition in the United States forced upon the companies by act of Congress?

But it seems there is no sympathy for men who have been foolish enough to put their money into railroads. A few bold speculators, and in some instances bad men, have gotten control of long railroad lines, and have watered the stock and issued more bonds than the circumstances justified, and have made large speculations, and even fortunes, by that sort of illegal traffic.

These instances are constantly cited to show that railroad men are entitled to no sympathy, and to but little consideration in the courts or the halls of legislation. I admit that unscrupulous men have sometimes controlled railroad companies, and that there have been iniquitous speculations made, and much injustice has been done, but that is no reason why Congress, by its legislation, should destroy the value of a large proportion of the railroad property of the United States.

Men who have labored honestly for their money, have in thousands of instances put it into railroad stock. When the road was being constructed everybody praised them for doing so, for everybody along the line wanted the benefit of the road, and they preferred that others should furnish the money to build and give them the advantages. But as soon as a road is completed then the clamor is raised that the rates are too high, or something is irregular, or something is wrong, and the popular cry is, in effect, confiscate it."

This act will do more, probably, if rigidly enforced, than any that has ever been passed by the Congress of the United States for the destruction of railroad property. Thousands of widows and orphans whose all of earthly goods is invested in railroads will be deprived of their property and reduced to beggary. Any amount of injustice will be done. The suffering that will grow out of it will probably be much greater than any that has ever grown out of the rascality or illegal conduct of bad railroad men, who have abused their trust. Do the people who have built the railroads and who own them deserve this? think not.

I

The honorable Senator from Kentucky, Mr. BECK, in his able speech a day or two ago in favor of this bill, and against the railroad management, was just enough to make the following statement:

They [the railroads] have done more than all other agencies to develop the resources of this continent; they have enabled us to control and almost settle the Indian problem. Without thena nine-tenths of the country west of the Mississippi would be a wilderness to-day. But for the cheap transportation they furnish our exports would be a mere bagatelle, and the comforts of every man's home would be immeasurably lessened.

The honorable Senator might have added that the railroads have built like magic our great interior cities and our towns and villages; that they have increased five-fold, and sometimes more than that, the value of the real estate of the country; that they have enabled the States of the Union to develop their vast mineral resources, adding hundreds of millions to the wealth of the country; that they have not only built up and cherished an immense internal commerce, but they have doubled ten times over our foreign trade; that they have brought the different sections of the Union into close intercourse and fraternity, annihilating distance and making us one people; that they have been the greatest instruments of civilization ever devised, and that without them our

country, not only west of the Mississippi, but much of that east of it, would be uncultivated, and almost a waste.

The fact that a few bad men have had the management and control of certain great lines of railroads, and have used them for unjustifiable speculation, is no reason why Congress should seriously cripple all the great railroad interests of the country and destroy the property invested by hundreds of thousands of our people, many of them of the most helpless class. And it is no reason why we should enact laws that will greatly cripple the commerce of the country, both internal and foreign, and prevent the rapid and cheap transportation of the commodities of one section of the United States to the markets of another, and thereby retard the growth of our cities and do immeasurable damage to our productive resources. Mr. President, I believe the authors and advocates of this bill, if it passes in the shape in which it came from the committee of conference, before they have seen six months of the workings of the system will have abundant reason to regret it.

The commerce of this country can not be bound by iron chains or restrained by iron fetters; no unbending rule in its transportation can promote its prosperity. When the machine which is to bind it is put into operation, and the clasps are put on, you will hear a terrible clatter and creaking, and it will soon be discovered that it can not work practically without more elasticity.

Why not commence by enacting laws of less dubious propriety, allowing the proper elasticity and room for expansion in the workings of the system? If it is found that you have not gone far enough, you can then, at a future session of Congress, put on another screw, and no serious injury will in the mean time have been done to the commerce or the prosperity of the country. It is true you can, at a future session, repeal, as the people will, no doubt, as in case of the granger laws, require you to do, part of what is now in this bill if it should become a law; but you can not repeal it in time to prevent great mischief by the workings of the system while it is in operation. The West and the South and the foreign commerce of the country will suffer most, but the whole country will suffer under the inharmonious workings of an impractical and unwise system.

Modify the provision in reference to the long and short haul and the provision in reference to pooling, and try it a year and see how it works, and if you have not gone far enough it will then be easy to take the

next step.

If you have halted too soon you can advance the next Congress without deranging the business of the country. If you have gone too far you can not recede without having done great injustice, deranged the commerce and transportation of the country, and caused great destruetion of property and great reduction in values.

Mr. MITCHELL, of Oregon. Mr. President, the question as to the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, whether conducted by rail on land or boat on water, so long as such power is not exercised in a manner that will invade the domain of vested rights of property, is no longer an open one. If any doubt as to the power ever could have had any reasonable support in the judicial mind of this country, that support has long since been completely swept away by repeated decisions of the SupremeCourt of the United States. The power, therefore. to so legislate, within the scope and limits of other provisions of the Constitution, is no longer a subject for disputation, but is conceded to exist by virtue of the specific grant contained in the eighth section of Article I of the Constitution, wherein it is declared that "the Congress

shall," among other things, "have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes."

Nor can it be for one moment maintained that there is not in this country, at this time, an almost universal demand upon the part of the people for the exercise of this power on the part of Congress in some such proper, vigorous, and emphatic manner as will, while doing no violence or injustice to capital employed in the business of transportation, protect the people, the producer, the shipper, and the consumer from unreasonable charges and unjust discriminations to which, in too many instances, they are now subjected by the transportation companies of the country. And while it is not, in my judgment, by any means certain that the character of the proposed legislation in some of its prominent features, which more than others have been discussed by the people and urged upon the attention of Congress, will, if enacted, have either the desired or intended effect, it is safe to say it is quite certain that the great body of the national commonwealth from whom this demand for legislation comes do not desire to be invited to a feast of legislative legerdemain, nor will they be either satisfied with or deceived by any legislative jugglery which is open to as many different constructions in its vital parts as there were honorable members of the joint committee of five of the two Houses who have prepared this pending measure and placed it before the other three hundred and ninety-eight members of the two Houses of Congress and demand of them that they take this or nothing.

It will be conceded by all that whatever legislation upon this important subject may be enacted, whatever may be the dominant and salient points and controlling features in such legislation, whether any of these be of doubtful propriety or disputed efficiency as a means toward the accomplishment of a great end, or whether of such a nature, so characterized by justice and equity and right, as to command by their very statement the universal assent, including that of the common carrier as well as all others, that such legislation shall be in its nature and purposes, in whole and in part, as a unit and in detail, certain, specific, definite, unambiguous, and free in its construction from all reasonable doubt; and that as to the vital points involved too much should not be left either to the construction of courts or the discretion of subordinate boards, whose judgments, to say nothing else, are constantly subjected to powerful ulterior influences. Legislation on this important subject affecting such vast interests should be unambiguous and free from every reasonable doubt. The evil consequences that will inevitably flow from provisions susceptible of various constructions, leading to diverse and perhaps absolutely contradictory results, can not be overestimated.

The confusion that would necessarily arise from different constructions from time to time by different federal courts in different sections of the country on the various provisions left unwisely so widely open to construction, as are many of those of this bill, until all these vital questions could be brought before and passed upon by the court of final resort would be "confusion worse confounded:" and in the meanwhile the commercial interests of this country would stagger amid the conflicting gales of the advancing storm. But not only so. Such an act would be regarded by the people of this country, who are not in these later days very readily deceived, as in the nature of the "make-believe order," and it would in the end fail either to satisfy the enlightened, intelligent public judgment, or to correct the evils aimed at.

With these preliminary remarks, therefore, I come to consider the report of the conference committee. And while there is much in the bill reported for our consideration that is wise and reasonable and just, and not in any proper sense open to the criticism hinted at, I feel warranted in saying that I have never in all my experience heard so many different and strangely contradictory constructions placed upon, or claimed for, the material provisions of any piece of legislation, or proDosed legislation, as have been placed upon and claimed for the material and arterial provisions of this bill by able constitutional and statutory lawyers, both in and out of the Senate, friends and foes, since it was reported to this body on the 15th of December last. Nor do these various constructions of material parts of the pending measure come by any means merely from those who are opposed to the bill; if this were so it might, perhaps, with some degree of propriety and reason, be claimed that it is the result of some ulterior purpose and simply the execution of a carefully prepared plan, concocted by the transportation companies to bring the measure into radical disrepute, and thus encompass its defeat: but that this is not so the Senate and the country will, in view of the discussion that has already taken place in the Senate and out of the Senate in reference to the material provisions of this bill, and of the strangely contradictory constructions given, bear me witness.

Honorable Senators on this floor who announce their adherence to each and every section of the bill, and who propose to vote for it as a whole as it stands, without the dotting of an "i" or the crossing of a "t," and who do not desire its amendment in any particular, differ widely, and radically, and irreconcilably as to the proper construction to be placed on some of its most important provisions. That the bill is therefore in its most salient features ambiguous in its phraseology, uncertain in its purpose, and vague and misleading in its structure, if not indeed absolutely inefficient as a means of meeting and overcoming the evil against which it is ostensibly directed, is a fact patent to all.

Let us examine a little more minutely in reference to this matter; and in this connection I desire more particularly to discuss the provisions of this bill relating to the subject of long and short hauls as contained in its fourth section. And in this connection I desire to say that I have very serious doubts, and always have had, whether an act of Congress prohibiting the common-carrier from charging more for a short haul than for a long haul, the short haul being over the same line and included within the long haul, will have the good effect on the transportation business of the country that those interested in cheap transportation rates on the short hauls hope and expect it to have.

I say there may be very grave doubts whether those shippers interested in cheap short hauls will in the end be benefited by such legislation. Whether they will or not may depend on a very great many circumstances and conditions which may exist in certain sections of the country and which do not exist in other sections. Such legislation in certain localities may possibly have the effect to cheapen local rates, or reduce charges on short hauls and still maintain low rates on the long hauls, while in other localities the effect may and most likely will be just the reverse. It may, in the latter class of cases, have the effect to increase the charge on the long haul, and I believe this will be found to be the case in a great majority of cases, and thus instead of reducing the charge on the short haul may maintain it at present rates or even actually increase it.

Then, again, in many localities, that is, on many lines of transportation, the local business may be of such a nature, character and amount,