ious, the railway logic comes to the surprising
climax of appealing to legislation for the aid of the law in
upholding their efforts to prevent competition."

Mr. Hudson maintains that if the pool were legalized it would only be a
means of swelling railroad earnings. He says:

"If the pool would maintain equitable rates its success
might be desired, but what guarantee is there that the
complete establishment of its power would make such rates?
Its very character, the functions of the men who control its
policy, and its avowed object of swelling the earnings of
railways by artificial methods, forbid such an expectation.
Make the success of the pool absolute, so that it can work
without fear of competition, and its rates will be uniform,
but of such a character that their uniformity will be a
public grievance and burden.... A grave effect of this
policy, though not easily calculable, is the ability it
gives to railway officials to control the prices of stocks,
and the temptation to enhance their fortunes by so doing....
It is a heavy indictment against the pooling system that it
gives power to avaricious and unscrupulous men in railway
management to enrich themselves at the cost of shareholders
and investors, both by forming combinations and by exciting
disputes or ruptures in them."

The question whether the common law does not protect the public
sufficiently is well answered by Mr. Hudson as follows:

"The common law is sufficient in theory, but it has failed
in practice.... In practice, legal remedies against railway
injustice can be applied to the courts only by fighting the
railways at such disadvantages that the ordinary business
man will never undertake it except in desperate cases. Every
advantage of strength and position is with the railways....
This [the railroad] power has kept courts in its pay; it
defies the principles of common law and nullifies the
constitutional provisions of a dozen States; it has many
representatives in Congress and unnumbered seats in the
State legislatures. No ordinary body of men can permanently
resist it."

But the remedy which Mr. Hudson proposes for the correction of railroad
evils is one of doubtful efficacy. It is this:

"Legislation should restore the character of public highw