The railways of the country should be put completely under the Interstate Commerce Commission and removed from the domain of the anti-trust law.  The power of the Commission should be made thoroughgoing, so that it could exercise complete supervision and control over the issue of securities as well as over the raising and lowering of rates.  As regards rates, at least, this power should be summary.  The power to investigate the financial operations and accounts of the railways has been one of the most valuable features in recent legislation.  Power to make combinations and traffic agreements should be explicitly conferred upon the railroads, the permission of the Commission being first gained and the combination or agreement being published in all its details.  In the interest of the public the representatives of the public should have complete power to see that the railroads do their duty by the public, and as a matter of course this power should also be exercised so as to see that no injustice is done to the railroads.  The shareholders, the employees and the shippers all have interests that must be guarded.  It is to the interest of all of them that no swindling stock speculation should be allowed, and that there should be no improper issuance of securities.  The guiding intelligences necessary for the successful building and successful management of railroads should receive ample remuneration; but no man should be allowed to make money in connection with railroads out of fraudulent over-capitalization and kindred stock-gambling performances; there must be no defrauding of investors, oppression of the farmers and business men who ship freight, or callous disregard of the rights and needs of the employees.  In addition to this the interests of the shareholders, of the employees, and of the shippers should all be guarded as against one another.  To give any one of them undue and improper consideration is to do injustice to the others.  Rates must be made as low as is compatible with giving proper returns to all the employees of the railroad, from the highest to the lowest, and proper returns to the shareholders; but they must not, for instance, be reduced in such fashion as to necessitate a cut in the wages of the employees or the abolition of the proper and legitimate profits of honest shareholders.

Telegraph and telephone companies engaged in interstate business should be put under the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

It is very earnestly to be wished that our people, through their representatives, should act in this matter.  It is hard to say whether most damage to the country at large would come from entire failure on the part of the public to supervise and control the actions of the great corporations, or from the exercise of the necessary governmental power in a way which would do injustice and wrong to the corporations.  Both the preachers of an unrestricted individualism, and the preachers of an oppression which would deny