oyalty. If, however, he acquires the ermine in spite of railroad
opposition, every effort is made to conciliate the new dispenser of the
laws. The bestowal of unusual favors, flattery, simulated friendship and
a thousand other strategies are brought into requisition to capture the
wayward jurist. If he proves docile, if his decisions improve with time
and show a gradual appreciation of the particular sacredness of
corporate rights, the railroad manager will even forgive him his former
heresy and rally to his support in the future. But if he asserts his
convictions, if he attempts to discharge the duties of his responsible
office without fear or favor, if he can neither be corrupted nor
intimidated, all available railroad forces will be marshaled against him
in the future.

It cannot be surprising that, under such circumstances, there always has
been a tendency among judges to be conservative and to give the
railroads the benefit of the doubt in their decisions. Judges well know
that railroad companies appeal almost invariably when the decision of a
lower court is adverse to them, but private citizens only in exceptional
cases. They also know that railroads never forgive adverse decisions,
whether right or wrong, while private citizens, as a rule, accept the
decision of the court as justice, and do not hold the judge responsible
for its being adverse to them. Our judiciary is, and probably always has
been, as incorruptible as the judiciary of any country in the world; but
our judges are made of no better material than our legislative or
executive officers. Weak men, in all stations, are influenced by wealth
and power, and weak judges can always be found who will be led or forced
from the path of duty so long as corrupt men are permitted to manage
railroads and to remain in possession of a power only inferior to that
of an autocratic ruler.

The influence which railroads exert extends from the lowest to the
highest court of the land. Federal courts have more than once been
successfully appealed to to give legal sanction to the perpetuation of
gigantic frauds, or to frustrate attempts made by the individual States
to place restrictions upon roads operated within their respective
borders. Twenty years ago a Federal judge aided Mr. Gould in his
notorious Erie transactions, and in more recent years a Federal circuit
judge in the West threw the property of the Wabash Railroad Company,
upon the application of its own directors