This automatic increase in value, like that of a municipal franchise, should be secured to the community which creates it; and it can be secured only by some such means as those suggested in the case of municipal franchises.

The Federal government must, that is, take possession of that share of railroad property represented by the terminals, the permanent right of way, the tracks, and the stations.

It is property of this kind which enables the railroads to become a monopoly, and which, if left in private hands, would absolutely prevent the gradual construction of a national economic system.
In the existing condition of economic development and of public opinion, the man who believes in the ultimate necessity of government ownership of railroad road-beds and terminals must be content to wait and to watch.

The most that he can do for the present is to use any opening, which the course of railroad development affords, for the assertion of his ideas; and if he is right, he will gradually be able to work out, in relation to the economic situation of the railroads, some practical method of realizing the ultimate purpose.

Even if public opinion eventually decided that the appropriation of the railroads was necessary in the national economic interest, the end could in all probability be very slowly realized.