they control
the machinery of their State government.

CHAPTER V.

RAILROAD ABUSES.

As has already been shown, railroad enterprise met with comparatively
little opposition in the United States, for, as compared with the
interests certain to be benefited by the introduction of the new mode of
transportation, those likely to be injured by it were insignificant. It
is true, the innate conservatism of man even here recorded its
objections to the innovation. It viewed with distrust the new power
which threatened to revolutionize well-established systems of
transportation and time-honored customs and to force upon the people
economic factors the exact nature and value of which could only be
ascertained by practical tests. But the progressive portion of the
community was so decidedly predominant that these protests were soon
drowned in the general demand for improved facilities of transportation.
The farmer who had to haul his produce a great distance to reach a
market appreciated the advantages to be derived from the location of a
railroad station nearer home. The manufacturer who heretofore had, had a
very limited territory for the sale of his products well realized that
he could with the aid of a railroad enlarge his territory and increase
his output, and with it his profits. The pioneer merchant found that he
could no longer compete with former rivals in adjoining towns, since the
iron horse had reached them and lowered their freights, and he also
became a convert to the new order of things and clamored loud for
railroad facilities. Railroads seemed the panacea for industrial and
commercial ills, and every inducement was held out and every sacrifice
made by communities to become participants of their blessings. So great
was the estimate of the conveniences afforded by them and so strongly
was public opinion prejudiced in their favor that it is no exaggeration
to say that railroad companies as a rule were permitted to prepare their
own charters, and that these charters almost invariably received
legislative sanction.

To such an extent was the public mind prepossessed in favor of railroads
that any legislator who would have been instrumental in delaying the
granting of a railroad charter for the purpose of perfecting it, to
protect the people against possible abuses, would have been denounced as
a short-sighted stickler and obstructor of public improvements. Anxious
for railroad facilities, the people were dea