with proprietors along the line, and an obdurate farmer could compel a long detour or could block the whole undertaking.  But the public says:  a public enterprise is of more importance than the interests of a single farmer.  By charter or by franchise the railroad is granted the power of eminent domain, whereby the property of private citizens may be taken from them at an appraised valuation.  The manufacturer, enjoying no such privilege, can only by ordinary purchase obtain a site urgently needed for his business.  Why may the railway exercise the sovereign power of government as against the private property rights of others?  Because the railway is peculiarly “affected with a public interest.”  The primary object is not to favor the railroads, but to benefit the community.  These charters and franchises are granted sparingly in most European countries.  In this country they have been granted recklessly, often in general laws, by states keen in their rivalry for railroad extension.  When thus great public privileges had been granted without reserve to private corporations, it was realized, too late in many cases, that a mistake had been made and that an impossible situation had been created.

Sec. 19. #Other peculiar privileges of railroads.# Further, do the various grants of lands and money to the railroads make them other than mere private enterprises?  One answer, that of those financially interested in the railroads, was No.  They said that the bargain was a fair one, and was then closed.  The public gave because it expected benefit; the corporation fulfilled its agreement by building the road.  The terms of the charter, as granted, determined the rights of the public; but no new terms could later be read into it, even tho the public came to see the question in a new light.  Similar grants, tho not so large, have been made to other industries.  Sugar-factories were given bounties; iron-forges and woolen-mills were favored by tariffs; factories have been given, by competing cities, land and exemption from taxation; yet these enterprises have not on that account, been treated, thereafter, in any exceptional way.  So, it was said, the railroad was still merely a private business.

But the social answer is stronger than this.  The privileges of railroads are greater in amount and more important in character than those granted to any ordinary private enterprise.  The legislatures recognize constantly the peculiar public functions of the railroads.  In other private enterprises, investors take all the risk; legislatures and courts recognize the duty of guarding, where possible, the investment of capital in railroads.  Laws have been passed in several states to protect the railroads against ticket-scalping.  Whenever the question comes before them, the courts maintain the right of the railroads to earn a fair dividend.  Private enterprise has been invited to undertake a public work, yet public interests are paramount.