Even when this legislation was not ignorantly and unwisely
conceived, and even when it was prepared by well-informed and
well-intentioned men, it was informed by contradictory ideas and a false
conception of the genuine abuses and their necessary remedies.
Consequently, a certain fraction of intelligent and disinterested public
opinion began soon to realize that the results of a vigorous attempt on
the part of the state governments to use their powers and to fulfill
their responsibilities in respect to the railroads were actually worse
and more dangerous to the public interest than was the previous neglect.
The neglect of the responsibility implied corruption, because it
provoked blackmail. The vigorous fulfillment of the responsibility
implied confusion, cross-purposes, and excessive severity, because the
powers of a single state were too great within its specific jurisdiction
and absolutely negligible beyond.
The railroad companies suffer more from this piecemeal and conflicting
regulation than do corporations engaged in manufacturing operations, not
only because they discharge a peculiarly public function, but because
their business, particularly in its rate-making aspect, suffers severely
from any division by arbitrary geographical lines.
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