This system, however, was prohibited by the Inter-state Commerce Act. The framers of this act showed no conception of the relation of railroad practices. They forbade reductions and then proceeded to forbid also the pooling system, which was the only thing that had shown itself capable of putting a stop to those reductions. They left the cause, and forbade the effect. The truce between railroads was broken, and they were forced again into secret war. The law that declared that all firms shall be treated alike really intensified the inequality. Since reductions are illegal, they must be secret, and thus are sown the seeds of great monopolies much more dangerous than the railroads at the worst.
Desperate competition brings about uncertainty in rates, and that saps all confidence out of business.
The evils attendant on the prohibition of pools are so marked that the thoughtful men of our country are unanimous for a repeal. Before our opponents can plead for an extension of control, they must prove the beneficence of the present control.
MR. CUMMING'S ARGUMENT.H S. Cummings, the last speaker from Yale, began by emphasizing the fact that granting a system of pools to be the true solution of the railroad problem, such a system necessitates further limitation by national legislation. Therefore in declaring the system to be the true solution Harvard had given the debate to Yale. In the hope for speedy economic relief from railroad injury through the Interstate Commerce Commission, the people have been disappointed. The railroads have refused to abide by the decisions of the commission in cases of complaints brought before them for settlement; the complainant has carried the case into the courts, has produced new evidence, and at a great expense of time and money has had the case tried with the possibility of failure in the end. Recent decisions of the courts have made it almost impossible to inforce the act, and unless its defects are remedied, it is doomed. The people have looked to this act as their great hope and will not witness its destruction without a protest. A refusal now to correct or at least to endeavor to remedy the existing wrongs so keenly felt, will carry us far towards the socialistic extreme. The common law and the statutes of the several states have failed to preserve to the people their rights against the railway corporations. The Interstate Commerce Act has been found inadequate at important points. Strengthening and stringent amendments are now demanded not only by the people but by the wiser railroad managers themselves.
MR. STONE'S ARGUMENT.We are not here to discuss the minute details of railroad legislation, but its general tendency. Instead of further legislation providing for the enforcement of existing laws make the present laws consistent. Modify them so that they will receive the support of public opinion, and may be enforced by the ordinary machines of government.
The question tonight is not one of government ownership, that is outside the present discussion. Government ownership is a thing of future, the and it would be unwise for the government to burden itself at present with a debt of seven billions. But by far the strongest reason for conservative action lies in the imagination of the interests involved. The interests of the railroads are too magnificent for summary treatment. We have already gone too far in radical legislation, and the industrial enterprises of the nation demand with no uncertain voice a policy of retrenchment and repeal.
The welfare of the railroads of this country is interwoven with the welfare of the nation itself. They are directly involved in every branch of our national life. It to by their means that time and space have sunk into comparative insignificance.
Deprive this country of its railroads and you deprive it of its glories. Its civilization is gone, its prosperity is no more, and all its hopes of future greatness become but the impracticable dreams of a forgotten age. The railroads are the heartstrings of the nation. Their strong controlling influence binds together with bonds of literal steel all the diversified interests of a great people. They are therefore to be guarded with that same true patriotic devotion that we extend to all American institutions, and in such cases conservatism is the only patriotic policy.
As the contestants spoke, the judges awarded each of them a certain per cent, first on the form of the address and then on its substance. The results, as announced by the Hon. Wm. E. Barrett after a consultation of some fifteen minutes, were as follows:
Yale Harvard
On form 713 775
On substance 690 710
Total 1403 1485
The decision, therefore, was in the favor of Harvard.