The Railroad Question: A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and remedies for their abusesLarrabee, William
History
The Railroad Question: A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and remedies for their abuses
Larrabee, William
Railroads; Railroads -- United States; Railroads and state -- United States
It should be remembered that Justices Brewer and Brown were both
appointed to the Supreme bench by President Harrison.
We have every reason to believe that, unless the people of the United
States are on the alert, as railroad managers always are, there is, with
further changes in the personnel of the court, danger of its deviating
from the sound principles of law laid down in its decision in the
Granger cases. Railroad attorneys have repeatedly been raised to seats
in the highest tribunal in the land. So great is the power of the
railroad interests, and so persistent are they in their demands, that,
unless a strong public sentiment records its protest, their candidates
for appointive offices are but too apt to be successful. Representatives
of the railroads sit in the Congress of the United States, others are
members of the national campaign committees of both of the great
political parties, others control the politics of the States, and their
influence reaches to the White House, whether its occupant is aware of
it or not. Other interests in the past have succeeded in securing the
appointment of biased men as judges of the Supreme Court who afterwards
could always be relied upon to render decisions in their favor. Will the
people profit by their experience, or will they be indifferent to the
danger which surrounds them, until nothing short of a political upheaval
can restore to them these rights of sovereignty, of which they have so
insidiously been deprived?
Human gratitude is such that even high-minded men who, through the
influence of the railroad interest, have been placed upon the Federal
bench, find it impossible to divest themselves of all bias when called
upon to decide a case in which their benefactors are interested. Such is
the human mind that, when clouded by prejudice, it will forever be blind
to its own fault. Even the members of so high a tribunal as the
Electoral Commission which decided the presidential contest between
Hayes and Tilden could not divest themselves of their prejudices; each
one, Republican or Democrat, voted for the candidate of the party with
which he had cast his political fortune.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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