increased from 2 cents to 2.6 cents per mile], because they took the roads that do less than one-fourth of the business, so far as Kansas is concerned. We took all of them, examined the business of every one of them, and I think there ought to be some way by which the State can have the courts pass upon the rate which the Interstate Commerce Commission forces upon it, contrary to the judgment of its constituted authorities, as to what is fair and equitable. For the reasons heretofore stated this method of procedure is preposterous, and less than no regulation at all for the reason that, if continued, it will make the railways superior to and destroy the sovereign power of the various States. Manifestly, therefore, the time is at hand when the people must move vigorously for the rehabilitation of the inherent protection which they have heretofore enjoyed through the medium of their Legislatures, courts, and other lawfully created tribunals, or for the future elect to submit to such exactions as their large public-utility corporations may choose to impose, tempered only by such modifications as the centralized regulating authorities at Washington may see fit to grant. STATES MAY BE DESTROYED BY LOSS OF TAXATION Another ready and convenient means of destroying the States would be the withdrawal of the right of the States to tax railroad and other utility property upon which so large a proportion of the taxes and bonds of the States, counties and municipalities depend. In this behalf, it was urged on the floor of the Senate during the consideration and passage of the present Federal Control Act, that Congress had the power to take from the States their rights to tax railway property during the time that it is within the control and operation of the Government. In support of this view, the case of McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheaton (U. S. Supreme Court Decisions), pages 432-435, was cited, wherein Chief Justice Marshall said: If the States may tax one instrument employed by the Nation in the execution of its powers, they may tax any and every instrument. They may tax the mail; they may tax the mint; they may tax patent rights; they may tax judicial processes; they may tax all the means employed by the Government to an excess which would defeat all the ends of government. This was not intended by the American people. They did not design to make their government depenIdent on the States. The people of all the States have created the General Government and have conferred upon it the general power of taxation. The people of all the States, and the States themselves, are represented in Congress, and by their representatives, exercise this power. When they tax a chartered institution of the States, they tax their constituents, and these taxes must be uniform. [Italics ours.] But, when the State taxes the operations of the Government of the United States, it acts upon institutions created not by their own constituents, but by the people over whom they claim no control. It acts upon the measures of a government created by others as well as themselves, for the benefit of others in common with themselves. The court has bestowed on this subject its most deliberate consideration. The result is a conviction that the States have no power, by taxation or otherwise, to retard, impede, burden or in any manner control the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress to carry into execution the powers invested in the General Government. This is, we think, the unavoidable consequence of that supremacy which the Constitution has declared. This is the adjudicated law of the land and it therefore follows that, if the will of those who contend for centralization of all activities in the hands of the Federal Government shall prevail, bankruptcy or the severest retrenchment, in all organized state government must inevi tably follow, and, therefore, the right of local self-government shall be forfeited. Likewise, all initiative and training in the art of government shall be forfeited and the initiative in all remedial and progressive efforts which have heretofore sprung from the States shall be smothered, and the extent of community enterprise and development shall, thereafter, be promoted or limited by the will of the majority of the dominant party which may be able to perpetuate itself in power at Washington, D. C. FUTURE FRAUGHT WITH GRAVE DANGER AND UNCERTAINTY The aforesaid adjudicated powers serve to illustrate how far-reaching and important are the inherent rights which the various States have, since the birth of the Nation, exercised and enjoyed, and which it is now proposed shall be forfeited. The entire question is fraught with the gravest uncertainty and danger-danger that the liberties of the people will be sacrificed by the destruction of their long-established and successfully tested local government for a completely centralized form that may easily result in chaos, confusion and uncertainty and ultimately break down of its own weight. Experience teaches that a completely centralized government, the seat of which is distantly removed from the people, while an attractive ideal, is not a panacea for all the ills, real or imaginary, that beset the people. If this change in government is brought about, it is the beginning of the end of the various States as political entities; and in their stead the establishment of regional subdivisions and control of politics and government, and thereafter no one can foretell to what end our country may drift. History, which has the uncomfortable habit of repeating itself, teaches that the Roman Empire fell, not because the provinces of that nation exercised state control, but because, through the growth of centralization at Rome, there was finally abolished all political independence outside the city of Rome. Dealing with the inestimable value and effectiveness of our dual form of government, and especially with the fact that the efficiency of our National Government thus far attained is because our States and local communities are self-governing and exercise self-governing functions and are accustomed and trained to be self-governing, John Fiske said: A perdurable government must be that which achieves national society on a grand scale without weakening the sense of personal and local independence. for with the body politic this power of freedom is the red-blood corpuscles of the blood which carry life with it; it makes the difference between a society of self-respecting men and women and a society of puppets. Your Nation may have art, poetry and science-all the refinements of civilized life, all the comforts and safeguards that human ingenuity can devise-but if it loses this spirit of freedom, of local independence, it is dimmed and deserves to be dimmed. [Italics ours.] The danger of following in the footsteps of the Roman Empire lies in the loss of the opportunity which is now afforded under our present dual form of government for the education of officers and statesmen from among the people themselves, and who now give efficient service in response to the sentiment and will of the communities which they In lieu thereof, no matter how selected, or how representative and safeguarded the machinery of selection may be, under a completely centralized form of government our officers and statesmen would be educated from one common school at the seat of government and, therefore, there would be an exceedingly dangerous tendency serve. toward the growth of an autocracy, and for our future public policy and representation, such as it might be, to be dictated from Washington. REMEDIAL LEGISLATION SPRUNG FROM THE STATE It should be emphasized, in passing, that practically all of the more advanced forms of remedial legislation enacted by Congress during the past have, almost without exception, first originated and been tried out by some State or States before being adopted by Congress. Without the maintenance of the present wise distribution of power between state and national governments, provided for by our forefathers, this initiative and test of experience in legislation will, of course, pass out of existence, to the detriment of the Nation and a dangerous sacrifice of the liberties of the people. PEOPLE MUST GUARD BIRTHRIGHT It is urged by those favoring centralization that we may always appeal to Congress, and that national regulation is more effective than state. While it is true that some things can be better done by the National Government acting exclusively, it does not follow that the States should surrender their sovereign power over their most important functions of government. Following the centralization of the power of regulation and control of the railways in the hands of the Federal Government, if it is done. doubtless the next step will be the centralization of all railway and interstate utility taxation in the hands of the Federal Government to the exclusion of the various States, and from this there is no limit to the extent to which the powers of the various State Governments may be usurped. It is our firm belief that the most satisfying and enduring form of government is to be secured for the people by the maintenance of both national and state jurisdictions. This is our present form of government and, as it is our fundamental sovereign right and most cherished inheritance from our forefathers, it should be jealously guarded and not thoughtlessly and indifferently relinquished. In the event of centralization, it is true that direct appeal may be made to Congress, made up as it is of representatives coming directly from the people of every State and, in this connection, it is fair to assume that they will invariably be conscientious, hard-working and intelligent officers answerable directly to the people. But Congress has before it always some great issue of national importance upon which practically all thought and action are centered, to the exclusion of matters of local importance, and therefore it would be impossible to secure the remedial action which is now promptly afforded by the various State Legislatures. In other words, the ability of the people of the various States to secure legislation to meet their peculiar local situations, as they arise from time to time, would be made exceedingly difficult, and it would restrict such efforts to the point of whether or not the legislation desired fits the will of the people throughout the more populous States, because, under centralized government, all vital legislation enacted would then be of uniform and nation-wide application. Conceding that the people shall have a voice at Washington through the medium of their chosen representatives, the danger lies in the fact that their efforts may be, and doubtless would be, greatly hampered and restricted by the mammoth bureaucratic organization that would, by the centralization of all activities, of necessity grow up at the capital. The environment which surrounds the capital, unfortunately, is largely pro-East and anti-West. Our country is so vast in extent that the people of the East have no true conception of the western part of the Nation, especially all of that great section lying west of the Mississippi River. Seemingly, many know infinitely more about the continent of Europe than they do about this great western empire. There is a marked difference in the spirit and morale of the people, and in their progressiveness in the exercise of government throughout Western as compared with Eastern States. Means are not afforded in the Eastern States for the exercise of the people's voice through the medium of the "initiative and referendum," whereas, on the other hand, this improved medium of governmental machinery by which the people are enabled to enact remedial laws on the one hand, and, on the other, to veto bad laws, when legislative action is insufficient or unsatisfactory, has been quite generally adopted by the Western States. And, in this behalf, it is not only interesting, but highly significant of the ultraconservative eastern viewpoint, to note that when the initiative and referendum was proposed for adoption in the State of New York during the last campaign, its adoption was criticized by one of the leading papers of Washington, D. C., on the ground that "it was Populistic in its origin and that, while it had attained a vogue in the West, it has thus far never established even a foothold in the East.' In general, the West is better known among eastern people as a section made up of Indian reservations and rich natural resources, the fruits of which may, and from their viewpoint should be, drawn upon. for the support and prosperity of eastern industrial and financial centers, than it is from actual contact or knowledge of its people and their needs. The bulk of the industry, wealth and population of the country lies east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio and Potomac Rivers at the present time. Under completely centralized government, this condition would be greatly intensified, from which it might easily follow that ultimately there would be, if not a reapportionment of our representation in Congress, at least a direct referendum vote on legislation, and, thereafter, the dangerous possibility that the great western and southern producing States would be treated more in the light of colonies than as integral parts of the Nation. In conclusion, we are sure that the importance of the continued maintenance of our dual form of government, both state and national, cannot be overemphasized, and that it behooves all citizens, interested in the success of our great republic, to refuse to in any way temporize upon this question, whatever the pretext may be, and to courageously insist upon the maintenance and the efficient exercise of the powers of their local State Governments. In this behalf, if the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States does not prove efficacious, the people must be prepared to take back those rights and powers which experience may prove to have been unwisely relinquished. Respectfully submitted, J. F. SHAUGHNESSY, W. H. SIMMONS, E. H. WALKER, Secretary. Commissioner. PASSENGER FARES BEFORE THE RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION There is set forth below correspondence with the Railroad Administration regarding the establishment of 3-cent fares on the lines of government-operated railways within the States of Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico: CARSON CITY, NEVADA, November 14, 1918. HON. EDWARD CHAMBERS, Director of Traffic, United States Railroad Administration, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MR. CHAMBERS: Prior to my departure from Washington, on or about September 25, I had a conference with you in your office, and among other things I raised, for your information and consideration, the fact that the passenger fares on the government-controlled and operated railways within Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico are basically 4 cents per mile on the main Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Idaho and eastern Washington and Oregon the fares lines and from 4 to 5 cents per mile on the branch lines, whereas throughout are uniformly 3 cents per mile. As the trunk lines serving these territories operate under practically identical circumstances and conditions, I believe you conceded that there was no justification for the discrimination in question, and if I recall correctly you stated that you understood from a conference you had had with Mr. Gerrit Fort that an adjustment would soon be made whereby 3-cent passenger fares would be basically aplied to traffic in Nevada. Arizona, and New Mexico. As a result of the withdrawal of scrip-book and round-trip privileges which our people enjoyed prior to government operation, the increase in their transportation charges ranges from 25 per cent to 86.4 per cent, and they are complaining bitterly regarding the discrimination which is being imposed upon them by the Government, compared to other sections of the intermountain country. I may also state, for your information, that I conferred with Mr. Gerrit Fort, Assistant Director of Traffic, on two occasions during the summer regarding the matter of this adjustment. The questions relating to sparsity of population and traffic density were reviewed. While the population is sparse in Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico, it is equally sparse throughout Wyoming and Utah along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad, and the density of traffic covering both interstate and state traffic on practically all of the transcontinental lines is fairly comparable. In this behalf, I set forth for your information a table which clearly portrays the situation: STATISTICS, INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION, FOR JUNE 30, 1915 (page 281) Will you kindly advise if the Railroad Administration will make this adjustment in the near future, or if there are difficulties in the way of such action being taken promptly, will you kindly indicate what they are? As before stated, our people are clearly unable to see why they should not receive the same protection from the Government that is being accorded other sections of the country. With best wishes. I am 858,452,321 17,952,428 2,426 1.31 .02091 1,079,264,875 1.39 .01870 1,130,297,641 1.22 .01816 1.39 .02037 Very truly yours, J. F. SHAUGHNESSY, |