Show JERE BLACK A Round Opinion ns to Rail road Rizntf and t rOUls New York 2Julgo Blaik retpond ing to a cill of the Chamber of Commerce Com-merce here for an opinion as to the injury in-jury inflicted by fluctuations dUcrim mations of railroad transportation charges send a twocolumn reply in which be makes the following points Railroad men beieve or pretend to believe be-lieve that rail Wl s arp tbe property of the compamei authorized to run them which is a cardinal error and the prent of much false argument A public highway high-way cannot be private property and a I railroad laid out and built by authority of the state for the purposes of commerce is as much a public highway us a turnpike turn-pike road canal or navigable river Tix tolls on freignt in any cao is not the subject sub-ject of a bargain between the shipper and corporation but a th ng to be settled fixed an4 prescribed by public authority The two companies between Omaha and San Francisco rai ed in cash out of government bonds lands and mortgages of tao franchises four or five times as much aa they necessarily expended ex-pended upon the roads The stockholders stockhold-ers without paying anything put the enormous surplus in their pockets These roads thus built at the public expense and in some cases paid for by the public five times over are claimed now as private property of the companies and the right of the public to uie them as highway is utterly denied Nevertheless I think the claim of these companies to take ria lonable toll stands upon the same teen daton as that of companies wh SH roads were built by the stocktioldors themselves at their own proi er expense You mention men-tion a charge of four dollars from New York to Salt Lake and only two dollars and fifty cets to San Francisco which i I perhaps not the most unrighteous but it i is the grossest violation of legal principle that can be conceived If tbe railroad belong to the people then the rights of all citizen are precisely equal and all discriminations are unlawful He thinks laws necessary to compel them to perform per-form tbo duties they owe to the public aitafully at rates reasonable fixed uniform uni-form and equal without extortion without with-out wanton charges without crimination crimina-tion are not difficult to frame |