Deseret Evening News

FEDERAL OR STATE CONTROL.

The question whether the several States or the federal government shall control the railroads within any state or, as some prefer to put it, whether the railroads shall control the States and the nation, is one of the most interesting and significant issues of recent times.

In North Carolina a law was recently enacted making it a crime to charge a passenger rate of more than two and a quarter cents a mile. The Atlantic Coast Line resisted the law and Governor Glenn laid down an ultimatum that the new rate must be put into operation. The federal government was appealed to, and a clash between federal and state authorities was imminent.

But leading corporation lawyers advised the railroad to recede from its position, which was characterized by the counsel for J. Pierpont Morgan as one of the blunders of the age; and at last the railroad yielded.

The Southern Railway and the Atlantic Coast Line signed an agreement that the two and a quarter cent rate shall be made effective not later than Aug. 8. The agreement between the two railroads and the State provides:

1. The railroad to put the 2¼-cent rate into effect not later than Aug. 8, 1907.

2. The State to appeal from the order of Judge Pritchard discharging parties in Asheville on writs of habeas corpus.

3. The Southern Railway to appeal to the Supreme Court of North Carolina in the Wake County case, and if the case is there decided against it, to take the case by writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States.

4. Both sides to co-operate to have both of said cases advanced and argued together and speedily determined.

5. The State at its option to indict the Atlantic Coast Line in one case.

6. All indictments and prosecutions now pending to be dismissed and no other indictments or prosecutions to be instituted for any alleged violations of the law up to the time the new 2¼-cent rate is put into effect under this arrangement as far as the Governor can control the same.

7. The Governor to advise all people against bringing any penalty suits pending a determination of the question involved and to ask the people as a whole to acquiesce in this arrangement.

8. The suit pending before Judge Pritchard to be diligently prosecuted, without the State, however, waiving any question of jurisdiction.

The whole matter is still pending before the courts, and the final outcome will be watched with great interest from all parts of the nation.

The most gratifying feature of it all is the recognition of the authority and justice of the State courts to determine whether or not the State requirement of a 2¼-cent fare is or is not a summary confiscation of private property.

The growing disrespect for law and the tendency among both corporations and individuals to take the law into their own hands makes this case, even as far as it has yet progressed, a matter for congratulation.