ns or on what pretense--being made
inviolable by the Constitution, the Government is
frequently found stripped of its authority in very important
particulars, by unwise, careless or corrupt legislation; and
a clause of the Federal Constitution whose purpose was to
preclude the repudiation of debts and just contracts
protects and perpetuates the evil."

The late President Garfield, in one of his legislative speeches, called
attention to the fact that Chief Justice Marshall pronounced the
decision in the Dartmouth College case ten years before the steam
railway was born, and then said:

"I have ventured to criticise the judicial application of
the Dartmouth College case, and I venture the further
opinion that some features of that decision, as applied to
the railway and similar corporations, must give way under
the new elements which time has added to the problem."

Charles Fisk Beach, Jr., in his recent work entitled "Commentaries on
the Law of Private Corporations," well defines what constitutes
dedication to a public use. He says:

"Whenever any person pursues a public calling and sustains
such relations to the public that the people must of
necessity deal with him, and are under a moral duress to
submit to his terms if he is unrestrained by law, then, in
order to prevent extortion and an abuse of his position, the
price he may charge for his services may be regulated by
law. When private property is affected with a public
interest it ceases to be _juris privati_ only. This was said
by Lord Chief Justice Hale more than three hundred years ago
in his treatise _De Portibus Maris_, and has been accepted
without objection as an essential element in the law of
property ever since."

Treating of the fiduciary position of directors and officers of
corporations, the same author says:

"The directors, officers and agents of a corporation are
held to the general rule of law resting 'upon our great
moral obligation to refrain from placing ourselves in
relations which ordinarily excite a conflict between
self-interest and integrity.' The directors and officers
are the agents of the company, and while acting in that
capacity for it cannot deal with themselves to the detriment
of the corporation. All contracts of that character are
vo