persistently railroad managers may assure the people that abuses
in the transportation business have been reduced to a minimum and that
more stringent legislation will be an evil, it is a fact that many of
the graver railroad abuses are still practiced and that much more
reformation is needed in railroad management, or in railroad
supervision, or in both, to make the railroad what it was designed to
be, a highway operated for the public and open to all upon equal and
equitable terms.

The virtual ruler of the United States is public opinion. It is the
power that controls the legislative as well as the executive and
judicial departments of the Government. Enactments of legislatures and
of Congress and decisions of the courts, even of the Supreme Court of
the United States, not in harmony with an intelligent and determined
public opinion, cannot endure, and executives not in accord with the
masses of the people cannot long retain public confidence or official
authority.

Under these circumstances no reform movement has any prospect of success
unless it is supported by public opinion. It should therefore be the
principal endeavor of all advocates of railroad reform to create public
opinion in favor of the measures proposed by them. With an intelligent
public on the alert, the Government may be relied upon to pursue a
healthy and progressive railroad policy. Unfortunately, there are times
when public opinion upon great questions is dormant, while pecuniary
interests, like the force of gravity, never suspend their action. To
arouse the masses at such times, we must rely largely upon an honest,
independent and courageous press, not influenced by gift or patronage.

Many plans have been proposed for a better control of railroads. Some of
these are merely theoretical; others have been tried in part, and a few
have been tried in their entirety, but under circumstances radically
different from those surrounding us. A system which may be well adapted
to a monarchy with a centralization of governmental powers would
probably prove a failure here, when brought in contact with the
principles of dual sovereignty and local rule. Unless a revolution
should change our system of government, a dual system of railroad
control will always be necessary in the United States; for it is not at
all likely that the individual States will ever voluntarily give up
their right to regulate commerce carried on within their respective
borders. On the