Mr. T. B. Blackstone, president of the Chicago and Alton Railroad Company, has recently created somewhat of a surprise by declaring in favor of Government ownership of railroads. That Mr. Blackstone's programme will eventually receive the approval of a large number of his colleagues there can be but little doubt. With the people wide-awake upon this subject, the opportunities for railroad speculation are lessening, and the scheme to early unload the railroads of the country on the Government at a highly inflated value speaks well for the financial farsightedness of its author. Mr. Blackstone proposes to have railroad stockholders do here what the former owners of the telegraph did in Great Britain, _i. e._, dispose of their property to the Government, at a price representing several times its original cost or even several times the cost of duplication. Mr. C. Wood Davis, formerly general freight and passenger agent of one of the leading roads east from Chicago, is one of the best informed and clearest-headed writers upon the railroad question. He has, after much experience and long study, been converted to the advocacy of national ownership as a solution of the railroad problem. In a recent article published by the Arena Publishing Company, entitled "Should the Nation own the Railways?" he presents the objections and advantages of national ownership. He says: "The objections to national ownership are many, that most frequently advanced, and having the most force, being the possibility that, by reason of its control of a vastly increased number of civil servants, the party in possession of the Federal administration at the time such ownership was assumed would be able to perpetuate its power indefinitely.... This objection would seem to be well taken, and indicates serious and far-reaching results unless some way can be devised to neutralize the political power of such a vast addition to the official army.... In the military service we have a body of men that exerts little or no political power, as the moment a citizen enters the army he divests himself of political functions; and it is not hazardous to say that 700,000 capable and efficient men can be found who, for the sake of employment, to be continued so long as they are capable and well behaved, will forego the right to take part in political affairs. If a sufficient number of such men can be found, this objection would, by proper legislation, be divested of all its force.... "2. That there would be constant political pressure to make places for the strikers of the party in power, thus adding a vast number of useless men to the force, and rendering it progressively more difficult to effect a change in the political complexion of the administration.