A railroad corporation comes to the legislature and procures a charter to build a railroad; _but the state cannot compel the corporation to build that railroad._ In other words, the state cannot compel the execution of the powers granted under the charter; therefore _such a charter lacks the very first element of a contract, because a contract is one in which each party can be compelled to perform his part or pay consequent damages_. But, in pursuance of the decision of John Marshall in the Dartmouth College case, our state and national governments have erected a rule of the corporations, and they are now more powerful than the governments which created them. The great transportation companies exercise the power to tax, and the people, who pay the taxes, have no representation in the councils of those who levy the taxes. This surely constitutes an aristocracy of the most powerful kind. The railroads have the power to tax the life out of any industry, out of any section, out of any city or town; _with rebates and discriminations they build up the Trusts which plunder the people_. By reason of the fact that they enjoy the privilege of taxing other people, _they pay no Federal taxes to support the government_. Whatever they may pay in the way of tariff on material which they use in the construction of roadbeds and rolling stock, they simply charge up to expense account and levy their rates so as to make the utmost possible profit over and above what they have paid out. The public cannot escape the freight rates and the passenger rates which the corporations levy. The public cannot help itself. The public is made to pay, in those freight and passenger rates, every dollar of tax which the railroads have paid to the state and Federal governments. Therefore, as in the case of the national banks and the manufacturers, we have a great class of corporations given special powers by law which are exercised at the expense of the masses of the people, and which escape all the burden of supporting the national Government by reason of the immunities and privileges which the law has made for their exclusive benefit. Here, then, we have a complete illustration of aristocracy—the government of the few, by the few and for the few, instead of the ideal of Jefferson and Lincoln, “government of the people, by the people and for the people.” * * * * * The man who makes a corner in wheat thinks he can relieve all the suffering he caused by endowing a bed in a hospital. _The Track Walker_ BY THEODORE DREISER _Author of “Sister Carrie”_ TRACK WALKER KILLED WESTFIELD, N. J., April 14.—John Long, a New Jersey Central track walker, was killed by a train today.