ferred from the legislatures to the people, has not enlarged or diminished state powers.

The plan of Washington and his associates was to create a nation to consist of a central government and state governments. The central government was to have the power over foreign relations without interference by the states, complete power over war and peace, independent power to tax and raise money, and the absolute power over commerce, foreign and national. The states retained the wide field of local government. To this balance of authority is due the permanence of our Republic. An attempt to govern from Washington the home affairs of the people in forty-eight different states by acts of Congress and executive order would have severed the union into its parts. An attempt to give the national government power to brush the doorsteps of the people of a state in parochial matters and in a local atmosphere which must be breathed in order to be understood, would have created a dissatisfaction and a fatal gnawing at the bond between the states. Confederations like ours have usually gone to destruction either through the expansion of the national authority into an arbitrary and tactless exercise of power, or through the paralyzing of needed national strength by the encroachment of the constituent states. Our Constitution has maintained its balance, and that is why we are stronger to-day than we ever were in our history.

This statement will not meet the concurrence of many who insist that the power of the national government

has vastly increased as compared with that exercised by the states. Their view is not inconsistent with mine when the facts upon which they rely are analyzed. The national government exercises a much greater volume of power that it ever did in the history of the country. But the increase is within those fields of jurisdiction which have always under our Constitution belonged to the federal government, and the increase that we see to-day over what it was in Washington's day and in Jefferson's day is due not to a change of the original plan, but to two circumstances. One is that Congress did not see fit at once to exercise all its powers and allowed them to lie dormant until long after the Civil War. No one will deny, for instance, that Congress always had power over interstate commerce, but not until 1887 did it attempt to exercise direct control by an Interstate Commerce Commission. This is only one instance of many. The second circumstance is that in the growth and settlement of the country and expansion of its industries and business and the change effected by the use of steam and electricity in transportation, by which distance has been minimized and the country has been made compact, the volume of commerce of national and international character has greatly increased in proportion to that confined within the individual states. In Washington's day the total commerce within the states was 75 per cent. of all the commerce of the country. To-day the commerce within the limits of the states is 25 per cent. only of all the commerce of the country, and the proportion is dim

inishing. This of course affects the volume of national power in regulating the interstate and foreign commerce as compared with that exercised by the states, without in any degree changing the principle upon which the two juris

dictions are divided.

The time has not come when our Constitution should be amended to change that line of division. But the time is here when Congress, within the field of its acknowledged jurisdiction, should assert more power than it has heretofore done, and meet a condition of affairs resembling much that which really prompted the making of the Constitution itself. The chaos in the commerce of the country before our present national union, by the obstruction to its free flow between the states caused by state jealousies, state greed, and state busy-body legislation, brought about the calling of a convention at Annapolis. That convention failed for lack of attendance, but it led directly to the call of the convention, the framing of the Constitution, and its ratification. There were other causes in abundance for the Convention of 1787, but the most acute, and the one with respect to whose remedy there was practically no difference of opinion, was the necessity for the taking over of the control of interstate and foreign commerce by a central power which should exclude state interference. When the actual state of our national transportation facilities to-day is examined and analyzed, measures of relief seem as imperative as they were in 1787. Needed action may be had without any constitutional amendment or change in the structural plan of our

government. It is within the conceded power of Congress.

The inadequacy of our railroad system to meet the demands of our rapidly increasing population and the volume of transportation that our foreign trade demands, and to meet the requirements of a state of war which we face, is startling. We have had many warnings from railroad men as to what would occur under conditions like the present. Their warnings are now being vindicated. The embargoes which the railroads have been obliged to impose on legitimate shipments are a mathematical demonstration of how far short is our arterial system of in

terstate commerce.

In the year ending June 30, 1916, although we had the greatest business prosperity in our history, only 700 miles of new railroad line were constructed. With the exception of the first year of the Civil War, this new mileage is less than any year since 1848. Down to 1907, our new annual railroad construction averaged nearly 5,000 miles. One-sixth of our total railroad mileage is owned by bankrupt companies and is in the hands of receivers. The total capitalization of those companies amounts to $2,250,000,000. State legislation has interfered with the railroads in securing money enough properly to maintain and improve their equipment. Nineteen states have laws regulating the issue of securities with railroads doing business in the state. This has led to the imposition of unreasonable fees for the issuing of stock and to the burdening of loans and readjustments needed in order properly to finance the roads with a view to in

creasing their capacity. Not only that, but in many cases railroads are helpless under state legislation to secure loans at all. The evidence before Congress indicates that at least five billions of dollars should be borrowed to supply the railroads of the country with side tracks, warehouses, and terminal facilities, and other improvements needed to give capacity adequate to do the business of the country. Since January, 1916, when our prosperity has been beyond anything in our history, not a single share of new railroad stock has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and the common stock of not more than a dozen American railroads is being sold on the New York Stock Exchange above par. Most railroads cannot float long-time bonds, and must depend on short-time notes to raise the money for maintenance and equipment of their present capacity. There is no possible hope under present conditions that five billions can be raised to increase railroad capacity, although capital is abundant, interest rates are moderate, and good investments are sought.

The

The cause of this condition is to be found in over-regulation, over-restriction, unfair taxation, and a general public attitude of hostility to railroads, especially in state legislation. reason for this is easy to find. There was a time in the history of the country when legislatures and Congress were only too eager to encourage the construction of railroads and their operation, and then there were extended them privileges and votes of direct assistance that were over-generous. The managers of railroads took advantage of this favorable attitude, forgot their

duty under the common law, and

granted outrageous granted outrageous discriminations among shippers and as between localities. They exercised great and necessarily corrupting influences in our politics, and with other great corporate organizations they created a danger in this country of plutocracy which the people finally realized and then took radical steps to prevent. This popular fear caused the passage of the interstate commerce law, and its stiffening amendments through twenty years were forced by the flouting resistance of the railroad managements. It caused the passage of the anti-trust act and it created a great reform by driving corporate organizations out of politics. But the indignation of the people was not restrained. They are a leviathan which cannot be aroused to only a moderate remedy, and they have carried the measures of reform to an excess which now must itself be reformed. Politicians and demagogues in various states have found their way to power through continued nagging of the railroads, and, with the history of railroad abuses, they have been able to continue this campaign and profit by it personally down to the present day. The railroads drove Congress into the law of 1910, by which complete control over interstate railroads is given to that body, and even that body has probably not been as generous and as just, due to this popular feeling, as it ought to have been in the treatment of the railroads. Justice to the railroads of itself requires a change in this condition. They have sinned in the past, but they have been punished sufficiently in the loss of their

revenues and in the difficulties of their operation. Far beyond the question of justice to them and their stockholders is the question of the life of the nation and the need there is for relieving the circulation of the blood in our national body from the obstructions that are inflicting necessary evil upon our people.

The same cause that led to the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission and the stiffening of its powers led to the creation of some forty-eight different state railroad commissions. Sometimes they were appointed and sometimes elected, but the office of

Railroad Commissioner too frequently became a stepping-stone to higher political powers. Thus the local hostility against the railroads manifested itself

in the harsh measures of the state commissions against the railroads.

Again, railroad commissions in some states have been tempted to make rates favorable to business points in the state and unfavorable to those of other states. It is a fight for business between the states exactly analogous to that which took place between the states before the Constitution. It greatly interferes with the symmetry of the system of rates fixed by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the Supreme Court has spoken in no uncertain terms of the power of Congress to remedy such interference.

State laws affecting equipment and operation are another burden upon interstate railroads. Thirty-seven states have divers laws regulating locomotive bells; thirty-five have laws about whistles; thirty-two have head-light laws.

States are generally content with twowheeled trucks on cabooses, but fifteen require four-wheeled trucks. The length and constructive weight of cabooses, too, is the subject of legislation in thirteen states. One state requires cuspidors between every two seats in a car, and another forbids them. One requires screens in the windows of passenger coaches, and another forbids them. There is just as much burden in the laws affecting operation as in those of equipment. The requirement as to extra brakemen and the full-crew laws all increase the cost of operating the railroads and injure instead of aiding efficiency. Fifteen states have laws designed to secure preferential treatment for their freight by prescribing a daily movement for freight cars. Though under the federal law there is no demurrage penalty for failure to furnish cars to a shipper, several states have penalties running from one dollar to five dollars per car per day. The result is that the railroads are compelled to discriminate against interstate commerce and against commerce in the states that have no demurrage penalties.

In ten years, while the gross receipts of the railroads have increased only 50 per cent., the number of general office clerks has increased 87 per cent., with an increase of 120 per cent. or over forty millions of dollars in the annual wages paid them. The taxes upon railroads by the states have grown apace and every device adopted to avoid the Federal Constitution and heap a burden upon these instruments of interstate commerce. In the fiscal year of 1915 the railroads were compelled