a step. When
railroad managers are held responsible for their own official acts, as
well as for those of their subordinates, and when all railroad
transgressions are visited upon their source in such a manner as to be
remembered by the stings of disgrace and of a blighted career,
unfaithful railroad managers will be extremely rare.

The plan here outlined is of course capable of being greatly improved.
Experience only is a reliable guide as to the merits of the various
details of such a system of control. What is needed above all things is
a beginning, the establishment of the principle of complete control of
railroad transportation by the State and the Nation. When this step is
once taken, the friends of railroad reform may safely trust to time for
the solution of the subordinate questions of this important problem.

By thorough State and Federal supervision of the railroad business many
of the present abuses can be prevented. But the temptations of railroad
managers to violate the law will continue to exist as long as the
speculative element is permitted to remain in railroad securities. To
remove the fountain-head of the evil eventually, the way should
gradually be paved for a change in railroad organization and ownership
which would also greatly increase the responsibility and efficiency of
railroad management. In the beginning of the railroad era, nearly all,
and not unfrequently all the capital needed for the construction of a
new line was supposed to be furnished by the company's stockholders. But
as it often happened that the cost of construction considerably exceeded
the original estimate, the State authorized railroad companies to
mortgage their property for the purpose of raising the money necessary
to complete the road. In time this provision of the law was taken
advantage of by speculative stockholders to such an extent that roads
were often bonded for the full amount necessary to construct them, and
even for more, while the stock was issued simply as a bonus to the
promoters and the bondholders of the road. But as the bonds and shares
scarcely ever remain in the same hands, such a condition was eventually
brought about that roads were controlled by those who had little or
nothing invested in the enterprise, and their real owners were deprived
of all influence in their management, retaining only the right to
foreclose their mortgages when things came to the worst. It is evident
that men who have only a sp