"It has been argued for years that the subject is so delicate and vast that it must not be touched by legislation in the public interest. To protect the rights of the ordinary shipper against the favorite of the railway would so hamper the operations of trade, it has been repeated times without number, as to take away the independence of the railways and destroy the freedom of competition. Yet, after years of argument that Government has no constitutional power to interfere with the railways, and of demonstration that all such interference must be ill-advised and injurious, the railway logic comes to the surprising climax of appealing to legislation for the aid of the law in upholding their efforts to prevent competition." Mr. Hudson maintains that if the pool were legalized it would only be a means of swelling railroad earnings. He says: "If the pool would maintain equitable rates its success might be desired, but what guarantee is there that the complete establishment of its power would make such rates? Its very character, the functions of the men who control its policy, and its avowed object of swelling the earnings of railways by artificial methods, forbid such an expectation. Make the success of the pool absolute, so that it can work without fear of competition, and its rates will be uniform, but of such a character that their uniformity will be a public grievance and burden.... A grave effect of this policy, though not easily calculable, is the ability it gives to railway officials to control the prices of stocks, and the temptation to enhance their fortunes by so doing.... It is a heavy indictment against the pooling system that it gives power to avaricious and unscrupulous men in railway management to enrich themselves at the cost of shareholders and investors, both by forming combinations and by exciting disputes or ruptures in them." The question whether the common law does not protect the public sufficiently is well answered by Mr. Hudson as follows: "The common law is sufficient in theory, but it has failed in practice.... In practice, legal remedies against railway injustice can be applied to the courts only by fighting the railways at such disadvantages that the ordinary business man will never undertake it except in desperate cases. Every advantage of strength and position is with the railways.... This [the railroad] power has kept courts in its pay; it defies the principles of common law and nullifies the constitutional provisions of a dozen States; it has many representatives in Congress and unnumbered seats in the State legislatures. No ordinary body of men can permanently resist it."