The first method consisted of appeals to the general public through testimony before legislative committees, communications to the newspapers, letters to private organizations which interested themselves in the government control of corporations, and other similar devices. By these various means Stanford, at least, spread his philosophy of industry widely abroad. He took the general position that agitation upon the subject of railroads was due to misapprehension of the facts. Most alleged abuses were imaginary, but the Central Pacific stood ready to correct any that were shown to exist.[277] Railroad fares and freights were cheaper in California than anywhere else in the world, all things considered.[278] In case further reduction were desired, the true policy was to place as few burdens upon the railroads as possible, to encourage in this way new construction, and to rely on competition for the desired result. The interests of the railroad and of the public were the same.[279] Monopolies in the United States were possible only to the extent that they were beneficent. There was properly no right of control in the state. The Granger decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States were a flagrant violation of the principles of free government. If the people wanted to exercise control over a railroad they must do as the state does when it exercises the right of eminent domain; that is to say, they must pay to the individual owners the full value of whatever was taken for public use. Anything else was confiscation. Moreover, at best, regulation could not be complete, because it could not ever compel the shipper to ship equally over all lines, and because, while commerce was world-wide, American governments could regulate but one link in the chain. In California, regulation was peculiarly inexpedient so long as the railway system of the state was incomplete.[280] Huntington’s Views Mr. Huntington shared Mr. Stanford’s views, or at least approved the conclusion to which they led, but does not seem to have courted the same publicity in respect to the matter. Interviews he distrusted. “I notice,” he wrote in 1875, “that some correspondent of a San Diego paper has been interviewing Mr. Crocker. It is very difficult for any one to be interviewed by an infernal newspaper without getting hurt; and Mr. Crocker is not the most unlikely to get hurt of all the men I know.”