All this has been changed by the development of the railroads. Save on the ocean or on lakes so large as to be practically inland seas, transport by water has wholly lost its old position of superiority over transport by land, while instead of the old highways open to every one on the same terms, but of a very limited usefulness, we have new highways—railroads—which are owned by private corporations and which are practically of unlimited, instead of limited, usefulness. The old laws and old customs which were adequate and proper to meet the old conditions need radical readjustment in order to meet these new conditions. The cardinal features in these changed conditions are, first, the fact that the new highway, the railway, is, from the commercial standpoint, of infinitely greater importance in our industrial life than was the old highway, the wagon road; and, second, that this new highway, the railway, is in the hands of private owners, whereas the old highway, the wagon road, was in the hands of the State. The management of the new highway, the railroad, or rather of the intricate web of railroad lines which cover the country, is a task infinitely more difficult, more delicate, and more important than the primitively easy task of acquiring or keeping in order the old highway; so that there is properly no analogy whatever between the two cases. I do not believe in government ownership of anything which can with propriety be left in private hands, and in particular I should most strenuously object to government ownership of railroads. But I believe with equal firmness that it is out of the question for the Government not to exercise a supervisory and regulatory right over the railroads; for it is vital to the well-being of the public that they should be managed in a spirit of fairness and justice toward all the public. Actual experience has shown that it is not possible to leave the railroads uncontrolled. Such a system, or rather such a lack of system, is fertile in abuses of every kind, and puts a premium upon unscrupulous and ruthless cunning in railroad management; for there are some big shippers and some railroad managers who are always willing to take unfair advantage of their weaker competitors, and they thereby force other big shippers and big railroad men who would like to do decently into similar acts of wrong and injustice, under penalty of being left behind in the race for success. Government supervision is needed quite as much in the interest of the big shipper and of the railroad man who want to do right as in the interest of the small shipper and the consumer.