absolutely prohibit pooling and
all devices used as a substitute for it. No necessity for pooling
exists, and no good reason can be given why it should be permitted
unless complete government control is established.

State control of railroad transportation is as essential to the welfare
of the companies as it is to that of the public. The history of the past
twenty years has shown that railroad companies are utterly unable to
regulate their relations with each other. They either cannot arrive at
an understanding, and then the stronger companies resort to hostilities
to bring the weaker ones to their terms; or, when an agreement has been
reached among them, they find themselves unable to enforce it. Anarchy
then reigns supreme, until finally a truce is patched up, to be again
followed by evasions, defiance and "war." The nature of the railroad
business is in fact such that, in the absence of strict State control,
it is impossible for a conscientious manager to retain the business to
which his road is naturally entitled, and do full justice to both the
patrons and the stockholders of his road. Efforts have been made again
and again by railroad companies to regulate their affairs and adjust
their difficulties by resorting to pools, agreements, associations and
combinations, formed with all the ingenuity of which men are capable,
and supported by penalties and fines; but the unscrupulous railroad
manager has always found a way to violate or subvert the agreement.
There is a disposition among railroad companies to arrogate all the
powers of sovereignty. They want to make their own laws, impose fines
and declare war, and often go even so far as to openly defy the power of
the State that has given them their existence.

When railroad managers are shorn of the power to practice abuses, they
are at the same time deprived of the many advantages they now have to
speculate in railroad securities and enrich themselves at the expense of
the public and of other railroad stockholders. The great fortunes of
this country have been amassed within a few years, and chiefly from
manipulations of railroad property. If the people permit these practices
to go on without restraint but a few years more, the property of the
nation will be largely under the control of a few bold adventurers. The
great fortunes of Europe which it has required centuries to accumulate
are already outstripped by the "self-made" millionaires of this country.
However