with social problems of nation-wide scope the Federal administration was in closer touch with the population, and better able to serve human needs with beneficial results, than were the numerous separate-and often antagonistic-state governments. The states had always been more or less inclined to inject local considerations, based on state boundary lines, into the discussion or proposed solution of economic questions whose nature made such efforts impractical. Whenever such an attempt was made to solve a country-wide economic problem by state statutes-rarely uniform in their provisions—the result was either a halting of human progress or the creation of undesirable conditions which persisted until the commonwealth reversed its attitude or until the national government intervened.1

The Federal laws creating the first transcontinental railway were, to put it briefly, a partial return by the nation to that position assumed between 1802 and 1824, when Congress ordained and built the National Road. It has been said of the two more modern measures: "The significance of the Pacific railway legislation is that it marks the high-water level of the flood of national power; it is part of the drift... that was left at the highest point on the shore, when the flood of nationality receded."

Exception, it seems, may fairly be taken to this characterization of the laws of 1862 and 1864. The acts under which the National Road was extended into

1 A characteristic case of the sort was the action of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey toward the use of steam and steamboats as agencies of travel and transportation. And while such an early demeanor toward an economic matter must necessarily be called a "state" attitude, since it was expressed by form of law and by accredited officials, yet when such an attitude is traced to its origin, its source can often be found with reasonable certainty in the selfish desires of a small group of locally influential men whose political power or personal fortunes were maintained or enhanced by the "state" pronouncement which they were able to dictate. Such groups gave sup port to one another on various well-known historical occasions when the interests of some special group were in danger, and perhaps that process went on more often than surviving evidence can indicate.

Davis, p. 133.

396. An occasional experience of travellers on the first Pacific railroad after it was finished. They still had to get out and help, in one way or another, as they had done in the days of the keel-boat, Flying Machine and stage-coach.

Indiana, Illinois and Missouri provided for its building, by the general government, through states and across state boundaries under willingness of the commonwealths so penetrated by it. It was a national work,' undertaken for purposes identical with those which inspired the first railway across the continent. Both were highways of movement, designed to bring separated parts of the population into closer social and economic relations. The first was brought into being in a manner already described, and paid for by direct appropriations of government funds. The later enterprise was built by a less direct exercise of national authority, through corporate instrumentalities created by the nation for the purpose, and to which the government delegated powers which it had in the previous instance used in its own person. Consequently it appears that the earlier case, rather than the later one, marked the high-water level of national power as that

1 The first Pacific railroad has also been so defined by the Federal Supreme Court. See "The United States vs. The Union Pacific Railroad Company," 91 U. S. R. 79.

2 Such as the right, given the corporations, to carry the railroad through the states of Nebraska, Kansas and California, and across their boundaries.

strength was formerly used in carrying out similar undertakings.

The employment, by the Federal government, of those attributes of sovereignty necessarily displayed by it in the direct construction of the National Road resulted in fears or jealousies that found voice in "state" protests, and the enterprise was eventually made over to the several states through which it passed. The people, in other words, for a time employed their general government as the machinery by which they created and maintained an interstate public utility. Then considerations based to some extent on partisan politics were introduced into the subject, and that method of doing such work was abandoned practically at its beginning. No doubt the shift was also due, in some degree not now measurable, to a popular feeling that such procedure involved danger because of inexperience and a national lack of the engineering and administrative ability requisite for the best guidance of like undertakings. Perhaps the members of the electorate doubted their own ability to choose efficient and honest servants from among themselves as the heads of publicly owned utilities. There had arisen a popular fallacy that was already working serious harm to national character and progress, and which was destined to exert an identical influence for many years thereafter. The error in question was embodied in a political saying which ran: "To the victors belong the spoils." The assertion itself is true enough; the fallacy lay in a perverted meaning given. to it by the politicians of that day and applied to the result of an election. The electors of a real democracy are always the victors in a discussion and plebiscite conducted to regulate their affairs, for its result expresses their common judgment on the questions at issue. And the spoils

which belong to them are the creation of conditions in accordance with the principles they have endorsed. But during the epoch in question "victors" meant only a part of the people, and those whose opinions had not been in accord with the result were "enemies." The "spoils" were not principles and improved conditions of society, but political office, to be bestowed exclusively on favored members of the "victorious" party with little or no consideration of their fitness for such enormous responsibility. Through the rise and widespread acceptance of this strange doctrine-so illustrative of the prevalent economic morality of the period-practically the whole purpose of government as an instrument designed by humanity for bettering its affairs was overthrown in the republic. Those excellencies of American character and condition which survived the era most acutely affected by the fallacy, endured in spite of rather than by the aid of the governmental system.

It was during this epoch that several states built and operated travel and traffic routes of various kinds whose existence was due, in part, to demands of party politics, and whose administrations as utilities were largely political in their nature. The failure of those that did fail was no doubt caused in some degree by faulty construction based on inadequate engineering skill, and partly by the destructive influence of the political idea just mentioned. During the same time, also, the corporation first became prominent in the business affairs of the country. It was an unfortunate age for the virtual birth and childhood of a commercial method so important, since the corporation was compelled to grow up in association with various political, business and economic ideas unfavorable to the strict maintenance of its own integrity. But the corpora

tion grew apace, and was soon the principal factor-under state authorization-by which public utilities, including transportation routes, were built and operated. From that time until recent years the constantly growing corporation has naturally striven, with more than a modicum of success, to foster the early popular fear that the people themselves through their government and chosen servants could not successfully create and honestly administer those huge undertakings so necessary to modern society. It does not, however, necessarily follow that whatever inability was displayed by the people and their governmental machinery from sixty to ninety years agobecause of contemporary conditions and beliefs heretofore described would be manifest to-day or in the future, should the people again decide to use their state or Federal governments as instruments for economic purposes. Whatever of failure or success they might now or hereafter attain in such enterprises would be determined by their education, experiences, desires and practises.1

The first transcontinental railroad was built by two corporations which were created by Congress with that object in view, and to them were loaned the credit and resources of the nation. The people, in that particular case, delegated their strength instead of using their powers in direct application to the work in hand and thus acquiring ownership of the finished product.

After the government had decided for the building of a road to the Pacific under a plan based on the use of national resources there still remained one essential detail of the project that demanded action by Federal authority

The recent building of the Panama Canal by the United States, under the immediate direction of Federal engineers, suggests the present capacity of the national machinery in undertaking enterprises demanding a large degree of constructive, executive and administrative ability.

Since the foregoing text was written the government has also decided to build, equip, own and operate a railroad in Alaska.