Moreover, they could, if they chose, make all this trouble with a comparative lack of responsibility, because only a fraction of the ill effects of this foolish regulation would be felt within the guilty state.

As a matter of fact many railroads had experiences of this kind with the Western states, and were obliged to defend themselves against legislative and administrative dictation, which if it did not amount to confiscation, always applied narrow and rigid restrictive methods to a delicate and complicated economic situation.

Most of the large Eastern and some of the large Western companies purchased immunity from such "supervision," and were well content; but it was mere blindness on their part not to understand that such a condition, with the ugly corruption it involved, could not continue.

The time was bound to come when an aroused public opinion would undermine their "influence," and would retaliate by imposing upon them restrictions of a most embarrassing and expensive character.

In so doing the leaders of a reformed and aroused public opinion might be honestly seeking only legitimate regulation; but the more the state authorities sought conscientiously to regulate the railroads the worse the confusion they would create.