step above the barbarian." "Those who use railroads should pay
for them," etc., etc.

Mr. Kirkman's argument is in substance: Rate-making is a difficult
subject. The people are too ignorant to understand it. Those who carry
on the Government are for the most part fools and demagogues, and are
utterly unfit to do justice to such a task. Railroad men are wise and
just, and neither the people nor the Government should meddle with the
railroad business. In order to place a true estimate upon Mr. Kirkman's
utterances, one should remember that he is a railroad employe as well as
the patentee and vendor of a number of railroad account forms which are
extensively used by railroad companies.

The Chicago _Tribune_, in reviewing this last literary production of Mr.
Kirkman, says:

"The great fault of Mr. Kirkman's statements is that they
are often so general in character as to be both true and
false at the same time.... He does not seem to comprehend
the nature of the railroad, or to perceive the danger of
allowing a railroad to exercise its powers uncontrolled. He
denies the State's right to interfere with any
discriminations which a railway corporation chooses to
adopt. He would allow railways to fix whatever charges they
please for long hauls and short hauls.... Mr. Kirkman does
not adduce a single fact in support of these remarkable
views. He simply says: 'Railroads cannot, if they would,
maintain any inequitable local tariff.' This is not
argument, it is simply assertion. Every one who has learned
the alphabet of this question knows that railways have been
exceedingly unjust wherever competition or the law did not
restrict their powers. If this were the proper place for it
we would give the author instances of this injustice by the
hundred, and almost any book on the subject refers to such
cases by the thousand.... When confronted with the facts
substantiating such charges the author answers the argument
by exclaiming: 'But how absurd! But how untrue! Our
commercial morals are equal to the highest in the world....'
Scarcely an assertion can be taken without qualification.
The author fairly revels in half-truths.... The book may
have its merits, but they are too modest to reveal
themselves."

It is a failing of mankind to take for truth without further
investigatio