ARGUMENT
OF
CH'AUNCEY M. DEPEW,
General Counsel New York Central & Hudson River Railroad Company
Before Assembly Committee on Railroads, Legislature
State of New York, in opposition to the bills
providing for the creation of a Board
of Railroad Commissioners.
March 16. 1881.
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c°mpliments of
M 1'LT.im J. TRIMBLE, *'
ARGUMENT
OF
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW,
General Counsel New York Central & Hudson River Railroad Company
Before Assembly Committee on Railroads, March 16, 1881, in
opposition to the bills providing for the creation «
of a Board of Railroad Commissioners.
Mr Chairman.:
You are already so familiar with this question,
that I shall not detain you by going into the kindred topics
which require so much time for a thorough and complete
discussion. I have listened with great pleasure to the speech
of Mr. Sterne, as I always do to every address he delivers;
and while he said that I would say it was the same old speech,
I reply I read the plays of Shakspeare over and over again,
for the simple reason that Shakspeare cannot be improved
upon, and Sterne cannot improve upon himself, nor can
anybody improve on Sterne on the anti-monopoly side of
this railway question. Though he has gone somewhat out
of the line and introduced some new matter into the speech
here to-day, I do not think it has improved the admirable
effort which I admired so much eight years ago.
But, I will say this of him now ; he is by far the ablest and
most learned man in the country on that side. I am sorry
*
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b'jrzau of railway economics,
washington, d. c.
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2
that my friend, Sterne, is not surrounded here by the same
crowd which has attended him all this long period. I am
afraid his party is falling away. When they first came here,
these gentlemen, whose faces are now so familiar, by their
annual visits to the legislature, numbered about fifteen men.
I have seen no obituary notice of any of them, and il any
had died the newspapers would have been in such mourning,
it^could not have escaped the notice of the most casual ob¬
server. Year after year these fifteen gentlemen have come
here and presented the claim of themselves, and themselves
only, for the passage of this bill; but this year the number is
reduced to ten. Where are the other five ? A roll should be
called and a muster had ; because great causes like this, with
reform behind and the evangel of truth in front, ought not
in.these degenerate days to have men fall away from them,
and so reform perish on the threshold of the legislature.
But I think it can be accounted for. Some of them have
abandoned the moderate and wiser methods which have been
pursued for the last eight years, and of which my brother,
Sterne, is the apostle, and have joined the anti-monopoly
league ; and the anti-monopoly league is not here. Why ?
Because, an officer of the railways is here. They believe
that any representative of a corporation is a frightful crea¬
ture with horns and hoof, and flaming breath, and shouting
like the giant in the nursery rhyme :
Fee, faw, turn, I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Dead or alive I must have some.
Now, under such terrific circumstances, no wonder Mr.
Sterne's army has been depleted, and that he has failed to
bring here his usual contingent in behalf of this most popu¬
lar bill.
3
My friend, Mr. Glass, said in his speech, that all reforms,
from the days of 1776, in this country, have succeeded; and
so they have where they have been genuine reforms. The
only trouble is that these gentlemen in buckram are not the
patriots of '76. They never were mustered in by George
Washington, or by Lloyd Garrison, or by Wendell Phillips,
they never followed in the train of Abraham Lincoln, but
they are pursuing an ignis fatuus of their own creation
which nobody sees but themselves, and the reason they
have no success is, becauseel even of the jurymen cannot
understand why they are such idiots, while all the wisdom
resides in one.
This is no new bill. My friend, Sterne, has already told
\
you that we once had a railway commission in this state, and
he said I would not refer to it as I have heretofore. I will.
We had a railway commission in this state, composed of as
good men as you will get to-day. The necessities of the
state at that time were not as great, its commerce was not as
complicated, its transportation system was not as vast as it is
to-day, and yet these men satisfied neither the railways nor
the public, there was no dissent to their abolishment, how¬
ever much was the joy which hailed their advent, and if, as
Mr. Sterne says, the testimony before the Hepburn commit¬
tee shows that they retired from office because the Erie
Railroad gave them $20,000 to get out and surrender their
trust, is that a reason why three more healthy patriots should
be put into a similar place to repeat the performance? Is the
precedent one which justifies the State of New York in
exploiting three more reformers upon this fearful monopoly
which is kicked by everybody, but those who own, and those
who use it for the transportation of themselves or their
f
4
property? There are many kinds of reform. There is one
which pays—that is the most popular. There is another,
where the reformer vigorously assails some business with
which his interests are not connected, in the hope that he
may be projected into prominence, or his affairs prospered
by the ruin of his neighbor, I have rarely seen one whose
aim was not either an office for himself, or to get even with
somebody else.
There are honest people in this movement—honest both
in their efforts and in convictions—but they are misled by
abler and shrewder men. I do not in making criticisms of
this kind, charge bad motives upon my brother Sterne. He
is a lawyer, so am I. We never act from bad motives ;
we always have substantial reasons for what we do pro¬
fessionally. He says that the railways tax the industries,
tax the produce, tax the transportation of the State. So
does everybody who does any business. The farmer taxes
when he sells his produce, the merchant taxes when he
gets his commission, the preacher taxes when he receives
his salary, the legislator taxes when he draws his stipend,
the public officer taxes when he is paid, the doctor taxes
when he receives his fee, brother Sterne and I tax every
chance we can get. There may be a difference between a
tax which is levied by an individual under such circum¬
stances, and a tax levied by a corporation ; and yet, if the
taxation by the corporations of this State be of the kind
and character presented by these gentlemen, where are the
men who ask for relief? Albany is not very far from the
most distant parts ol the State; it does not cost a great deal
to come here, even if a man cannot get a free pass. There
are h ve millions of people in the Empire State ; there are four
5
hundred millions of dollars invested in manufactures, and
more wealth in business of all kinds than there is in the whole
of New England; and it is represented by enterprise, intelli¬
gence and energy, equal to that of all the wealth, enterprise,
intelligence and energy there are in all the other states in
the Union put together. Are these men oppressed, down¬
trodden, ground in the dirt, and yet have not the manhood
to appear here and claim redress? The statement is as mon¬
strous as it is absurd. Ten gentlemen come here, not rep¬
resenting great business, great manufactures, great arteries
of commerce, great farms, great capital, great anything which
stirs up and keeps moving the life blood of this common¬
wealth, and they say five millions of people, twenty thousand
millions of property are oppressed and crushed and do not
know it and we are here to protect and to save these poor
deluded and down-trodden, capitalists, manufacturers, mer¬
chants and farmers. God save the mark ! If there was one
tithe or title, if there was a proportion between the state¬
ments of these gentlemen in regard to these oppressions, as
great as the proportion between the distance from here to
the Delavan House and the distance from here to the fixed
stars, there would be ten thousand men in this Capital
knocking at the doors of this Assembly and demanding
measures at your hands which you would neither dare re¬
fuse to pass, nor I dare to stand here, even as an advocate,
and oppose.
The newspaper lives in every locality; it abounds ever}'-
where ; it Voices public opinion, public necessities and local
troubles. You know what the voice of the newspapers of
your districts is ; you know what the voice of the great
newspapers of the metropolis and the great newspapers of
6
the other cities of the state which are centres of thought,
activity and business is.
Point me out any proportion of them which say that there
is oppression, that there is injustice, that there is iniquity
practiced by the railways of this state upon its business
and then I will confess that there may be an evil which
requires a legislative remedy. But when the people are
quiet and every business prosperous, when no man who
uses the railroad asks for relief, or states a grievance, why
move the legislature, why disturb the corporation be¬
cause of the tom-toms of a corporal's guard of gentlemen
who are delighted with the sound of their own voices, and
their appearance as photographed upon the floor of the Leg¬
islature of the State.
My friend Mr. Sterne said that the article of Mr. Lloyd in
the Atlantic Monthly met such a vast popular demand that
a triple edition had to be issued in order to supply it. I was
amazed at the mildness of the statement. I thought it was a
sextriple edition, for I knew that the Board of Trade and
Transportation had ordered, without limit, to distribute<2/is
through the state. Why, during the late canvass there were
newspapers with circulations of hundreds, that suddenly had
exceptional circulations of ten thousand. Why ? Because
the Board of Trade and Transportation wrote and paid for
lampoons upon me and then took ten thousand copies each
and circulated them through the state. That is public opin¬
ion. That was the vast demand which these gentlemen call
the popular cry, voicing an agony which could not be ex¬
pressed except for their benevolent and fluent missionaries.
Now, what is proposed to be done by these healthy patriots
who are to divide among themselves $50,000 a year, besides
7
the free lunches and excursions with which they will gratify
themselves and their friends. (I have always been an active,
energetic politician, and outside of my professional relations,
as eager as anybody to promote the interests of the party to
which I belong, and in the expression of the opinions, I be¬
lieve, upon public occasions). On this account, bills like I his
have never been introduced into the Legislature, when the
party with which I was connected was in power, that men
of influence in the organization have not come to me from all
parts of the state and said, <£ Depew, for God's sake sink the
lawyer into the patriot for once and let us have this patron¬
age and when the democratic party has been in power,
eminent democrats have come to me and said, " let us have
those places and it will take care of the party and not injure
the road." There are fifty thousand voters employed on the
railroads in this State. No company ever attempts to
control their votes. But under a partizan commission, in
our closely contested commonwealth, the prizes are so
great, but little time would pass before every effort would
be made to control this great force, to keep the rich prizes
and powerful offices in the hands of the commissioners'
friends.
My friend Mr. Sterne, says, that in our resistance to
this bill, and this class of Legislation, we have dominated
legislatures, and we dominate public bodies everywhere.
Granger legislation, tax laws, restrictions and burdens con¬
stantly put upon this property, proves the reverse. Juries
are hostile and the Courts hold us to the most rigid account¬
ability, in most localities our property is assessed and
taxed from two to four times more than any other,
hnd I never go before a board of assessors, or the trus-
8
tees of a village, or the aldermen of a city, or a commit¬
tee of the legislature, that I do not know they hold by the
throat the property 1 represent; and yet, last week, because
the Board of Aldermen of the City of New York some years
ago compelled us to spend twenty-five or thirty thousand
dollars to put up some fences, a gentleman who was opposed
to the fence appeared before a committee of your body, and
said that we owned i he Common Council and compelled
them to pass the ordinance to make us spend the money.
We are always in the wrong. Our position in relation to
public bodies, and the oppressions that we exercise, are pre¬
cisely like the position of John Phoenix in his battle with
the prize fighter. The prize fighter got him down and got
on top of him and then, said Phoenix, "I got the better of
him; I put my nose between his teeth and held him down."
Now, this bill proposes to accomplish what? The same
things which are done by the State Engineer and Surveyor
and very few more. The wise men who formed the legisla¬
tion of this state and created its constitution contemplated
that duties like this should be performed by elective officers,
responsible to the people; and, therefore, they put in the
hands of the State Engineer and Surveyor, an elective officer,
all the duties that are exercised by the commissioners of rail¬
ways in all these twenty-two states, with the exception of
some additional powers in Massachusetts and two others, and
the three Commissioners, preying upon the taxpayers of all
these States and holding places simply for political services,
perform the duties or neglect them which have been per¬
formed by a constitutional officer in this State, the State
Engineer and Surveyor, for the last thirty years, without
scandal, without reproach, without a charge of misfeasance
9
or malfeasance during- any administration or the incumbency
by a member of any party. While the experiment of a
Railroad Commission was a failure, the State Engineer and
Surveyor, whether he has been a Democrat, a Republican or
a Whig, has always been true to his high office, his oath and
his trust and no scandal has crossed his threshold or been
dragged into the Legislature to disgrace the State and free
government. The Legislature of lhinois now have a com¬
mittee investigating their commission which has been in
office but a very few years.
This bill proposes to give to this commission the power
to examine into accidents. That power exists in the com¬
mission in the State of Connecticut, and yet at Tarififville, by
a defective bridge a train went down and a hundred people
were murdered. Why ? Because they relied upon the
promise of the State to protect them through the commis¬
sion and the promise of the State was a lie. Because the
State took care of a politician to the neglect of the material
interests of the commonwealth. At Ashtabula, Ohio, where
there is another commissioner appointed to look after the
same things, by a defect which was equally discoverable, fifty
more people were burned to death amidst horrors which
equalled those of the inquisition, and their fatal reliance was
on the State of Ohio and its fancy commission and its pol¬
itical patronage. Now I am a politician and I believe in
all the patronage that is possible, and in strengthening the
party in every legitimate way, but a party which cannot
live without leeching on the treasury of the State deserves
to die.
What is the next that these gentlemen, who are none of
them to be stockholders or railroad men, but experimental
TO
\
gentlemen, or shrewd manipulators of caucuses, are to do?
They are to decide when the rolling stock of a railroad is not
sufficient; when stations should be changed from one place
to another, and when the shape of the station should be alter¬
ed and a new roof put on, a ventilator put in, or a patent
chimney or a stove that will not throw out gas; and, if they
are ot an artistic and aesthetic turn of mind they are to direct
that stained glass be put in the windows in order that the
beautiful may be cultivated in a town where beauty hereto¬
fore has been unknown. They are to see to it that the
American flag floats over the station on the Fourth of July,
and Washington's Birthday; and if they want to cul¬
tivate votes they are to have the green flag out there
on St. Patrick's Day. All for fifty thousand dollars a
year. Cheap as dirt. Why, serious questions of this
kind are not settled by three persons appointed on the
system by which you select a jury—that they shall swear
they never heard a word of the thing that all- the world
knows but themselves. When we had a difficulty with the
City of Rochester, as Mr. Cowles well knows, in which the
city wanted us to perform certain acts which would be a
benefit to that city though expensive to us, we did not go
to any railway commission to hear testimony on the one side
and testimony on the other, to drag up our books, to drag
down their citizens, to suspend the operations of our engi¬
neer's office while we were educating an extemporized court
both as to law and facts—but we met the citizens of Roch¬
ester by a committee appointed from their own number, and
this tyrant monopoly, this great bugaboo, fwhich, with
flaming breath, rides over the rights of individuals and
municipalities—this Mr. Vanderbilt, whom Schwab informs
11
us by an associate press dispatch in to-day's paper, will be
assassinated as soon as anti-monopoly succeeds, went to
Rochester and met the citizens and said, gentlemen, let us
reason together; we have a common interest; I run a road
through your city, and I want to run it in such a way as to
be in the utmost harmony with the interests of your business
and your people ; you have a city which is largely benefitted
by the road; you have no desire to destroy its property ; I
have no other desire than to live in amity with you ; and a
plan was agreed upon resulting, as usual, in no expense to
the city but in $1,500,000 of voluntary expense to the rail¬
road company, and fresh illustration was given of the way
this monopoly disregards the appeals of and oppresses the
locality where a fancied injury exists.
The same way in Albany. Trouble has existed here in
regard to the Broadway crossing. You passed a resolution
in regard to it. The State Engineer went down and looked
at it. It was a difficult thing to fix ; it was a troublesome
engineering problem to get around ; it was an expensive
thing to do. The city said, the constitution does not per¬
mit us to do it; we have no power to compel you to spend
the money ; what will you do ? Why, I, representing this
monopoly, under instructions from the President, met the
mayor; and when I got to his office I found he had neither
cannon charged with grape shot at the door, nor was he sur¬
rounded by the Jackson Guards, but he sat there wholly un¬
armed, with a segar in his mouth. It was the finest instance of
manly bravery I ever witnessed in the presence of such an
aggressive spirit as I represented. We laid the map down,
as two ordinary human beings would, who have a problem
to discuss, and business relations which are amicable and in-
12
timate, and he made suggestions and so did our engineer,
and the representative in this Assembly of the district, and
at the end of an hour we shook hands and went away, and
the whole thing was settled. It might have been vastly bet¬
ter for politics and politicians to have had a fifty thousand
dollar commission do this, but not for us and the people of
Albany.
Now, what is another beauty of this bill? Why, it directs
that this fifty thousand dollar commission of gentlemen, who,
by law are not permitted to know anything about the busi¬
ness, shall make recommendations to the Railway Compan¬
ies about anything and everything ; if the Railway Company
fails to follow out those suggestions then the fifty thousand
dollar commission shall apply to the Attorney-General to
to bring them up to the bull-ring ; if the Attorney-General
does not act, then the fifty thousand dollar commission shall
go to the Legislature. Under such circumstances of course
the corporation would adopt the recommendation ; but in
view of the possible and probable consequences, the law
provides that if the recommendation shall prove injurious to
the public, or damaging to any interest, the Railway shall
not be freed from liability by having followed a recommen¬
dation they were forced to adopt. That is precisely like di¬
recting a man to test a new sort of combustible by putting it
under a barn, by the direction of a public officer, the officer
stating, u I direct you to do that, sir, under penalty of the
law, but if the barn burns down you must pay for it and
go to state prison as an incendiary." The Central Rail¬
road can do a great many things; but it cannot be in half a
dozen places at the same time, or go in two directions at the
same instant, or pass two trains at forty miles an hour on a
t
13
single track, or safely put in operation the ten thousand
patented devices the friends of the commission would com¬
pel them to try.
What is another important duty of this commission ? It is
the one which will take the most of their time, and the larg¬
est part of their abilities. They shall draft bills to be pre¬
sented to the Legislature. These three gentlemen, who by
law are prohibited from knowing anything about the rail¬
way question, are to borrow brother Sterne's library, and
draft bills for the education of the Legislature and the bene¬
fit of the people of this State. What will be the effect?
Why, Mr. Sterne will draw all the bills as special coun¬
sel; and, while I envy him his fee, I don't want his legisla¬
tion. Their next act, and that will be the most graceful
thing they do, will be making reports to the Legislature.
It there is anything the railway reformer, who never owned a
dollar of stock in a Railroad, never shipped to any extent
that would familiarize him with its operations, never sat in a
railroad freight office and never was a railroad director or
officer, if there is any one thing such a man can do better
than another, it is to write an essay on how railroads ought
to be run. The accuracy with which an old school, old time
minister of the ancient sort could tell just how, in the in¬
fernal pit, the fires are builded, the furnaces are stoked, the
degrees of heat that are applied, and the manner in which
the victims are turned over on the spit for their wickedness,
just with the same information and the same ability, earnest¬
ness and enthusiasm, can a railway reformer write how rail¬
roads ought to be run ; but he is very careful, if there is the
slightest probability of his theories being adopted, to sell out
what little railroad stock he has before the matter is tested.
14
These railway reformers began originally by stating that
they were not going to apply to the legislature ; that the
dull, material, unapproachable stupidity of the people of the
state was such, that they were so blind to their own inter¬
ests. so dead to their oppressions, so impervious to the lance
of monopoly, which was letting out their heart's blood, that
they as true philanthropists and reformers would relieve
them by building a road themselves. That was the first
proposition of the Cheap Transportation Association, the
grandfather of all its successors. Now, why did they not build
that freight road ? It was a beautiful scheme. It was to be
run upon principles which would yield no return to the in¬
vestor, but would build up the country. It was to run, as
the bird flies, between New York and Chicago. Why was
it not built? They took their prospectus down into Wall
street and laid it before those hard-headed money lenders
and money investors, but they responded : " we are not the
directors of a lunatic asylum, you have come to the wrong
place, we don't put money anywhere, except we expect to
get it back and a large interest besides for the risk, that is
our principle ; it may be all wrong, we may be punished for it
in this world and the next, but that is the way we do, gentle¬
men of the Cheap Transportation Association and of the
Board of Trade and Transportation. Why don't you put
your own money in it; you have got it.'' But those gentle¬
men answered ; " we never invest in corporations ; in the first
place it is wicked, and in the next place our money is needed
lor the purpose of conducting groceries, and keeping ware¬
houses, and running dry goods and other establishments, and
doing all those things where capital is active, and rolls over
and over and doubles rapidly, and if we should put our money
i5
in a dead enterprise like this, it would stop the grocery busi¬
ness, shut up the dry goods establishments, interfere with the
commission business, and injure the commerce of the City of
New York ; but we want philanthropists to come forward and
build the road, and then we will develop commerce and en¬
rich ourselves by using it for nothing. The scheme failed,
and never has been heard of since ; and among the tracts now
distributed and sent around bv the Board of Trade and Trans-
portation and the Anti-Monopoly League, there are no copies
of that old tract so familiar, and which I keep filed away as
among the most precious relics of my library, with my
Homer, and my Horace, that old tract advocating a freight
railroad, to be built by citizens of philanthropic and chari¬
table tendencies, between the City of New York, as the bird
flies, and Chicago. The bird is still flying.
These gentlemen, since that scheme was abandoned, have
vigorously advocated the idea that railroad investments dif¬
fer from all other business ventures. If successful the pro¬
jectors shall enjoy only a limited interest upon their money,
and derive no benefit beyond for superior skill in manage¬
ment, or partake with their neighbors in the increased value
of property. If unsuccessful, as four-fifths of them are, then
they shall bear the loss wholly themselves. If a dozen roads
fail, then according to these financiers, the builders must
pocket the loss and public have the benefits ; if one makes a
profit, none of it shall go to those who taking all the risk,
have by their enterprise built up and enriched the State.
Had such views been the law, the stage coach and road
wagon woukl still traverse New York's barren wastes.
My friend Mr. Sterne said that the people of this State paid
as a tax to the railroads in the way of transportation charges
i6
annually $100,000,000. But he forgot to say it was received
by eighty corporations; he forgot to state that of that $100,-
000,000, $60,000,000 were paid by the people of other States
to these railroads and brought here for the benefit of this
State ; he forgot to state that the trunk lines which run
through New York, toll the produce of the great north-westy
and south-west, toll the wheat, the rye, toll the corn, the
cotton, the lumber, and that this toll pours into the coffers of
the people of this State and is spent within its limits, that it
goes into every farmer's, every manufacturer's, every com¬
mission merchant's, every other kind of merchant's pockets;
he forgot to state that of this $100,000,000 but $15,000,000 is
paid out in dividends upon the investment of $676,000,000,.
netting only about three per cent, upon the money invested,,
and the balance goes for labor, for wages, for salaries, for oil,
for iron, for wheels, and that it is a perpetual stream fertilizing
the agriculture, turning the wheels of the manufacturer and
keeping alive the business which these gentlemen them¬
selves do. Statistics are not the forte of railroad reformers.
My friend, Mr. Glass, whom I am always pleased to hear,
quoted from Judge Black ex-Attorney-General of Buchanan's
administration. I -confess that a political opinion of Judge
Black's has not much weight with me ; but a legal opinion
of his, if it is not paid for, has great weight with me. Until
he made his speech at the Cooper Institute to the Anti-
Monopoly League, any statement of facts supported by the
averment of Judge Black would have been conclusive with
me. Me stated in effect there, in the glowing and forcible
way of which he is such complete master, that the railways
of this country were the great oppressors, stronger than
the government, stronger than the President, stronger than
17
the army, stronger than the legislature, riding over the
liberties of the people, oppressing the industries of the land,
and the groans of the dying were ringing in the ears of the
living, and, descending incidently to facts to sustain this
startling picture, claimed that the nature of that oppression
was such that they took, on the through freight alone, nine
hundred millions of dollars a year out of the oppressed and
down-trodden people of the land. Nine hundred millions a
year; and then, with fine frenzy, the judge took out, as he
always does when he wants to produce a great effect, that
same old red silk handkerchief he had in Buchanan's cabi¬
net and waived it as a red flag of reform and revolution
before the excited audience, and claimed if the government
which owes two thousand millions of dollars contracted in a
\
great war should, in one year, take nine hundred millions,
one-half of the national debt, out of this oppressed people,
there would be a revolution that would make the land run
in blood and soak in gore. Well, that is pretty bad. These
figures led the monopolists, who are a depraved set of prac¬
tical, hard-headed, sum-doing, arithmetic-educated chaps, to
setting down with a pen and pencil on Buchanan's minister's
figures, and the figures under that process took the same
course that the army and navy did under Buchanan's admin¬
istration—they went south.
Mr. Browne—Where did they go under Robeson, Mr.
Depew ?
Mr. Depew—League Island. These monopolists proved
their diabolical character and justified the charges made
against them by testing the accuracy of these statistics. It
was discovered that instead of nine hundred millions of
dollars being taken out of the oppressed people of this
i8
country, on the through business alone, as Judge Black
stated, the whole freight business, through and local, of all
the twelve hundred railroads in the country only amounted
to $387,000,000 all told ; it was discovered that all but
$154,000,000 of that was paid out in expenses, so that
the $154,000,000 derived by these twelve hundred corpora-
•
tions became nine hundred millions at this anti-monopoly
meeting. But not satisfied with this, in the heat of the
argument less than two millions a day, the actual receipts,
became forty-five millions per day of extortion. It beats
Fallstafbs men in buckram all hollow ; and if Fallstaff had
been a member of the league he would have resigned be¬
cause he was not equal to the Munchausenisms demanded of
its leading members. When that statement was published, the
judge was asked to rise and explain; and what is his explan¬
ation? Why, he said in his original speech that these facts
were in everybody's mouth, that they came "on the wings
of the wind" ; in his explanation he said at first that he
did not pretend to be accurate about fractions, and afterwards
that they had been handed to him by the statisticians of these
reformatory bodies, and he presumed them to be correct.
In other words, he followed the brief furnished^him by those
who, before they teach us what to do, ought to know the
facts. As no man is happier at characterization than Judge
Black, we must, therefore, take it for granted that when you
refer to the anti-monopolist organization's statements, you
mean the " wings of the wind."
Therefore a commission should be established in this State.
Why? Because through blood and gore ninejhundred mil¬
lions of dollars by these infernal monopolists have been taken
out of $154,000,000, and out of less than two millions a day
T9
of total receipts they have squeezed forty-five millions a day.
If a fifty thousand dollar commission could not cypher better
than that they ought to join the Anti-Monopoly League.
The Massachusetts commission is the only commission Mr.
Sterne has ever cited, it is the only commission that ever
has been or ever can be cited, because all the rest are in¬
competent or useless. He knows it; and every railway man
is perfectly familiar with it. He knows that they are simply
well paid and harmless feeders at the public crib. The Mas¬
sachusetts commission for fifteen years was composed of men
of extraordinary ability; but for the first seven or eight
years of their existence, they demanded that innumerable
experiments be tried, and they were all tried, because a
railway where there is a commission never refuses what it
asks, no matter what the consequences. It cost the railways
of Massachusetts millions of dollars to test these theories and
educate that commission, and when these gentlemen had
mastered the railway problem they ceased to oppress the
railways, and stood between them and the people ; between
them and the legislature, and so explained these questions
that the railway officers had no more any duty to do in that
direction, how pro rata, and discrimination and all that class
of bills were impracticable, and ruinous to the people of the
State, and legislation of that character impossible. Mr.
Charles Francis Adams, the ablest and most courageous of
commissioners, felt after awhile that his position was likely
to be questioned and misconstrued by the people, and re¬
signed. When he now presents the views matured from his
great experience and opportunities, the anti-monopoly ora¬
tors denounce, and the Board of Trade and Transportation
have no longer any confidence in him. That is the worst
blow of all.
20
Now then, how has this commission worked? It is like a.
a commission in this State, it cannot reach beyond the
boundaries of the State. All the great business about which,
trouble arises in this country is the through business, run¬
ning across the continent and making the State and the City
of New York all that they both are. The State Commission-
ers cannot interfere and dare not interfere with that traffic-
The State Commissioners of Massachusetts stood there ut¬
terly helpless. The farmers behind them demanded that
they should do this, the millers that they should do that, and
they said to the legislature, gentlemen, it is impossible for
Massachusetts alone to do these things, unless she steps out
of this great through business and Boston becomes a country
village. The Commissioners may order station houses to
be painted. They may direct that signals shall be put up ■
they may inquire into accidents after they have occurred •
they may exploit essays to the legislature paid for at the rate
of $50,000 a year ; but this great through traffic upon which
the continent depends and which feeds the State and makes,
the State and the City, is entirely beyond their jurisdiction
and control. Within the State of Massachusetts itself, what
has happened under this very commission? They say it
would protect from bankruptcy, and yet the Eastern Rail¬
road regarded as the most solvent railway in the State, failed
eight years after that commission had been established, and
thousands of people were reduced to beggary. The East
Lynn Railway failed years afterwards, right under the nose
of this commission. The commission got up a system of ac¬
counts so utterly absurd that the railways of the State keep
two systems of accounts, one for the commission and the
other to do their business by. When the Railroad Commis-
21
sioners of Massachusetts applied to the Rhode Island Com¬
missioners to adopt their patent system of accounts, they said,
we are business men in this State and one system of accounts
'gotten up by men who understand book-keeping is enough
for us. Last year the Commissioners acted, and during the
•discussion here in the Assembly on the anti-discrimination
bill, their action was paraded before us as a grand exhibition
of the power and beneficence of a commission and of the vir¬
tue and beauty of the anti-discrimination bill.
When that issue was out of the way, an inquiry was made
into the facts of that interference by the commission and
what did it develop? That on the Grand Trunk road cer¬
tain millers were granted certain rates for grain to the mill
and for flour from the mill, under which they were enabled
to beat millers on the Boston and Albany, so the Boston and
Albany road granted the same special rates for grain to the
mill, and flour from the mill to Boston, that was given to the
millers on the Grand Trunk road. Then some young men of
great activity, energy, capacity and capital, came to the
Boston road and said, on the Old Colony Line is a water
-power unused, we can build a mill on that water power if
you will allow us the same rates for grain to the mill and
flour from the mill that you allow to the millers on your
line ; and the Boston and Albany said, we will do it, but
the Old Colony road must consent. The Old Colony road
did consent; the mill was built; and then every mill on
the Grand Trunk, every mill on the Boston and Albany,
including this mill on the Old Colony road had the same
special rate for grain to and flour from their mills ; un¬
der that action these young, active, energetic men in¬
troduced into their mill new machinery, introduced un-
22
heard of economies, gave to their business, a tact and a
skill unknown in the old mills and by the older millers,,
knew when to buy best, knew where to find the quickest
markets, knew when to hold fast and when to ship, and they
shut up half the mills on both roads. Then these millers
went to the commission and said, the Old Colony road
charges its ordinary shippers at the rate of five cents a ton
a mile—for it is a mere local road—for grain and for flour,,
while it is doing it for this mill at the rate of a cent a ton
a mile, and we demand that you shall put the clamps down
on the Old Colony road and prevent their carrying on that
contract with the Boston and Albany for the delivery of
grain at that special rate to that mill or flour at that special
rate from that mill, unless they reduce their whole freight
charge from five cents a ton a mile down to one cent a ton
a mile. The Commissioners went down there and sat on it.
There report was this: they said these men have introduced'
economies and have shown a business skill by which they do-
business at one-third less. and make more money than the
old millers on both the lines; but the anti-discrimination bill
says that you shall not charge more for a short than you do
for a long haul; that applies to every railway in the State,,
short and long; under it the Old Colony road has either got
to reduce its whole freight down to this mill or bring the
mill up to its whole freight tariff; and, therefore we decide
that this special contract can no longer be carried on with
that mill. So the mill was crippled, the other old fogy mills
were revived and a great and growing industry in a thriv¬
ing town was checked, capital was thrown out of employ¬
ment as well as operatives, a busy centre was used up and
this patent reform waived her red flag and said glory, Anti-
23.
Discrimination lives and the Commission is supreme. The
New York Herald said substantially this : either the law is a
fool or the commission is an ass, or both.
My friend, Sterne, has cited the bank and insurance de¬
partments. I am sure I do not want to criticise either of
those departments; one was created out of the Secretary of
State's and the other out of the Comptroller's office, not
because the banking or insurance systems demanded it, but
because there was in each instance a healthy patriot of
political usefulness who had to be taken care of. That was
the motive under both circumstances. Those departments
have had able and they have had incompetent heads, and are
at present admirably officered ; and yet what is the total
result footed and added up from their organizations till to¬
day, of the banking and insurance departments of the state ?
It is millions of dollars lost in both. Why ? Because, the
promise of the State to protect the depositor and the pol¬
icy-holder could not be met; because, the promise of the
State upon which the people relied, and therefore, did not
examine for themselves, depleted their pockets and bank¬
rupted their hopes.
The trouble with all this business is,—the nomenclature
adopted by these gentlemen misleads and misrepresents.
According to them the man who tries to protect his
property is a monopolist, but the man who attacks it is
a philanthropist and reformer. They come here claim¬
ing to represent the people of the State, and are like the
three tailors of Tooley street, who, notwithstanding they
announced themselves as " we the people of England,"
were astounded the lords and commons did not follow
their advice. I never see them here claiming to rep-
24
resent a great reform, the patriotism of '76, and all that
has existed since, that I do not think of an incident
which occurred once in our State committee rooms. A
man came in and said he wanted to take the stump* The
then secretary, for it was fifteen years ago, looked him
over and said to me : " I am a little doubtful about that
gentleman," turned around to him and asked : " Well,
what do you talk about; what's the character of your
speech?" The would be orator, replied: "Now you are
talking. I'll tell you what I do best; I'm strongest on
the high moral dodge.'' Now, it is the high moral dodge
played by all sorts of people, which throws dust into the
eyes of honest men, and creates false impressions about the
business, or cause, it assails. Madame Roland, when on the
scaffold, the purest, the most brilliant, the most beautiful
woman of her time, as the axe was about to fall, said : " Oh !
liberty, liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name ? "
Oh ! reform, reform, what charlatans parade, what idiots
mouth, what rascals train under thy banner ! I respect any
honest agitator, I respect any honest reformer, I recognize
the need of reform as deeply and profoundly as' any man
can ; we need reform all the while ; but, true reform is not
advanced by men who put it on as a mask to accomplish their
own selfish purposes. Why do not those gentlemen who
speak only for themselves, who came here crying anti-mono¬
poly, fraud, and oppression, who came here waiving the
red flag and talking of blood and gore, why do they not
state the purposes which bring them here and be honest,
and then I could shake hands with them, and say, gentle
men, now I am prepared to meet you ; we understand one
another perfectly. I am here without any mask. I am
25
i
the counsel of the New York Central Railroad Company,
in charge of its law business; I am of its board of direc¬
tion, and a stockholder ; I am here to defend my prop¬
erty; to represent my client; and speak for my associates.
There is no concealment about my position. These
gentlemen say they are here in the interest of reform.
They are here to build up their own business at the expense
of somebody else. Why not frankly say so ? It is the tend¬
ency of the time for great houses and capital to crush or
absorb smaller firms and capital. It is done every day in
New York and by processes which are as much monopoly,
as much the cruel and grasping uses of great accumulation,
as those ever employed. Small dealers are wiped out and
competition ruined. These strong houses have bankrupted
their neighbors in the same business. It is impossible for a
man of limited means to thrive or live, because from the
profits of their general business they can undersell until they
destroy his specialty. If a man has a new article or inven¬
tion to introduce, they say to him, give us the control of it,
or, if you attempt to introduce it without giving us the con¬
trol, we will bankrupt you.
Now, while this can be done in the City of New York,
equal if not greater capital and talents at Syracuse, Utica,
Rochester, Buffalo, Elmira, Binghamton, &c., has put it out
of the power of these gentlemen to successfully compete
with merchants in the same li'ne in those places. These
cities have become great and cheap distributing points, and
this agitation wants the legislature to step in and crush
them out. This is admitted privately; why not say it here
publicly, and take off this mask of reform, throw aside this
false pretense, stop abusing neighbors and cease masquer-
2 6
*
ading as angels in gum wings, and gauze tights. Then in
the arena of this discussion the fighting would be fair, and
the Legislature as umpire, decide upon the merits of the
combat and the combatants.
The Hepburn committee accomplished good results. It
cost a good deal of money and took much time. It ruined
my Summer.
Mr. Low—Did'nt go fishing ?
Mr. Depew—I did'nt go fishing, nor go anywhere except
follow brother Hepburn and his committee around the
the State, and I would much rather have accompanied them
with rod and line than with note book and pencil.
They presented a series of six bills, four of which became
laws. Those laws secured clear and complete reports to
the State Engineers and Surveyor, remedied the evils of
consolidation, stopped stock watering and prevented the
fraudulent use of proxies# The two bills which failed were
the anti-discrimination bill, which brought to this Legisla¬
ture against it manufacturers representing four hundred
millions of capital and four hundred thousand operatives;
and the commission bill, which represented the needy poli¬
tician and his anxiety for a support.
Now, I do not exaggerate the effects of a commission.
You are all politicians, gentlemen; there is no nonsense or
sentiment about either you or me; let us drop for an instant
the hifalutin these gentlemen drag in here with Chinese
gongs and red flags ; let us stick a «pin into the balloon
and when the gas is out hang it on the chandelier and talk
sense for a few minutes. Why do prominent leading poli¬
ticians say " the railwayxannot .be hurt by a corrtmission, and
the party can be benefited ?" Why do they say, u your client
27
will not be injured, and when twenty first-class places will-
take care of ' the boys ' why do you oppose it; you are worse
than a Democrat!'' I said to one of them, " my dear sir. the
reason I oppose a railway commission is, not because we have
any secrets other than those any business man would say our
rivals ought not to know, not because we have any skeletons in
our closet. But I do not want my office, now overwhelmed
with legitimate law business, employing myself and my assist¬
ants beyond the hours allotted to ordinary work, or those
of the other hard-worked officers of the company, made
employment agencies for needy politicians; I do not
want to sit there and have a Commissioner or a friend
of a Commissioner come in and say; " there is a fellow in
that county who ought to be made a station master, he is
a very useful man; there is a man in that district who
ought to be made a conductor, he is a very valuable
worker; there is a man in that district who ought te
be made a clerk, he can control a delegate." Why, say
these gentlemen, " you do that now in order to protect your¬
selves ; but instead of distributing it among all parties, it
would be for the benefit of the party in power.'' That is
where the mistake lies. There are 12,000 to 15,000 men on
the New York Central Railroad, and not one of them holds
his place for any other reason than because he is deemed fit
to fill it, and no employe is removed because of his political
opinion or action, no matter who demands it. No appoint¬
ment, purely for political reasons, in the highest or the lowest
grade, disgraces the New York Central Railroad, and perils
the lives of the people who travel on it. No engineer holds
the throttle valve, with a thousand lives behind him, because
an influential senator or a powerful member or a State
28
officer, directed him for that place. No conductor, to whom
you and I entrust our wives, our children or ourselves,
guides the destinies of the train that carries them, under a
commission received because of his activity in a caucus, or
because he defeated or can defeat an obnoxious candidate
to a convention. Not one. Let this political commission be
appointed and I say to you—the railroads are not hospitals,
or charitable institutions, or religious societies, they are
purely business concerns, run by business men—but if the
State, through a commission, can paralyze that business and
a dozen or fifty, or a hundred appointments will stop the
interference, the appointments will be made. Reform might
triumph, but you and I might be ditched with a broken leg
or summoned unexpectedly into the presence of our Maker.
You may prohibit the Commissioners asking for places,
but you cannot stop their friends. You cannot prohibit the
relative or partner giving advice which is semi-official. You
cannot prevent demands being made to run the employes
into the caucus to defeat candidates whom the dominant
element in the party does not want nominated, or efforts to
induce the companies to dragoon their men to vote for the
party which will keep the Commissioners in power. The
official patronage of this State is almost equal to that of the
Federal Government, to secure its prizes, great and small,
enlists ambition and interest to such an extent that no efforts
will ever be spared, and no promises or pledges withheld to
enlist support. No man in his senses will claim that this
huckstering of places and voters for favor and protection
will benefit either the people or the railroads.
Commissioners do very well in England where a state of
society exists, which my friend Sterne admires more than I
29
do, where property interests are paramount and vested in
hereditary nobility, and legislation is not for the people, but
for the benefit and protection of property. The English
commission when it came into power stopped competition
among the railroads, compelled them to make adjustments
among themselves, divided England into four parts and gave
one to each of its four railroads, and those railroads whose
stock has been watered beyond the wildest conception in
America—were taken out of bankruptcy and made large
dividends. Under the English commission rates are more
than twice as high as on the New York Central.
We do not want in this country either the systems of Ger¬
many or of France, where the government controls, where
discriminations exists that would not be permitted here for
an hour, and where the government running the road charges
from two to three times as much as is charged by our rail¬
roads. This bill affects mainly the New York Central Rail¬
road. What cares the Erie, what cares the Delaware, Lack-
awana & Western, the Delaware & Hudson, the Lehigh
Valley, the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore & Ohio, the Grand
Trunk, for your fifty thousand dollar commission, except to
sit behind them and set them on to the Central road. This
bill gives to the commission all our contracts, both through
and local, and while rival lines will know every secret of our
business, the commission cannot reach beyond the State
lines, and we must remain in utter ignorance of theirs.
My friend (Mr. Shepard,) said in his speech, this agitation
will not cease even if we get the bill. I do not expect it to
cease. They say if we get this bill it is but the beginning.
Of course it is but the beginning. Brother Sterne wants
the commission bill; anti-monopoly wants a dozen other
30
bills, and Schwab wants the life, by assassination, of the rail¬
way presidents. That's the culmination.
But gentlemen, I trust it will be a long time before that
last threat is carried out, and a very long time before it in¬
cludes the attorneys of corporations. I am too young to die.
In view of recent events and present methods of agitation,
I will close with a word of warning to the men who are
worth their millions, and are exercising with those millions
the shrewdest and sharpest practices known to business. I
am not here to criticise that, in this country every man fights
for himself and wins his own way ; and if in mines or manu¬
factures, in produce, groceries or dry goods he starts from
nothing and accumulates a million of dollars, it shows grit,
energy, enterprise and brains ; but when such men, in order
to increase that million to two, misrepresent and malign
'their neighbors who have other millions, to the uneducated,
to those who suffer from poverty, who do not think, and
whose passions are easily aroused, they had better remember
that in the French revolution the leader of the mob in confis¬
cation and murder was Philip Egalite, the Duke of Orleans,
the head of the French nobility, and when the tiger was
aroused and loosed, it turned upon the Duke and destroyed
his property, and drank his blood.