Chapter X: Railroad Literature--Continued (2)

"There are two widely differing theories concerning the
management of railroads in this country; one theory is that
profits should be acquired from fluctuations in the stock,
and the other is that the profits should be acquired in the
old-fashioned way, by performing a useful service and
receiving a reward therefor, to be divided among the
stockholders in the way of a dividend. These two theories
are so different in their practical operation that they give
rise to the most diverse consequences. Of course, many
railroads are not dividend-earning, and with these the
profits to the managers and those who are allied with them
must come from stock fluctuations and from whatever sucking
arrangements can be devised whereby their vitality or
sustenance can be acquired by the favored few who are in
control. Unfortunately, there are many railroads in this
condition, the history of which is too well known to require
description. Once in control, the way is easy to retain it
and to make money by a thousand devices which ingenious and
unscrupulous managers are constantly planning and putting
into operation.

"The consequences of the other theory are as different, both
to the corporate property and to the public, as can be
imagined. When a railroad is properly managed and earning
dividends, a policy of development is adopted, having for
its end the natural expansion of the property in harmony
with the growth of the country, the needs of business and
the desires of the people. The fruits of such a policy may
not be apparent at once, but they inevitably come, and, when
they are reaped, are enjoyed and appreciated by all. Only by
such a policy can our roads ever become great, commanding
the confidence of the people, and fulfilling their highest
uses; in short, only by such a policy can a railroad be
brought to a high degree of perfection.

"The difference is clearly seen by contrasting a road of
this character with one that is run by the Wall Street
method for stock-jobbing purposes. By this method dividends
are not regarded as of so much consequence to investors as
an instrument or argument for affecting the value of the
stock. In other words, if a dividend is earned and paid at
all, it is chiefly as an instrument or agency for
stock-jobbing purposes, and not because the road is managed
primarily for this purpose. Furthermore, dividends, too
often, are disregarded altogether, as well as any policy of
permanent improvement or of general development. The
cardinal idea always is, how can the road be maintained and
manipulated so as to cause the largest variations in the
stock and the most money for the managers?

"Too many managers, as is well known, have made great sums
for themselves and built additions long in advance of their
means, and have seriously crippled their corporations by so
doing. But they have made fortunes for themselves. What the
great majority of mankind consider is the immediate present,
and not the future.

"It is undoubtedly a hard thing for those who are conducting
their corporations in an honest and able manner, for the
benefit of their owners, to keep still while their enemies
are pounding them and glorifying those who are managing
their corporations for personal and corrupt ends; but all
cheap and false practices must finally lead to disaster. We
hear a great deal of this kind of thing nowadays. One of the
evil effects of speculation and newspaper reading is, that
people have got in the way of not thinking much for
themselves; of regarding as truth whatever is printed, and
of not opening their eyes wide enough to discover the
shallowness of the reasonings and falsehoods that are put
forth at the behests of speculators, or of those who are
managing corporations for speculative purposes. The American
people have had an amazing experience in losses from
following advice thus plentifully and freely given;
nevertheless, there seem to be persons left who are willing
to listen and fall into the old ways and be trapped, as so
many others have been in the past. There is a considerable
class, having means and nothing to do, who perhaps might
just as well lose their money in poker, railroad or grain
speculation as in any other way, for this furnishes about
the only source of amusement to them; but, after all, there
is no reason why railroads should be managed so exclusively
for the amusement of this class. The time is coming, and
probably is not far off, when they will get enough of it;
and railroad investors will conclude that dividends for
themselves are better than profits for speculators; and when
they do, all stock-jobbing managers will be consigned to the
limbo which is their proper destination."

This magazine is edited by Mr. Albert S. Bolles, author of several excellent financial works. We are much indebted to him for the sound banking system which we now have, and which has contributed so largely to the unexampled prosperity which this country has enjoyed for the last thirty years.

Our national banking system illustrates well how service able the corporation may be to a people when its use is restricted by wholesome laws to the performance of its proper functions.

The old United States Bank was organized for practically the same purposes as our present national banks, but for lack of proper restrictions its use was soon perverted to ignoble purposes. The bank managers showed so much partiality in the distribution of their favors and accommodations, and meddled in politics to such an extent, that the people became disgusted with it, and a renewal of its charter was refused.

Mr. Clay clearly saw how dangerous a great money power might become to our country, and, in opposing the extension of the bank's charter, said:

"The power to charter companies is one of the most exalted
attributes of sovereignty. In the exercise of this gigantic
power we have seen an East India Company created, which is
in itself a sovereignty, which has subverted empires and set
up new dynasties, and has not only made war, but war against
its legitimate sovereign! Under the influence of this power
we have seen rise a South Sea Company, and a Mississippi
Company, that distracted and convulsed all Europe, and
menaced a total overthrow of all credit and confidence, and
universal bankruptcy."

Can we afford to ignore the lessons of history?

Mr. Henry Clews makes some spicy and pertinent observations on railroad men's methods in an article which recently appeared in the _Railway Age_. Mr. Clews seems to have but little confidence in the average railroad director. He advises stockholders to exercise constant vigilance and defensive conservatism, "lest they become the instruments by which unscrupulous and crafty directors work out schemes that are in reality nothing but frauds or robbery." And then he adds:

"In estimating corporate acts we must never forget that,
while the best of men will bear watching as to their
individual dealings with others, they need to be doubly
watched when they sit around a corporation board and vote as
to transactions in respect of which none of them can be
called to personal account. Temptations attack with enormous
force when the gains are prospectively great and the risk of
penalty inappreciable or non-existent."

Mr. Clews also tells us how roads are wrecked by their boards of directors. "In one case," he says, "the stock of a leading railway, which in 1880 sold at 174, in 1884 sold at 22-1/2, and in 1885 at 22. This vast shrinkage of value was not owing to panic or to stringency of money, nor did it arise from a diminution of traffic on the original line; but it was because consolidation had been pushed to an extreme by the directors of the corporation, so much so that the entire system yielded no dividends; a fleet and useful animal had been loaded down with dead wood and rubbish till he could scarcely crawl; barren acres had been added to an originally fruitful farm until the whole estate could hardly pay taxes; a mass of rotten apples had been thrown into the measure with sound fruit, and buyers refused the whole as a mere heap of corruption. And it was generally believed that the men who perpetrated this mischief under the names of 'construction,' 'requisite consolidation,' 'absorption of necessary branches,' etc., had made a great deal of money by it and had not made it honestly. But it was all done pursuant to legal forms and by boards of directors, so that the defrauded stockholders were without remedy."

Mr. Clews then gives us a more detailed account of the way in which branch roads are built and absorbed, viz.:

"Given a useful, well constructed, dividend-paying road, a
body of people with some capital and political influence,
aided by some of the directors of this prosperous line;
construct a branch road to some outside point; the more
important such point the better, but that is of small
consequence. The road gets itself built; it is bonded for
more than it cost, and it cost twice as much as it ought,
since the constructors were all together in the ring and
have favored each other. Then the capital stock is fixed at
so much, and this is mostly distributed among the
constructors. The road then, swelled to a fictitious price
of three or four to one, and not worth anything to start
with, is ripe for absorption and consolidation. Its
directors and those of the main line meet, confer and vote
the measure through. They all profit by it, more or less,
but their profits are enormously in excess of the trifling
losses due to the shrinkage of values of the shares of the
main line. A director of the main line may perhaps lose
$20,000 on a thousand shares, but what is this when compared
to a gain of hundreds of thousands in his holdings of the
branch road, whose liabilities are assumed by his victimized
corporation? And such a director would not be equal to the
demands of his covetousness if he had not sold thousands of
shares short, in anticipation of the fall which the
transactions of himself and his associates were inevitably
bound to produce."

Mr. Clews concludes his article with the following passage:

"The profits realized on the speculative constructions are
enormous and have constituted the chief source of the
phenomenal fortunes piled up by our railroad millionaires
within the last twenty years. It is no exaggeration to
characterize these transactions as direct frauds upon the
public. They may not be such in a sense recognized by the
law, for legislation has strangely neglected to provide
against their perpetration; but morally they are nothing
less, for they are essentially deceptive and unjust, and
involve an oppressive taxation of the public at large for
the benefit of a few individuals who have given no
equivalent for what they get. The result of this system is
that, on the average, the railroads of the country are
capitalized at probably fully 50 per cent. in excess of
their actual cost. The managers of the roads claim the right
to earn dividends upon this fictitious capital, and it is
their constant effort to accomplish that object. So far as
they succeed they exercise an utterly unjust taxation upon
the public by exacting a compensation in excess of a fair
return upon the capital actually invested. This unjust
exaction amounts to a direct charge and burden on the trade
of the country which limits the ability of the American
producer and merchant to compete with those of foreign
nations and checks the development of our vast natural
resources. In a country of 'magnificent distances' like ours
the cost of transportation is one of the foremost factors
affecting the capacity for progress; and the artificial
enhancement of freight and passenger rates due to this false
capitalization has been a far more serious bar to our
material development than public opinion has yet realized.
The hundreds of millions of wealth so suddenly accumulated
by our railroad monarchs is the measure of this iniquitous
taxation, this perverted distribution of wealth. This
creation of a powerful aristocracy of wealth, which
originated in a diseased system of finance, must ultimately
become a source of very serious social and political
disorder. The descendants of the mushroom millionaires of
the present generation will consolidate into a broad and
almost omnipotent money power, whose sympathies and
influence will conflict with our political institutions at
every point of contact. They will exercise a vast control
over the larger organizations and movements of capital;
monopolies will seek protection under their wing, and by the
ascendancy which wealth always confers they will steadily
broaden their grasp upon the legislation, the banking and
commerce of the nation."

These are strong words, but they come from a man whose thirty years' experience in Wall Street enables him to speak intelligently upon this subject and who certainly cannot be accused of being prejudiced against railroad men or corporate investments. In a recent number of his _Weekly Financial Review_ Mr. Clews said of the railroad stock market:

"Judgment passes for little in estimating the future of many
securities, for the market is almost wholly under the
control of comparatively few persons, whose operations must
inevitably influence the value of thousands of millions of
stocks and bonds. Never in the history of Wall Street was
the value of such an enormous aggregation of securities so
absolutely under the control of so small a circle as at this
time. Such a state of affairs cannot be considered
satisfactory; hence not only is speculation likely to be
unhealthily stimulated, but the future of these combinations
gives birth to a variety of uncertainties which, while they
may elevate prices, will certainly not add to their
stability."

If the silly claim of railroad men, that Western people do not invest in railroad securities on account of their unprofitableness, needed any answer, the above words would furnish it.

The May, 1893, number of the _North American Review_ contains an article entitled "A Railway Party in Politics," by Mr. H. P. Robinson, editor of the _Railway Age_. Mr. Robinson belongs to that class of reformers who can see but one side of a question, and only a short-sighted view of that. He is as zealous as a new convert, and is expert, in the ward politician's way, in defense of the worst abuses practiced by railway men. He says:

"That the right to 'regulate' the railways, which is vested
in the State, has now been carried in the West to a point
not only beyond the bounds of justice, but beyond its
constitutional limits, and that it would soon be impossible
for any railway company in the West to keep out of
bankruptcy unless some vigorous and concerted action were
taken to arouse public opinion, and to compel a modification
of the present policy.

"It is easy to see how much strength such a party, if
formed, would possess. According to the reports of the
Interstate Commerce Commission there were in the immediate
employ of the railways of the United States a year and a
half ago 749,301 men, all or nearly all voters, which number
has now, it may be assumed, been increased to about 800,000.
There are, in addition, about one million and a quarter
shareholders in the railway properties of the country; and
in other trades and industries immediately dependent upon
the railways for their support there are estimated to be
engaged, as principals or employes, over one million voters
more. These three classes united would give at once a massed
voting strength of some three millions of voters. There are
also, in the smaller towns especially, and at points where
railway shops are located, all over the country, a number of
persons, small tradesmen, boarding-house keepers, etc., who
are dependent for their livelihood on the patronage of
railway employes, and whose vote could unquestionably be
cast in harmony with any concerted employes' movement.
Moreover, unlike most new parties, this party would be at no
loss for the sinews of war or for the means of organization.
The men whom it would include form even now almost a
disciplined army. With them co-operation is already a habit.
While the financial backing and the commercial and physical
strength of which the party would find itself possessed from
its birth would be practically unlimited....

"For the present it seems to them better to believe that the
people--those people who are not railway men--are acting now
only in ignorance, and that as soon as they see the truth
they will, by their own instinctive sense of justice,
re-mould their opinions and their policy without political
coercion.

"At the same time there has already come into existence in
some of the Western States a movement which has its
significance and its practical influence. This is what is
called the Railway Employes' Club movement. It started in
Minnesota, at a small meeting of railway employes held in
Minneapolis in 1888. From that meeting the movement grew,
and made a certain feeble effort, not entirely unsuccessful,
to influence the State election in the fall of that year. By
the State election of 1890 the movement had grown and was
better organized, and the Employes' Club did exercise
considerable influence in the election of certain of the
State officers and certain members of the State legislature
in that year.

"From Minnesota the movement spread to Iowa, and there is no
contradiction of the fact that the railway employes' vote
was one of the strongest forces in the State election of the
fall of 1891. It also overflowed into Kansas, Nebraska,
Missouri and Texas. Had the election of last November been
normal it is probable that the effect of the Railway
Employes' Club vote would have been as visible in two or
three of those States then as it had been in Iowa in the
preceding year. But in the deluge which occurred all trace
of the smaller streams and currents was obliterated. Had the
members of the clubs not taken the precaution to do
considerable work in the local nominating conventions of
both parties they would be compelled to confess that their
campaign of 1892 was a failure....

"So far the clubs have admitted and will admit of no
negotiations with the State committees of other parties.
They hold their own meetings and decide for themselves that
such and such a candidate is inimical to their interests as
railway employes, and such and such a man is their friend.
Then they go to the polls and vote--voting in the main
their normal party ticket, scratching only a man here and a
man there, their attention being chiefly centered upon
members of the boards of railroad commissioners and of the
State legislatures.

"In Minnesota in 1890 their weight was thrown chiefly in
favor of Republicans. In Iowa in 1891 it was given to
Democrats. In all States the men whom they oppose are those
who have made themselves conspicuous as 'Granger' and
anti-railway politicians. The keynote of the movement and
the one plank in the platform of the clubs is that the
extreme anti-railroad legislation of late years has reduced
the earnings of the companies to a point at which they are
unable any longer to keep full forces on their payrolls or
to pay such wages as they should, and that by this
legislation the railway employes are necessarily the
immediate sufferers....

"A railway party is therefore already in existence.... And
moreover, though accidentally only, it is working forcibly
in behalf of railway interests as a whole....

"Meanwhile Mr. A. F. Walker, the chairman of the Joint
Committee of the Trunk Line and Central Traffic
Associations, prophesies that if things go on as they are
going now, before long 'the managers of the railways will be
chiefly receivers.' In the year 1891 receivers were
appointed for twenty-six companies in the United States,
representing $84,479,000 of capital, and twenty-one
companies, with 3,223 miles of road, with a capitalization
of $186,000,000, were sold under foreclosure.

"It is doubtful whether the result which Mr. Walker
foretells would be regarded as a calamity by the 'uninformed
public opinion of the West.' That Minnesota railroad
commissioner was quite sure of the public applause before he
made his classic declaration that he proposed to 'shake the
railroads over hell' before he had done with them, and the
Governor of Iowa, who announced that he did not care if
'every d--d railroad in the State went into bankruptcy'
before the expiration of his term of office, knew that the
sentiment would have the sympathies of his constituents.
This attitude of the Western mind is, of course, largely
explained by the fact that the people of the West do not as
a rule own railway securities. In two States (the only two
in the West in which, so far as I am aware, the figures have
been compiled) out of 27,645 stockholders in the lines
within the State borders only 359 are residents of the
States. If the other 27,286 were also residents of these
States (that is to say, if 27,286 of the present residents
were also stockholders in the railways), it is probable that
the ferocity of the public opinion in these States against
railways would be materially modified."

It is evident that Mr. Robinson has not been as successful in organizing small tradesmen, boarding-house keepers, employes and shareholders into a new party as he contemplated, notwithstanding "it was at no loss for the sinews of war."

He attempts to show that this movement originated with the employes, but it is too well known that the employes who organized the movement were under pay of the railroad companies and received their instructions from the railroad managers. The statement which Mr. Robinson attributes to the Governor of Iowa undoubtedly originated in the mind of one who is laboring to modify the ferocity of "the uninformed public opinion of the West." No Governor of Iowa ever made any such statement, nor ever entertained any such sentiment. It is a sheer fabrication.

There are a number of standard text-books of law which are indispensable to the student of railroad questions desiring to go back to first principles. Only a few of them can be mentioned here.

I. F. Redfield, in his "Law of Railways," says concerning the necessity for railroad supervision:

"Railways being a species of highway, and in practice
monopolizing the entire traffic, both of travel and
transportation, in the country, it is just and necessary and
indispensable to the public security that a strict
legislative control over the subject should be constantly
exercised."

Regarding the original character of the railway as a common highway, Redfield says:

"The Railways Clauses Consolidation Act provides, in detail,
for the use of railways by all persons who may choose to put
carriages thereon, upon the payment of the tolls demandable,
subject to the provisions of the statute and the regulations
of the company. The view originally taken of railways in
England evidently was to treat them as a common highway,
open to all who might choose to put carriages thereon. But
in practice it is found necessary for the safety of the
traffic that it should be exclusively under the control of
the company, and hence no use is, in fact, made of the
railway by others."

As to the questionable financial expedients so frequently resorted to in building American railways, this author says:

"This is not the place, nor are we disposed, to read a
homily upon the wisdom of legislative grants, or the
moralities of moneyed speculations in stocks on the exchange
or elsewhere. But it would seem that legislation upon this
subject should be conducted with sufficient deliberation and
firmness so as not to invest such incorporations with such
unlimited powers as to operate as a net to catch the unwary,
or as a gulf in which to bury out of sight the most
disastrous results to private fortunes, which has justly
rendered American investments, taken as a whole, a reproach
wherever the name has traveled."

The opinion is expressed in this work that under certain circumstances railroad securities should be aided by State credit, and is supported by the following argument:

"Here we have no national funded stock in convenient sums
for small investment, and which, being sure, is really a
great blessing to the mass of those who wish to invest
moderate sums as a protection against age or calamity. In
those countries where such opportunities exist, it removes
all temptation to invest small sums in these enterprises,
which, however necessary for the public, such small owners
can but poorly afford to aid in carrying forward, and which
consequently should in justice either be guaranteed or owned
by the State, or at all events aided by State credit, when
they become indispensable for the public convenience."

Upon the subject of eminent domain Redfield says:

"That railways are but improved highways, and are of such
public use as to justify the exercise of the right of
eminent domain, by the sovereign, in their construction, is
now almost universally conceded."

Kent says in his "Commentaries on American Law":

"The right of eminent domain, or inherent sovereign power,
gives to the legislature the control of private property for
public uses, _and for public uses only_.... So, lands
adjoining New York canals were made liable to be assumed for
the public use, so far as was necessary for the great object
of the canals.... In these and other instances which might
be enumerated, the interest of the public is deemed
paramount to that of any private individual; and yet, even
here, the constitutions of the United States and of most of
the States of the Union have imposed a great and valuable
check upon the exercise of legislative power, by declaring
that private property should not be taken for public use
without just compensation.... It undoubtedly must rest, as a
general rule, in the wisdom of the legislature to determine
when public uses require the assumption of private property;
but if they should take it for a purpose not of a public
nature, as if the legislature should take the property of A
and give it to B, or if they should vacate a grant of
property, or of a franchise, under the pretext of some
public use or service, such cases would be gross abuses of
their discretion, and fraudulent attacks on private right,
and the law would clearly be unconstitutional and void."

Concerning the construction of corporate powers Kent lays down the following rule:

"The modern doctrine is to consider corporations as having
such powers as are specifically granted by the act of
incorporation, or as are necessary for the purpose of
carrying into effect the powers expressly granted, and as
having no other. The Supreme Court of the United States
declared this obvious doctrine, and it has been repeated in
the decisions of the State courts. No rule of law comes with
a more reasonable application, considering how lavishly
charter privileges have been granted. As corporations are
the mere creatures of law, established for special purposes,
and derive all their powers from the acts creating them, it
is perfectly just and proper that they should be obliged
strictly to show their authority for the business they
assume, and be confined in their operations to the mode and
manner and subject matter prescribed."

As to the duties of common carriers he says:

"As they hold themselves to the world as common carriers for
a reasonable compensation, they assume to do and are bound
to do what is required of them in the course of their
employment, if they have the requisite convenience to carry
and are offered a reasonable and customary price; and if
they refuse without just ground, they are liable to an
action."

Judge Cooley, in his very able work, "Constitutional Limitations," refers to the so-called vested rights of corporations and the abuse growing out of them as follows:

"It is under the protection of the decision in the Dartmouth
College case that the most enormous and threatening powers
in our country have been created, some of the great and
wealthy corporations actually having greater influence in
the country at large, and upon the legislation of the
country, than the States to which they owe their corporate
existence. Every privilege granted or right conferred--no
matter by what means or on what pretense--being made
inviolable by the Constitution, the Government is
frequently found stripped of its authority in very important
particulars, by unwise, careless or corrupt legislation; and
a clause of the Federal Constitution whose purpose was to
preclude the repudiation of debts and just contracts
protects and perpetuates the evil."

The late President Garfield, in one of his legislative speeches, called attention to the fact that Chief Justice Marshall pronounced the decision in the Dartmouth College case ten years before the steam railway was born, and then said:

"I have ventured to criticise the judicial application of
the Dartmouth College case, and I venture the further
opinion that some features of that decision, as applied to
the railway and similar corporations, must give way under
the new elements which time has added to the problem."

Charles Fisk Beach, Jr., in his recent work entitled "Commentaries on the Law of Private Corporations," well defines what constitutes dedication to a public use. He says:

"Whenever any person pursues a public calling and sustains
such relations to the public that the people must of
necessity deal with him, and are under a moral duress to
submit to his terms if he is unrestrained by law, then, in
order to prevent extortion and an abuse of his position, the
price he may charge for his services may be regulated by
law. When private property is affected with a public
interest it ceases to be _juris privati_ only. This was said
by Lord Chief Justice Hale more than three hundred years ago
in his treatise _De Portibus Maris_, and has been accepted
without objection as an essential element in the law of
property ever since."

Treating of the fiduciary position of directors and officers of corporations, the same author says:

"The directors, officers and agents of a corporation are
held to the general rule of law resting 'upon our great
moral obligation to refrain from placing ourselves in
relations which ordinarily excite a conflict between
self-interest and integrity.' The directors and officers
are the agents of the company, and while acting in that
capacity for it cannot deal with themselves to the detriment
of the corporation. All contracts of that character are
voidable at the option of the corporation."

And further he says:

"A director whose personal interests are adverse to those of
the corporation has no right to act as a director. As soon
as he finds he has personal interests which are in conflict
with those of the company he ought to resign."

T. Carl Spelling, in his treatise on "The Law of Private Corporations," says of pooling arrangements:

"Courts long ago exercised jurisdiction to regulate rates of
_quasi_ public corporations, and on the same principle will
refuse to enforce pooling contracts between railroad and gas
companies. Such contracts are void as against public
policy.... There is substantial harmony between the English
and American definitions of monopoly, the two countries
agreeing that contracts entered into by and between two or
more corporations, the necessary result of whose performance
will crush and destroy competition, are illegal."

Upon the subject of eminent domain Mr. Spelling remarks:

"That the legislature may thus select any agency it sees fit
for the exercise of eminent domain, and also that it may
determine what purposes shall be deemed public, are
propositions too deeply rooted in the jurisprudence of this
country to admit now of doubt or discussion. Making an
application of this doctrine to railway operations,
conceding it to be settled that these facilities for travel
and commerce are a public necessity, if the legislature,
reflecting the public sentiment, decide that the general
benefit is better promoted by their construction through
individuals or corporations than by the State itself, it
would clearly be pressing a constitutional maxim to an
absurd extreme if it were to be held that the public
necessity should be only provided for in the way which is
least consistent with the public interest.... The power of
eminent domain being an inherent element of sovereignty, it
cannot be divested out of the State or abridged by contract
or treaty so as to bind future legislatures. Nor can the
right be divested by private contract."

Concerning State control of corporations the same author says:

"The subordination of all private interests to the purposes
of government, subject only to the condition that the object
to be accomplished shall be one in which the public has an
interest, is no longer an open question. In its general
bearing this principle is too well settled and uniformly
recognized--underlying the adjudications by courts of all
cases involving constitutional provisions--to require more
than a mere statement."

And again he says:

"Nor is it longer necessary to seek a justification of the
common practice of regulating the rates of charges and
general management of railroads on the ground that they have
received valuable franchises of a public nature and had
important powers of sovereign character conferred upon them.
That may be an important political consideration, and as
such may strengthen the argument in favor of the right; but
the right itself rests upon firmer ground, and upon other
considerations than that of pecuniary consideration derived
from the State. The State may regulate their business, not
because they are corporations, nor yet because they are
corporations of a particular kind, but because they, like
the individuals of which they are composed, are subject to
the laws which say that when one devotes his property to a
use in which the public has an interest, he in effect grants
to the public an interest in that use, and must submit to be
controlled by the public for the common good to the extent
of the interest he has thus created."