Mr. Doctrinaire says that railroads have their power based in the fixed principle of private ownership of land. I deny this utterly. It was always necessary for the civilized community to have public roads. Even the Indians had their great trails which were in the nature of public roads. A public road never of itself did anything injurious to a community. The taking of land for a public road confers a benefit upon the entire community. It is for that reason it is laid out. The amount of land which is taken for a road, whether you cover it with blocks of stone, as the Romans did, or whether you cover it with iron rails, as modern corporations do, can inflict no injury whatever upon the community _unless you go further_. For instance, if you erect toll gates on the public highways and vest in some corporation the right to charge toll on freight and passengers at those toll rates, then you have erected a tyranny which can rob the traveler and injure the community. In that case, you can clearly see it is _not the road_, it is _not the land over_ which the road passes, that is hurting the individual and the public. _The thing which hurts is that franchise_ which empowers the corporation to tax the citizens and the property of the citizens as they pass along that highway. In like manner, the road which the transportation companies use could never have inflicted harm upon individuals or communities. _The thing which hurts is the franchise_ which empowers the corporation to rob the people with unjust freight and passenger tolls as they pass along the highway.