THE RAILROAD QUESTION. 
 
 i 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 OLIVER E. BRANCH, 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE FROM WEARE, 
 
 IN THU 
 
 * House of Representatives in favor of the 
 
 Hazen Bill, 
 
 SEPTEMBER IS, 1887. 
 
 Concorb, |1. Jp. 
 
 PRINTED RY THE REPUBLICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION. 
 
 1 88 7 . 
 
* 
 
THE RAILROAD QUESTION. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OLIVER E. BRANCH 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE FROM WEARE, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 House of Representatives in favor of the 
 
 Hazen Bill, 
 
 SEPTEMBER 13 , 1887. 
 
 ®0nx0rir, ft- 
 
 PRINTED BY THE REPUBLICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION. 
 
 1 88 7 . 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2018 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/railroadquestionOObran 
 
3S5.1 
 
 SPEECH. 
 
 Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen : 
 
 Railroads are creatures of the law. They come into existence 
 by the consent and operation of the law, depend upon it for their 
 continuance, move within such limitations as the law prescribes, 
 and are possessed of such rights and charged with such duties as 
 the law enumerates. Railroads are of necessity monopolies. 
 There is a contract between every railroad company and the 
 state, by the terms of which, in consideration of the right to be 
 a monopoly, which the state confers upon the railroad company, 
 the railroad company consents to be and to become a public ser¬ 
 vant. The dream of a golden age in the future, when railroads 
 will not be monopolies, w T ill never come true. The vision of two 
 railroads, or two railroad systems, that will consent to do busi¬ 
 ness for nothing, out of love for the public and to feed fat a 
 mutual grudge, will never be realized ; and whether the trans¬ 
 portation service of the state be done by one company or by six, 
 with a capital of $1,000,000 or $100,000,000, it will be a monop¬ 
 oly still. Railroads being a creation of the law, it follows that 
 the history of railroad development is a history of railroad leg¬ 
 islation. One follows and reflects the other. 
 
 There are three periods of railroad legislation and railroad 
 development in this country,—construction, competition, and 
 consolidation. The period of construction, pure and simple, has 
 passed. The period of competition, as a regulator of rates, has 
 passed. The period of consolidation, under state control, has 
 come. The Granger laws, as they were called, closed substan¬ 
 tially the period of competition in this country. They were an 
 attempt by law to regulate in detail passenger and freight 
 charges. They were a protest against the theory of competi¬ 
 tion as a regulator of freight and fares, and an announcement 
 
4 
 
 that so far from being a safeguard and a defence of the public 
 against high charges, competition is so only to a limited extent, 
 and that in its general, comprehensive result competition is ruin¬ 
 ous both to the public and to the railroads. These laws have 
 been repealed. They have given place to the policy which now 
 prevails in almost every state in this country, a policy which 
 England settled upon long ago, viz., consolidation coupled with 
 state control operating through the agency of a railroad com¬ 
 mission. 
 
 I claim, gentlemen, that the policy of consolidating rail¬ 
 roads, whether of continuous or competing lines, under the 
 management of the state, as I have indicated, is now conceded, 
 accepted, and admitted by everybody who has given the matter 
 anv considerable studv or investigation to be the onlv policv 
 that has resulted in any permanent good to the public, and that 
 for more than sixteen years railroad legislation of the most pro¬ 
 gressive and advanced states of the world has been in that di¬ 
 rection. Judge Bingham concedes that the consolidation of con¬ 
 necting lines is the proper policy, but not of different independ¬ 
 ent lines,—independent, continuous lines, as he terms them ;—but 
 can Judge Bingham or anvbodv else tell us why a railroad com- 
 pany is less powerful when it has one line 500 miles long than 
 it is when it has two lines 250 miles long? He professes to be 
 alarmed at the policy that will permit the consolidation of differ¬ 
 ent independent lines ;—but why is a company more powerful 
 when its lines are divergent than when they are continuous? 
 Now, gentlemen, the same advantages precisely, which follow 
 the consolidation of separate, continuous lines, come from the 
 consolidation of independent lines where they can be managed 
 from a common centre. What are the advantages? Why, first, 
 enormous reductions in operating expenses,—I believe the gen¬ 
 tleman from Manchester, Mr. Sulloway, said from 33 to 50 per 
 cent. : greater despatch in the transportation of freight, greater 
 facility in the handling of freight, is secured, all of which re¬ 
 sults in lower freights and fares, besides, which is not its least 
 advantage, increased responsibility, which always produces in¬ 
 creased caution, and a more ready response to the demands of 
 the public for railway accommodations. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I want to read one or two extracts bearing 
 
5 
 
 upon the wisdom of railroad consolidation. First, I call your 
 attention brief!} 7 to something that was said here in 1883 by 
 Judge Cross, when he was advocating the passage of the Colby 
 bill. He says,—“In the first place, I submit that all the reason 
 and all the arguments that I have advanced in favor of a gene¬ 
 ral law for organizing railroads under a general law apply with 
 equal force to a general law for leasing and consolidating.” It 
 would seem that Judge Cross had been discussing that bill as 
 though it provided for building under a general law, and then he 
 proceeds to discuss it under the phase of consolidating under 
 the general laws. “I confess that I have changed my views in 
 regard to consolidating. There is in the state, I know, a sort 
 of feeling or sentiment that consolidating is bad or dangerous 
 to the people. I thought so once ; but an examination and 
 study of the railroad problem have satisfied me that it is the 
 inevitable law of railroad progress, and that whatever we may 
 do here in New Hampshire, in other states, and in other coun¬ 
 tries, consolidation of railroads must and will follow : yes, and 
 it is already an accomplished fact.” Further, he says,—“I 
 submit that this talk about railroad kings and great capital is, in 
 the words of Charles Francis Adams on the same topic, 4 unmit¬ 
 igated cant.’ It is the talk of men who either have not investi¬ 
 gated, or act the part of demagogues. Col. George, with all 
 men who have investigated, says that the greater the corpo¬ 
 ration, the greater the capital and profits, the less influence it 
 has to affect and control legislation, and the greater demand the 
 public makes for lower fares and better accommodations. The 
 legislature has the absolute and the entire control of all the rail¬ 
 roads in the state, whether separate or consolidated.” That is 
 the statement of Judge Cross, a lawyer of eminence in this state, 
 and a man who had evidently given this subject considerable 
 study and investigation. That is his deliberate utterance upon 
 this topic in 1883. Other men of equal intelligence and culture 
 have investigated the same subject, and have come precisely to 
 the same conclusion. 
 
 I want to read a few words from the editorial article that ap¬ 
 peared in the Nashua Telegraph at the time this bill was under 
 discussion, presumably the utterance of the distinguished gen¬ 
 tleman from Nashua, Mr. Moore. He says,— 44 When two cor- 
 
6 
 
 porations become one by lease or consolidation, the state has 
 one party less to deal with. This is an advantage in so far as 
 simplification and directness are concerned. The state and the 
 people have no more capital arrayed against them when two cor¬ 
 porations are united than when they are separated, unless there 
 is stock watering in effecting the union. The power of the uni¬ 
 ted corporations is not so great in some respects as the separate 
 corporations, because there are not so many 4 sticks ’ in the bun¬ 
 dle, counting directors, treasurers, and presidents as sticks, and 
 they are the main ones in all consolidations. All the terrors 
 that are sought to be aroused by invoking the names of Fisk 
 and Gould and Vanderbilt are based on a misconception.” 
 How cheering and comforting these words must be to my distin¬ 
 guished friend from Manchester, Mr. Sulloway. “Those rail¬ 
 road barons were the product of a stage of railroad development 
 that brought consolidation without state regulation, and to 
 which all existing abuses are attributable. We may denounce 
 consolidation as much as we please, but it is actual everywhere. 
 Under such a state of things consolidated management under 
 rigid state control has less public peril than independent man¬ 
 agement under feeble regulation as it now is in this state. The 
 latter is consolidation with no regulation : the former is con¬ 
 solidation with regulation. The one is the rule of the people 
 and the state by the railroad barons : the other is the rule of 
 the railroad barons by the state and people.” I hold in my 
 hand a book entitled “ Railroads : their Origin and Problems,” 
 edited by Charles Francis Adams, who, probably, is the most 
 distinguished and enlightened railroad writer in this country, 
 and he has something to say upon this subject of consolidation 
 which is exactly in line with the utterances of my friend Judge 
 Cross, and the gentleman from Nashua, Mr. Moore. He says,— 
 “Of all foreign experiences, that of England most resembles 
 that of our own. The only essential difference is, that England is 
 wealthier and infinitely more compact than the United States, so 
 that, as respects railroads, causes produce their results much 
 more quickly there than here. Nowhere, however, is the pres¬ 
 ent tendency towards the concentration of railroad interests in 
 a few hands more apparent than in England. The mill of com¬ 
 petition has there about fulfilled its allotted work. The whole 
 
7 
 
 English railway system has now passed into the hands of a few 
 great railroad companies, by whom the country is practically 
 divided into separate districts. These are literally in the hands 
 of monopolists. The practical result of this consolidation, as 
 compared with the old-fashioned competition, was set forth in 
 two concrete cases by the parliamentary Committee on Railways 
 Amalgamation of 1872, in language which has already been 
 quoted, but which in this connection will bear repetition. “ The 
 North-Eastern Railway is composed of thirty-seven lines, several 
 of which formerly competed with each other. Before their 
 amalgamation, they had, generally speaking, high rates and 
 fares,'and low dividends. The system is now a most complete 
 monopoly in the united kingdom ; from the Tyne to the Hum¬ 
 ber, with one local exception, it has the country to itself, and it 
 has the lowest fares and highest dividends of any large English 
 railway. It has had little or no litigation with other companies. 
 While complaints have been heard from Lancashire and York¬ 
 shire, where there are so-called competing lines, no witness has 
 appeared to complain of the North-Eastern, and the general feel¬ 
 ing in the district it serves appears favorable to its manage¬ 
 ment.” And further on he says,— u In this country as well as in 
 Great Britain, those wise people who so earnestly point out the 
 dangers incident to railroad concentration wholly ignore the im¬ 
 portant practical fact that concentration not only brings with it 
 a corresponding increase of jealousy, but also an equally in¬ 
 creased sense of responsibility. It is not the few great corpora¬ 
 tions which are politically dangerous, but the many log-rolling 
 little ones. No one who has had experience in dealing be¬ 
 fore a legislative body with questions affecting railroad interests 
 has failed to realize this fact. * * * * Little as those who 
 
 expatiate on the subject seem to realize it, it is nevertheless 
 true that each new railroad the Vanderbilt, or the Jay Gould, 
 or the Huntington interest acquires, the more cautious and con¬ 
 servative they become. They realize the responsibility and dan¬ 
 ger of their position, if their critics do not. The only present 
 difficulty is, that those who undertake to represent the communi¬ 
 ty neither understand the situation nor know how to take advan¬ 
 tage of it.” 
 
 So much, gentlemen, upon the theory and policy of consolida- 
 
8 
 
 tion. Now, in 1883 the state of New Hampshire decided to 
 abandon the policy of railroad legislation which it had pursued 
 for half a century, which was well enough suited to the condi¬ 
 tion of the state and its business at the time it began, and to 
 the experimental and formative period of railroad development, 
 and at a single stride placed herself abreast of the most progres¬ 
 sive states of the world in that regard by the enactment of a 
 general railroad law and a law establishing the board of railroad 
 commissioners. In plain, comprehensive language and in the 
 most explicit terms she discarded the theory of special legisla¬ 
 tion, and at the same time brought into view and into effective 
 and practical operation the absolute power of the state over 
 railroads in all matters touching the public welfare. It has 
 been argued that a general railroad law is not a law which pro¬ 
 vides for consolidating and leasing, but is simply a law which 
 provides generally for building. That is the argument of the 
 gentleman from Manchester. Nothing can be more erroneous 
 than such a statement as that. A general railroad law is a gen¬ 
 eral law which takes the place of all special laws, enabling rail¬ 
 road companies to do anything that railroad companies can do ; 
 and if you will look at the general railroad laws of every state 
 where they obtain, you will find that they provide for construc¬ 
 tion, long leasing, and consolidation. 
 
 Two different constructions have been placed upon this law of 
 1883 called the Colby act. One corresponds to the suspicions 
 which the gentleman from Atkinson, Mr. Todd, had of it when 
 it was under discussion in the house. It seems that they had 
 been discussing it as though it were a general railroad law, be¬ 
 cause Mr. Todd said,—“ I object to this bill because it is not 
 what it purports to be, a general railroad law, but a law to per¬ 
 mit the general consolidation of the Concord and several other 
 roads, and enable the Boston & Maine to lease the Eastern, 
 which ends the friends of these schemes think would be better 
 gained in this crafty way than by an open demand.” Mr. Todd 
 thought the act ‘purported to be a general railroad law, but he 
 had a suspicion, it seems, that somebody might construe it dif¬ 
 ferently, and his suspicions have been verified. For now we 
 find that one of these parties whom he says was scheming in 
 that way comes up here and says that it was, after all, a special 
 
9 
 
 law. Mr. Tocld’s suspicions were true. The suspicious view 
 of this law, as announced by Mr. Todd, is the view now taken 
 by the adherents of the Atherton bill. There is another con¬ 
 struction which has been given to this law. It is the construc¬ 
 tion which was given to it by the gentleman from Nashua, Mr. 
 Moore, in reply to Mr. Todd’s suggestion. Mr. Moore says,— 
 “ The Colby bill is both a general railroad law aud a bill to per¬ 
 mit general consolidation and leasing. It does not purport to 
 be anything else. The railroads have pretended nothing else. 
 The only craft displayed in the matter is the request for general 
 instead of special legislation. The one seeks a privilege free 
 to all, the other aims at monopoly.” This construction of the 
 law of 1883, so clearlv, so logicallv, so reasonablv stated bv mv 
 accomplished friend from Nashua, is precisely the construction 
 which is now placed upon it by the friends of the Hazen bill. 
 But it is said by the Concord road that this construction is not 
 correct; that it was after all only the old kind of special leg¬ 
 islation, and that it meant to confer upon the Boston & Maine 
 the right to consolidate with the Eastern, and upon the Concord 
 the right to consolidate with the two upper roads. Mr. Mitchell 
 says, on page seven of his argument, that that was all that was 
 designed to be accomplished by it. 
 
 Gentlemen, I venture to assert that such a construction of 
 that law never would be made, unless it was compelled to 
 be made by the stress and exigency of the Concord road in 
 this contest. The title of the act alone demonstrates that: “An 
 act providing for the establishment of railroad corporations by 
 general law.” If the act meant what Mr. Mitchell says it does 
 mean, why was it not entitled An act to enable the Boston & 
 Maine to lease the Eastern, and the Boston, Concord & Mon¬ 
 treal to unite with the Northern and the Concord? Mr. Mitch¬ 
 ell says that was its sole purpose—a special law to accomplish 
 these two particular things. Well, gentlemen, did you ever hear 
 of a special law before in which the beneficiary was not so much 
 as named, or even hinted ? No doubt these roads intended to 
 avail themselves of the opportunities of that law. No doubt 
 they passed resolutions in May favoring a consolidation ; but 
 their hopes and purposes and expectations and resolutions can¬ 
 not now be taken to be the sole intent and purpose of the legis- 
 
10 
 
 lature. What these railroad companies were seeking to do in 
 May is one thing : what the legislature proposed to do in August 
 is another thing. Why, gentlemen, it is as absurd as it would be 
 for somebody to say that the ten-hour law and the weekly-pay¬ 
 ment law, which we have passed at this session of the legislature, 
 were designed for the benefit of the Knights of Labor only, be¬ 
 cause they presented numerous petitions in behalf of those laws, 
 and because, at their convention here last summer, they passed 
 resolutions advocating the passage of those laws. 
 
 The gentleman from Manchester, Mr. Sulloway, in discussing 
 this point last week, called our attention to the report of the 
 railroad committee of 1883 upon the bill which was then pend¬ 
 ing, ratifying the lease of the Nashua & Lowell by the Boston 
 and Lowell; and he argued to you that that report of the com¬ 
 mittee indicated that the Boston & Lowell road was not intend¬ 
 ed to be included within the scope of this law. Gentlemen, I say 
 that report indicates exactly the opposite state of facts. Now, 
 I want to ask right here, Does anybody suppose or believe that 
 it was the deliberate, studied intention of the state of New 
 Hampshire to exclude the Boston & Lowell from the operation 
 of that act? Was it the intention of that act? Was it the in¬ 
 tention of the state of New Hampshire to discriminate against 
 that foreign corporation and not against others? Why, if there 
 is any foreign corporation, any railroad at all that ought to be 
 included in the law and not excluded, it is the Boston & Low¬ 
 ell, because of its intimate connection with the New Hampshire 
 roads, and its importance as a connecting link to Boston. Now 
 what does that report say ? 
 
 “ The present legislature has spent nearly three months in 
 an effort to provide for the manner of making and perfecting 
 unions and leases of New Hampshire railroads, under the pro¬ 
 visions of house bill No. 46. Should that bill become a law, it 
 seems obvious that it would be unjust to exercise a discrimina¬ 
 tion in favor of a Massachusetts corporation bv conferring upon 
 it rights and immunities which are not accorded to other rail- 
 roads under the provisions of the general laws.” 
 
 “ Should that bill become a law, it seems obvious that it 
 would be unjust to exercise a discrimination in favor of a Mas¬ 
 sachusetts corporation by conferring upon it rights and immuni- 
 
11 
 
 ties which are not accorded to other roads under the provisions 
 of the general law.” “Other roads under the provisions of the 
 general law.” It would be unjust to give that road greater ad¬ 
 vantages than it gives the rest of the roads in the state, there¬ 
 fore thev said.—“ We will not ratify this lease. We will leave 
 
 i. »■ 
 
 it exactly where it is now, and then should this bill become a 
 law the Boston & Lowell will stand exactly like all other roads. 
 No discrimination against a foreign corporation, no discrimina¬ 
 tion in favor of a foreign corporation, but one law for all.” 
 
 That is the plain, the logical, the reasonable interpretation, 
 as it seems to me, of that report, so far as it throws any light 
 upon this question. Now, these words, “ It would be unjust to 
 exercise a discrimination in favor of a Massachusetts corpora¬ 
 tion b} 7 conferring upon it rights and immunities which are not 
 accorded to other roads under the provisions of the general 
 law.”—these words have no meaning at all unless this same 
 Massachusetts corporation is one of the roads that are included 
 under that general law. 
 
 Now, it is said that the Boston & Lowell road opposed this 
 bill. That is very true ; that is admitted. But they did not 
 oppose it because it did not allow them to come in. Search the 
 speeches of the counsel for the Lowell road that were made here 
 before the railroad committee in 1883, and you will search them 
 in vain for a single statement that they opposed it on the 
 ground that the Lowell road was not included. I will tell vou 
 why they opposed it. They opposed it, in the first place, be¬ 
 cause, from the action taken by the Concord road and the Mon¬ 
 treal road and the Northern road in May previous, they had 
 good reason to believe that that matter had all been arranged, 
 and that when the law was passed, although thev could come 
 in there would be nothing for them to get after they got here. 
 That was the reason they opposed it, because they thought the 
 thing had been so preconcerted and prearranged that if they 
 did come in it would do them no good. And, moreover, 
 they opposed that general law for this reason : Because it pro¬ 
 vided that no railroad could be built in the first instance with¬ 
 out asking the permission of the supreme court and the railroad 
 commissioners, and they said that is no general railroad law, so 
 far as the building is concerned. Make your general railroad law, 
 
12 
 
 so far as it relates to building, just as such laws are in other 
 states. They will permit anybody to build a road when he pays 
 a certain amount into the state treasury as a guaranty of capi¬ 
 tal, and when he has laid out the route and filed his plans in 
 the proper office. That is why they were opposing it, because 
 it did not go far enough as a general law with respect to build¬ 
 ing ; and the Lowell opposed it, as I have said, because they 
 thought that the thing had been so fixed that they would have 
 no opportunity of getting anything after they got in. This law 
 was opposed by the People and Patriot at that time. 
 
 You know there had been rather a warm time at the meeting 
 of that road in May when they passed formal resolutions favor¬ 
 ing consolidation, and you will remember that Mr. Pearson stat¬ 
 ed in his paper the next day that that vote by which they pro¬ 
 posed to consolidate was not a fair vote ; that it was carried 
 through in a high-handed way by Mr. Vose and by others ; and 
 he said in his paper that if this matter had been fairly presented 
 to the stockholders of the Concord road, they would have voted 
 it down by a majority of three to one. That is what The People 
 and Patriot , edited by Mr. Pearson, stated at that time was the 
 real feeling of the stockholders of the Concord road, with respect 
 to consolidating. He says, “ J. Thomas Vose, who is the acting 
 president of the Concord Railroad Corporation, not a share stand¬ 
 ing on the corporation books in his name, made a pitiable exhi¬ 
 bition of himself at the annual meeting on Tuesday. His con¬ 
 duct at said meeting cannot add to his credit. There was but 
 one feeling among the stockholders with respect to his unparlia¬ 
 mentary course, and there can be but one feeling among the 
 public generally. His excluding the votes of the minority of the 
 stockholders, a right guaranteed by the laws of the state, and 
 which, could it have been taken, would have shown a majority of 
 more than three to one against consolidation, was a bold and 
 naked piece of usurpation, utterly indefensible and without the 
 least excuse.” That, it seemed, was the real feeling of the Con¬ 
 cord road at the time it passed this resolution in May, 1883. Well, 
 Mr. Pearson was consistent. He says, “ That vote was not, af¬ 
 ter all, an honest and fair vote. I am opposed to it.” And he 
 continued to oppose it, and when the Colby bill was under discus¬ 
 sion in the house in 1883, Mr. Pearson took occasion to say some 
 
13 
 
 things in regard to it. What was his interpretation of what that 
 law meant? He is standing up here by his counsel and by his 
 agents and saying that that law was a special law ; that it sim¬ 
 ply meant two consolidations and no more. And yet, if you will 
 look at The People and Patriot of August 16, 1883, you will find 
 this: “The present legislature is coolly invited to enact into 
 law a measure which contains not only the very objectionable 
 feature of the bill of 1881, but which especially authorizes not 
 only the consolidation of the railroads in New Hampshire, but 
 also of foreign corporations therewith.” That is the interpreta¬ 
 tion of this law that was given by Mr. John H. Pearson in 1883 
 when it was under discussion here. Now, gentlemen, what do 
 you think of the consistency of statements of that sort? What 
 do you think of the honesty of such a construction as is contend¬ 
 ed for here ? Why, it is certainly true that in some cases where 
 a statute is ambiguous you may take the testimony of the sur- 
 rounding circumstances, but it is new law that the statements 
 and speeches of the lobbies made four years before are to be 
 considered, much less held to be conclusive, in constructing 
 statutes. It is well settled law, that first of all the meaning 
 of a statute is to be discovered by reference to its text, giv¬ 
 ing to the words their natural, reasonable, and ordinary mean¬ 
 ing ; and I say, gentlemen, that section 18 of this law, which 
 says “ Railroad corporations created by the laws of other 
 states, operating roads within this state, shall have the same 
 rights for the purpose of operating, leasing, or uniting with 
 other roads as if created by the laws of this state,” is con¬ 
 clusively against such a construction as is placed upon it by Mr. 
 Mitchell, and my brother, Mr. Snlloway. “Corporations cre¬ 
 ated by the laws of other states,” Mr. Mitchell says meant the 
 Boston & Maine only. That was before Mr. Mitchell discov¬ 
 ered that the Boston & Maine was a domestic corporation. He 
 discovered that after he made his speech. But if it meant the 
 Boston & Maine, why did not the legislature say “ foreign cor¬ 
 porations, by which is meant the Boston & Maine only, may 
 have the same rights and privileges as roads created by the laws 
 of this state” ? What is the other corporation ?—the Boston 
 & Maine is only one —“ corporations created by the laws of 
 other states.” Suppose the Boston & Maine was one, what are 
 
14 
 
 the others? Gentlemen, there can be but one fair and honest 
 construction of that statute. If vou test it and decide it bv the 
 ordinary rules of construction, it is that the state of New Hamp¬ 
 shire meant to throw open her gates to all foreign corporations, 
 to all railroad corporations that could b} 7 any possibility have 
 any interchange of traffic arrangement with the roads of this 
 state. The gentleman from Laconia says ‘ k these rules of con¬ 
 struction are such as courts adopt,” and he intimated to you the 
 other day that they are not safe rules for us to adopt. He says 
 that is well enough for courts ;—courts take those rules of con¬ 
 struction, but that is not the wav for us to come at the meaning 7 
 of this law. Why, I beg to know, have courts adopted cer¬ 
 tain rules of construction? Is it not because those rules have 
 been tested by experience, and found to be safe and reasonable 
 rules by which to be governed? Are they not founded in com¬ 
 mon-sense? I ask my brother; and if so, why are they not the 
 proper ones for us to use, so long as experience has shown them 
 to be the ones which courts may follow, and because they are 
 sound in reason and common-sense, and correspond with the ex¬ 
 perience and observation of men? Now, gentlemen, the Lowell 
 road came here and leased these two upper roads. My friend 
 from Manchester says they came here without any invitation, 
 and he says, “ I challenge anybody to stand up and tell us who 
 invited them.” Well, I gladly accept that challenge, as I shall 
 several that the gentleman made. In the first place, I say that 
 the Lowell Railroad was invited here by the Northern road and 
 the Montreal. You remember, gentlemen, that in the meetings 
 of stockholders they passed resolutions that they would unite 
 with the Concord road if they could do it on “ equitable terms.” 
 What did the Concord propose as equitable terms? They hag¬ 
 gled and dickered over it for more than nine months, and then 
 they proposed the} 7 would lease the Northern road at four and 
 one half per cent, for ninety-nine years, and if its earnings in¬ 
 creased $25,000 per year they would add a quarter more until 
 they got up to five and a half per cent., with the privilege at the 
 end of three years to the Concord road of reducing the rental to 
 five per cent, at its option. That was their equitable proposi¬ 
 tion ! Now, then, the Northern road and the Montreal were un¬ 
 able to make a contract with the Concord that to them seemed 
 
15 
 
 equitable. Who was to decide it, I would like to know, if it was 
 not those roads? They were under no implied contract or im¬ 
 plied promise to lease that road to the Concord unless they could 
 do it on equitable terms ; and they did not consider that it was 
 equitable for the Concord to say how much they should pay at 
 the end of three years, and so they went to the Lowell road and 
 asked the Lowell road to lease them. This is the fact, Brother 
 Sullowav. It was not any “ jumping ” or “leaping,” as my 
 friend from Laconia expressed it the other day,—jumping over 
 the Concord road,—but it was the Northern and the Montreal go¬ 
 ing to this Lowell road to get a contract which they could not 
 get out of the Concord. What reason had they for not 
 making a contract with the Concord, if thev could do it on fair 
 terms ? So there is one party that invited them here,—these two 
 roads. The other party that invited them was the state of New 
 Hampshire, when, under the 18th section of that act of 1883, it 
 gave to “ any corporation created by the laws of other states” 
 simply “ operating ” roads within this state, the right to avail 
 themselves of that act. It did not say legally operating them, 
 but, so far as a standing in this state was concerned, simply 
 operating them. I say, when they did that they extended an 
 invitation to the Lowell road to come here and avail itself of 
 the act of 1883. 
 
 The gentleman from Nashua, in his speech, characterized the 
 conduct of the Northern road as “ subterfuge and duplicity,” 
 because, after the decision in the Dow case they did not make a 
 lease to the Concord road. Gentlemen, who was guilty of subter- 
 fuge or duplicity? I say it was the Concord road, and that road 
 only. What was the memorandum of agreement which they 
 entered into? It was an agreement entered into in June, 1885. 
 “ If the existing lease of the Northern Railroad and branches to 
 the Boston & Lowell Railroad Corporation is not approved by 
 the legislature of New Hampshire at its present session, or is 
 declared invalid by the supreme court of New Hampshire in a 
 suit now pending for that purpose, or is terminated in any other 
 manner in the meantime, we will use our active influence and 
 efforts for the execution of a similar lease or leases of the North¬ 
 ern Railroad and branches to the Concord Railroad Corporation 
 for a like term, at the same rent and on the same terms and con- 
 
16 
 
 ditions, the form to be satisfactory to J. Minot and Mr. Benton, 
 but to be substantially like that of the existing lease, and the 
 money, result, and obligations assumed by the parties to be the 
 same as under the existing lease.” That was the memorandum 
 of agreement, and it is said that because the Northern road did 
 not make a lease under that agreement it was guilty of “ subter¬ 
 fuge and duplicity.” Now, I say that the only “ subterfuge and 
 duplicity” in the matter w r as shown by the Concord road. Imme¬ 
 diately after the handing down of the decision in the Dow case, 
 Mr. A. L. Sulloway, representing the Northern road, undertook 
 negotiations with the Concord road, seeking for the carrying out 
 of that memorandum agreement of June, 1885, as you will see 
 by the letter of Judge Minot on page 31 of the testimony. 
 What did the Concord road do after they had received these 
 suggestions from Mr. Sullowav? Did they come right up to the 
 scratch and take that lease like men? Not at all. Read the 
 subsequent three letters of Judge Minot, and see how he com¬ 
 mences to back and fill, to evade, and raise up objections, and 
 to talk about what the Lawrence would want and what the Mon¬ 
 treal would want, and that there would have to be some more 
 new legislation. Its plain, simple interpretation was this : “We 
 have got you, gentlemen, now, where we can dictate terms, and 
 we will hold you there until we can make our terras.” Their 
 last proposition was this : That they would take that lease on 
 the same terms that were mentioned in the agreement, pro¬ 
 vided the Northern road would sell out its Concord stock to 
 friends of the Concord. Was that as they agreed? Was there 
 
 anv condition of that sort in that memorandum of 1885? Were 
 »/ 
 
 the terms of that memorandum of 1885 that they would take a 
 lease provided the Northern road would sell out its stock to 
 them ? Not at all. They injected that as a condition at the last 
 moment, and they would not take a lease under any circum¬ 
 stances unless the Northern road would sell out its stock. Now, 
 when the directors of the Northern road saw that the Concord 
 was playing with them, was “ sinching” them, they would have 
 been false to their trust if they did not close with another com¬ 
 pany that made a fair and certain and positive and definite 
 offer. When, three days afterwards, the Concord road learned 
 that the Lowell was likely to get the lease, all the difficulties 
 
17 
 
 that Judge Minot had conjured up suddenly vanished. No new 
 legislation needed. All the trouble about the Montreal went out 
 of sight. All the difficulties which he had talked about in his 
 three several letters suddenly disappeared. Then they passed 
 a resolution that they take a lease at six per cent. Who was 
 guilty of “ subterfuge and duplicity”? I have not any doubt 
 what any honest man will say about that. [Applause.] The 
 gentleman from Manchester, Mr. Sulloway, says,—“ Are you 
 going to lease this Northern at five per cent, for ten years and 
 six per cent, for eighty-nine, when the Concord would give you 
 six per cent, from the beginning? Why, you are taking three 
 hundred thousand dollars from the stockholders of the Northern 
 road, $30,000 a year.” Well, my friend, if the stockholders of 
 the Northern road are satisfied with that arrangement, do you 
 think it is very becoming for you and me to fret over it? Be¬ 
 sides, I would like to know if that three hundred thousand dollars 
 that would be paid to the stockholders is not coming right out of 
 the people eventually in the way of freights and fares ? 
 
 But the gentleman from Laconia, Mr. Stone, says the Lowell 
 did not take the Northern and the Montreal road in good faith. 
 I have already alluded to this argument, by which he attempted 
 to construe this statute bv taking the resolutions of these roads 
 at their annual meetings and ignoring all the rules of construc¬ 
 tion that are adopted by the courts. 
 
 I want to call your attention to the next point he made, which 
 was that the Lowell did not take these roads in good faith. And 
 how doe3 he prove it? Why, by reading the protest that was 
 entered at the stockholders’ meeting, called to ratify that lease, 
 the protest that was entered by Mr. Dow and several other 
 stockholders, representing about 125 shares in all. Because 
 Mr. Dow protested against that lease, it is argued that the 
 Lowell did not take the lease in good faith. That is the propo¬ 
 sition. Can the gentleman from Laconia put it upon any other 
 ground than that? How in the world so good a lawyer as my 
 friend Mr. Stone can stand up here and argue in any such 
 fashion as that passes my comprehension. What is the test of 
 the Lowell’s good faith ? The test of the Lowell’s good faith 
 was this: Did they believe, or were they warranted in believ¬ 
 ing, that the state meant to include them within the scope of 
 2 
 
18 
 
 that law? The state’s intention , not Mr. Dow’s wish , was the 
 thing to be considered. It is true that if a man should buy a 
 cow or a farm, knowing that the title was not in the seller, or 
 had reasonable grounds to believe that he had no good title, he 
 would take it at his peril, and he would not be a purchaser in 
 good faith. But if his title was to all appearances good, and 
 he took it, then he is a bona fide purchaser, although the title 
 mav prove bad. Gentlemen, suppose one of you should buy 
 my farm, and when you came to take the deed somebody stand¬ 
 ing around should say,—“That deed is defective; ought to 
 be a seal, or some clause has been left out—vou better not 
 take that:” you would say,—“Why, I bought that farm in 
 good faith, because I understood that he meant to sell it to 
 me. Because of a mistake in the deed , it does not follow that I 
 did not buy in good faith.” And because there was a mistake 
 in the deed which the state of New Hampshire gave to the 
 Lowell road, shall we stand up here and say they did not take 
 the lease in good faith ?' There was a defect in that law. It 
 was the mistake of the state. It was no fault of the Lowell 
 road: and because the state made a mistake in its deed, shall 
 we say the Lowell did not act in good faith ? Why should they 
 suspect there was any defect there? The law had just been 
 passed, after an exhaustive and able discussion by some of the 
 most accomplished and able counsel in the state ; and especially 
 why should they suspect any defect of that sort, when the de¬ 
 cision of the supreme court of the state of New Hampshire 
 that there is such a defect stands solitary and alone in the 
 records of judicial determination ? Everybod} 7 admits there is 
 a defect in that law, under the ruling of the court. The Ha- 
 zen bill proposes to cure that defect, and to put the Lowell 
 road exactly where it would be had not that defect occurred. 
 In that way it is proposed to carry out exactly the provi¬ 
 sions of that law of 1883, and this legislation is in harmony 
 with that law. The Atherton bill proposes to cure that de¬ 
 fect, but at the same time to let the Concord road in and secure 
 the opportunity which it neglected, which it let go by, and 
 which, according to the statement of Mr. Pearson, was not 
 wanted by more than three fourths of the stockholders of the 
 Concord road. That was the “ unexpected operation ” of the 
 
19 
 
 law. They expected to consolidate when the law was passed, 
 but when they could not get equitable terms out of the Con¬ 
 cord, then there was nothing left for the Northern but to make 
 such terms as it could with other roads. Now, gentlemen, let 
 me put to you a plain question. Suppose it had been the Con¬ 
 cord road that had taken a lease of the Northern, and the lease 
 had been set aside, just as it has been ;—for, mind you, the de¬ 
 cision of the court is that nobody could take a lease — not 
 that the Lowell could not, but that nobody could take a lease ;— 
 suppose that lease had been set aside: would Mr. Stone 
 come here and say the Concord did not take that lease in good 
 faith, because somebody objected to it? Would you say, be¬ 
 cause some one stockholder objected to that lease to the Con¬ 
 cord, that the Concord did not take it in good faith? Now, if, 
 under these circumstances, the Concord road were here seeking 
 to have this legislature, acting as a court of equity, cure the 
 defect in the law, and that road restored to the position it would 
 have been in had there not been such a defect; and sup¬ 
 pose, then, that the Boston & Maine, or the Boston & Lowell, 
 should come in with such a bill as the Atherton bill, authorizing 
 one of them only to take the lease : would not the Concord be 
 found loudly and strenuously protesting against such a proposi¬ 
 tion, and indignantly and clamorously denouncing it, and ap¬ 
 pealing to us not to permit it, but to make good their title 
 which they had honestly taken, and would not their protest and 
 appeal be heard and heeded? Then I ask, On what principle 
 of honor, honesty, or fair dealing should we reject the claims 
 of the Lowell road now, when they stand precisely in that sit¬ 
 uation ? And is it not most unbecoming and dishonorable for the 
 Concord to attempt to defeat the wishes of the vast majority of 
 the Northern stockholders, and to disrupt business arrange¬ 
 ments which the Lowell has made in that behalf, and, above all, 
 to ask the state to repudiate the obligation it is under to make 
 good the contract it entered into with the Lowell road when it 
 authorized it and any other “corporation created by the laws of 
 another state ” to avail itself of the provisions of the act of 
 1883? I do not believe that the state of New Hampshire is 
 going to enter on any such despicable and dishonorable course 
 of action just now. 
 
20 
 
 [At this point the house adjourned, and reassembled at 2 
 p. m., when Mr. Branch resumed his argument.] 
 
 Mr. Speaker :—I was speaking this morning, before the ad¬ 
 journment, in regard to the argument of good faith, and espe¬ 
 cially called your attention to the point which the gentleman 
 from Laconia, Mr. Stone, made when he said that the Boston 
 & Lowell did not take the lease of the Northern in good faith 
 because Mr. Dow and others objected. I was arguing that the 
 objection of a stockholder is not the test of good faith, and as 
 bearing upon that point I would like to have some one tell me, 
 if that is so, if the objection of a stockholder to a lease makes 
 the lease mala fide, not in good faith, if all the provisions in the 
 Atherton bill which provide as to what shall be done in case a 
 stockholder objects, are not mere nonsense? Are they going 
 to get a lease in good faith under the Atherton bill if some one 
 objects ? 
 
 It is said further, conceding that the Boston & Lowell took the 
 lease of the Northern and the Boston, Concord & Montreal in 
 good faith, they are not in any position to complain now, be¬ 
 cause they say, and the minority report it, that they have vio¬ 
 lated their agreement with the Boston, Concord & Montreal bv 
 making an assignment of that lease to the Boston & Maine. 
 The minority report states that in terms,—that the Boston & 
 Lowell has leased the Boston, Concord & Montreal to the Bos¬ 
 ton & Maine, and they have repeated it and reiterated it. Gen¬ 
 tlemen, where is the evidence of that fact? The gentleman from 
 Nashua says, very discreetly, in his speech upon this motion, that 
 the “ chain of evidence remains to be completed.” Well, I 
 should say the chain of evidence did remain to be completed— 
 not simply the chain, but the first link. If there is any evidence 
 that the Boston & Maine has leased the Boston & Lowell, why 
 did n’t the minority append that evidence to their report? There 
 is no such fact. It is a sheer fabrication, a most astonishing 
 falsification. That the Boston & Lowell has leased itself to the 
 Boston & Maine does not carry with it a lease of the Boston, 
 Concord & Montreal. Suppose I should lease my farm to my 
 friend Mr. Stone, with an agreement that he should not transfer 
 that lease to any one without my consent, that he should not 
 sublet it, that is, let a part of it without my consent: that is 
 
21 
 
 precisely the terms of the lease of the Boston, Concord & Mon¬ 
 treal to the Boston & Lowell—that they will not transfer the 
 lease to a third party without the consent of the Boston, Con¬ 
 cord & Montreal. Now, suppose next year Mr. Stone, who 
 has a farm, should let his farm to my friend Mr. Morrill— 
 let his own farm to mv friend Mr. Morrill: would anybody 
 sav, because Mr. Stone had leased his farm to Mr. Morrill, 
 that he had also leased my farm? And what should you thiuk, 
 gentlemen, of a man asserting such a proposition as that? And 
 what would you think if I should get up and say, Mr. Stone is 
 nothing but a “ beautiful corpse,” he is nothing but a “ pauper 
 corpse,” is nothing but a “ shadow of his former self.” That 
 is precisely the situation in regard to this Boston, Concord & 
 Montreal Railroad. Mr. Mellen testified distinctly that the 
 agreement was that they should not transfer the Boston, Con¬ 
 cord & Montreal to the Boston & Maine unless the directors of 
 .the Boston, Concord & Montreal consented to it. Who is run¬ 
 ning the Boston, Concord & Montreal to-day, pray tell me? 
 The minority complain because they issued an order ,— u a milita¬ 
 ry order,” as they call it,—instructing every employe to stand by 
 his duty, and not to surrender a single thing. Does that look as 
 though they were out of possession of it? And yet the minority 
 complain that they have violated their lease and their agreement 
 because the} 7 have abandoned possession of it, and in the next 
 breath they tell us they have issued a military order holding it. 
 Now Mr. Mellen testified distinctly that the agreement was not 
 to lease the Boston, Concord & Montreal Railroad without the 
 consent of its directors. Are those directors going to transfer 
 this lease to the Boston & Maine—these men who are also 
 directors in the Concord road and members of the “ old veter¬ 
 ans’ ” relief syndicate—these men that have been standing up 
 here for three, months, frantically and hysterically imploring 
 this legislature to keep back that howling monster, the Boston 
 & Maine, from this peaceful valley,—are they going to surrender 
 the Boston, Concord & Montreal to it, and betray their trust as 
 ■the special and heaven-appointed guardians of the welfare of 
 •this state? The Boston & Maine cannot get possession of it 
 unless they consent. And are they going to consent ? I wish 
 somebody would find out whether these directors of the Boston, 
 
22 
 
 Concord & Montreal are going to deliver their road over to the- 
 Boston & Maine. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, as bearing upon this syndicate transaction, I 
 want to call your attention to the statement of Judge Bingham 
 in regard to that matter. And, gentlemen, I claim right here 
 that the leading purpose back of this Atherton bill is what is 
 contained in that syndicate : because it is absolutely inconceiv¬ 
 able that the Concord Railroad would ever have displayed any 
 such spirit and activity as have been displayed in this contest. 
 Well, what did Mr. Kimball say in regard to that syndicate pur¬ 
 chase? He said they bought that stock, these twenty men, to 
 control it in the interest of the Concord road, and that thev ex- 
 pected to get nothing more out of it than the Boston & Lowell 
 were paying as rental, which was three hundred thousand dol¬ 
 lars a year. Now, if that is so, that they expected to get no 
 more out of it than the Boston & Lowell were paying, three hun¬ 
 dred thousand dollars a } 7 ear, and Judge Bingham says it is, 
 can any one tell how the “ old heroes and veterans ” are going 
 to be benefited in the slightest by that purchase so long as 
 it did not change the rental the Boston & Lowell was paying? 
 and how is the Atherton bill going to help them so long as none 
 of the “old veterans and heroes,” according to Mr. Kimball, 
 would get a dividend on that stock “ within the lifetime of any 
 of the members of that svndicate,” that contains so robust a 
 young man as Charles A. Busiel? Now, what did Judge Bing¬ 
 ham sav? He says,— 
 
 “The facts about this business are, that twenty gentlemen 
 bought out the stock which was originally owned by Mr. Lyon 
 and Mr. Bell and Mr. Harlow,—twenty of them bought the 
 stock which was formerly owned by three or four, and they paid 
 its market value for it; and they paid for it, not with the idea 
 of making any speculation,—there was not a man in that whole 
 crowd, to my knowledge, who had any idea of speculation,—but 
 the idea was that they bought it at a price where it was safe to 
 buy it, calculating, upon a lease already made of the Boston, 
 Concord & Montreal road, that it was worth, if that lease was 
 permitted to remain, just about what was paid for it, as near as 
 they could calculate. No man would ever have bought it simply 
 for the purpose of holding, that is, none of these men would,. 
 
23 
 
 but they bought it on account of seeing in the Massachusetts 
 legislature a bill, which was afterwards passed and which be¬ 
 came a law, and which was then pending in the Massachusetts 
 legislature when they bought the stock. * * * 
 
 “Well, then, they saw this act pending in the Massachusetts 
 legislature, which afterward became a law. And they determined 
 that they would buy this stock ; and they did. Well, now, gen¬ 
 tlemen, we thought we would fix that in the Atherton bill so 
 that no mortal man, whatever his disposition was, would have 
 the audacity to claim that the Atherton bill made any better 
 provision for the old stock and new stock than existed under 
 the old state of things. And I submit that nobody for a single 
 moment who will look at that bill can entertain the idea that it 
 will be as well for the old stock and the new stock as it will to 
 let the road remain under the lease to the Boston & Lowell. * * 
 
 “ Well, now, to put an end to all that sort of talk, I suggest 
 here that so far as the syndicate is concerned, so far as the Bos¬ 
 ton, Concord & Montreal is concerned, you may strike out the 
 latter part of section 12 and substitute this: That from the 
 present time until the time this lease would expire, which would 
 be 1983, no money shall be paid in discharge of, or upon, the 
 indebtedness of the Boston, Concord & Montreal road, or upon 
 its stock, except a sum corresponding to the rental provided in 
 that lease, which is $300,000. That will leave the Boston, Con¬ 
 cord & Montreal road with nothing to be expended upon it as it 
 exists now, except what it is entitled to under the existing 
 lease ; and all the money that is earned to go to the lessor, and 
 the syndicate to get no dividends beyond what they would get 
 if it should remain under the lease that was intended to be 
 taken.” 
 
 That is the deliberate, studied, authoritative statement of 
 one of the syndicate and the senior counsel of the Concord 
 road : the statement of a man who is a master of the art of stat¬ 
 ing a thing so guardedly and craftily as to make the statement 
 almost invulnerable. Well, as Jack Bunsby would say, “ the 
 bearings” of this statement of Judge Bingham’s “lays in the 
 application on it.” In the first place, you remember Judge 
 Bingham spent a great deal of time in showing up what he 
 claimed was the very unsound financial condition of the Lowell 
 
24 
 
 road, its accumulated debt, contrasting its methods of doing 
 business with those of the Concord that went on “ the plan of 
 pay as you go,” and condemning its habit of buying up what he 
 called “ worthless roads,” and issuing stock and bonds in pay¬ 
 ment ; and yet no sooner did Judge Bingham and his friends 
 learn that a bill had been introduced in the Massachusetts leg¬ 
 islature confirming the lease which the Lowell had taken of the 
 Boston, Concord & Montreal, than they had so much confidence 
 in the Lowell management and solvency that they went right off 
 and bought a controlling interest in that Montreal stock. “ Not 
 as a speculation”—perish the thought!—but because “it was 
 safe to buy it, calculating, upon the lease already made, that it 
 was worth, if the lease was permitted to remain, just about what 
 was paid for it.” That was in May, 1886. What a refutation 
 is there in this single statement of Judge Bingham’s of all his 
 labored argument, in which he endeavored to demonstrate how 
 unsafe the Lowell road is iu respect to its finances and manage¬ 
 ment. Why, they jumped for that stock the moment they saw 
 the bill had been introduced, and were willing to pay $15 a 
 share for the old stock that was only worth $7 in the market. 
 And none of that, according to Mr. Kimball, will yield a divi¬ 
 dend to the “old heroes” within the lives of any of the syndi¬ 
 cate. Further than this, and more important by far, is the 
 light this statement throws upon the claim which has been made 
 here and insisted upon, and pressed, that the Lowell road had 
 no legal right to lease that road under the act of 1883 !—when 
 Judge Bingham and Judge Minot, and their associates, were 
 making haste to buy that stock in the Montreal upon the suppo¬ 
 sition and with the prospect that the Lowell lease would be up¬ 
 held ! But Judge Bingham says that it would be better for the 
 holders of the old and new stock under the Lowell lease than 
 under the provisions of the Atherton bill. If so, what becomes 
 of his solicitude for the old “ heroes and veterans ” whom he is 
 trying to deprive of the advantage of the Lowell lease, and give 
 them the lesser benefits of the Atherton bill? And how does he 
 reconcile his position in respect to issuing bonds by the Lowell 
 in payment for property acquired, with the provisions of the 
 Atherton bill, by which the Concord Railroad is to be seduced 
 from its virtuous career of “ pay as you go,” and to issue bonds 
 
25 
 
 in payment of and to carry out the magnificent projects it pro¬ 
 fesses to have in contemplation for the benefit of the upper part 
 of the state? Now I observe that the minority have followed 
 the suggestion of Judge Bingham, and have stricken out of the 
 Atherton bill the part which Judge Bingham proposed should be 
 stricken out. And you will notice that it is the first amendment , 
 which they were forced to make early in the session, and which 
 they seemed to think would give an appearance of great fairness 
 and respectability to the purposes of the syndicate. And they 
 have substituted this new one in place of the first one, which they 
 have had to abandon. This last one provides for dividends upon 
 the old and common stock, not exceeding 4 per cent., and the 
 minority say these dividends would begin in a very few years. 
 The amendment, like the first one, which it supplants, is a con¬ 
 fession as well as a change. It is a confession that in the bill 
 as it was introduced the scheme of the syndicate had been en¬ 
 tirely concealed; but by the first amendment they endeavored, 
 since they were compelled to bring it into publicity, to dress it 
 up as attractively as its uncomely figure would permit, but hav¬ 
 ing failed in that, their latest amendment comes as a reluctant 
 and tardy confession that they started out to get something that 
 they wished and hoped would not be discovered ; and now, after 
 their imposition has been thoroughly exposed, the} 7 are willing 
 to take a little, if you will only please be so kind as to let them 
 have that! 
 
 But whv this terrible distress about the stockholders of the 
 %/ 
 
 Montreal road? They were satisfied to lease their road to the 
 Lowell. Not one of them protested ; and under the amendment 
 to the Colby act contained in the Hazen bill, if that old and 
 common stock is, or might be prospectively, worth something, 
 they can get its full value if they are not content. And so long 
 as they are satisfied with the Lowell lease, and the public is de¬ 
 lighted, why should any one want to change the arrangement by 
 having the Concord pa\ 7 $300,000 a year, instead of letting the 
 Lowell do it, as it agreed ? But the gentleman from Manches¬ 
 ter offered several challenges here the other day ; and among 
 other things he challenged anybody to show how the old and 
 common stock in the Boston, Concord & Montreal road is going 
 to be benefited at all bv the Atherton bill. Well, I am not 
 
26 
 
 afraid of that challenge. If he wants to know, or anybody else, 
 he can find out by looking at the Atherton bill, section 11. That 
 was the one they amended first, and they abandoned their 
 amendment. They struck out that amendment and substituted 
 this : “And it is further provided, that whatever interest may be 
 saved by the funding and refunding of the indebtedness of the 
 said Boston, Concord & Montreal Railroad should be first used 
 in paying a dividend, not exceeding 4 per cent., on the new 
 stock and the old stock, so called, of said Boston, Concord & 
 Montreal Railroad.” There is where they get it. And the mi- 
 nority report says, on page 6,— 
 
 “The adoption of the Hazen bill, therefore, would emascu¬ 
 late the resources of the Boston, Concord & Montreal Railroad 
 above 5 per cent, on the preferred stock of $800,000, while the 
 remainder of the capital stock, amounting to $1,000,000, would 
 be left to uncertain recovery for years to come. On the other 
 hand, the Atherton hill insures an early dividend on this stock.” 
 
 Mr. Sulloway challenges us to tell where there is anything in 
 the Atherton bill that will give these gentlemen any dividend on 
 that old and common stock. There it stands, in section two, 
 and its meaning is set forth in the minorit\ 7 report. And they 
 say they will get those dividends within a very short time. 
 
 But the mask has been thrown off. The avowal has been 
 made. The real purpose of the Atherton bill has been confessed. 
 The gentleman from Laconia, Mr. Stone, speaking for the Con¬ 
 cord road, tells us in plain English that which we had all along 
 charged and they persistently denied, that the chief thing sought 
 to be accomplished by that bill is to take the present and future 
 surplus of the Concord road, which is the property of the state 
 under a solemn contract, and apply it to the enrichment of the 
 Montreal, and to the carrying out of the most insolent and crim¬ 
 inal piece of stock-jobber} 7 ever planned or purposed. 
 
 Mr. Stone —That last part I did not say. 
 
 Mr. Branch —It is to be a marriage ! The rich, aristocratic 
 Concord is to wed the impecunious and lowly Montreal! The 
 love-making commenced in May, 1886, by Judge Bingham and 
 his friends when they bought that Montreal stock. The engage¬ 
 ment is announced: we are invited to the festivities. “The 
 funeral baked meats” of the Lowell are to “ set forth the wed- 
 
27 
 
 cling dinner” of the Concord. Well, gentlemen, the prosperous 
 bridegroom, the Concord, is not going to wed the Montreal for 
 her money, and yet it is a marriage for money ; for the riches of 
 the state, which the Concord holds in trust for the state, are to 
 be embezzled for the dowry of the empty-handed bride, and her 
 husband will then acquire their ownership by rule of common 
 law. I have heard of a guardian’s marrying his ward to get her 
 property ; but I never before heard of a guardian’s bestowing it 
 upon his sweetheart, and then marrying her to get possession of 
 it. [Applause.] But dropping for the present the romantic 
 figure which Mr. Stone has chosen to illustrate the confessed 
 purpose of this syndicate, let us look at it for a moment in a 
 somewhat matter-of-fact way ; and I ask you, What earthly ad¬ 
 vantage could the absorption of the Montreal by the Concord be 
 to the Concord stockholders? They get their 10 per cent, now, 
 and they could get no more afterwards. Is it not as plain as 
 day that the only advantage is to the other road and to the 
 twenty men who control it? The plain question is, Shall we 
 turn the surplus wealth of the Concord that belongs to the state 
 into the improvement of any railroad and the pockets of some 
 speculators? Suppose we did that, and one of your constituents 
 should ask why you did it, you would have to say, “Oh ! so the 
 surplus of the Concord could be used to make a good road of 
 the Montreal.” “But that surplus belonged to the state,” says 
 your neighbor; “why did you take the state’s money for that?” 
 “Yes,” you say ; “but the Montreal was poor, and needed it.” 
 “But,” says your neighbor, “I am poor, too. My taxes are 
 high ;—why was not that money used to pay the state’s debt? 
 Did not the Lowell propose to make a good road of the Mon¬ 
 treal, and was it not doing it?” “Yes,” you say; “but then 
 the syndicate did not want the Lowell to have it. The syndi¬ 
 cate said the} 7 wanted “the plum in the Concord road,” and we 
 thought we would let them have it.” That is the proposition, to 
 take the money of the state to help a single road and to enrich 
 twenty speculators, when we might have the Montreal road put 
 in proper shape without aid from the state, and have this sur¬ 
 plus in the treasury of the state besides. Gentlemen, instead 
 of asking us to sanction and permit any such monstrous, in¬ 
 cestuous marriage as that to which the gentleman has invited us. 
 
28 
 
 he should rather call upon us, as guardians of the rights and 
 property of the commonwealth, and in her name, to rise in our 
 places and say, “Gentlemen of the syndicate, we forbid the 
 banns !” He may call it a “ marriage I call it a swindle and 
 a steal! [Applause.] 
 
 There is another point upon which I desire to say a few words. 
 It is said that a lease of 99 years is too long; that a lease for 
 that time is a practical sale. Granted : but some company has 
 got to own the railroads at the end of 99 years and during that 
 period, and what possible difference can it be who the company 
 is, if the roads are run satisfactorily to the public and to the 
 stockholders ? The real ownership of every road in the country 
 will change every year, because the stockholders will change, 
 and nothing we can do will prevent it. Now, the fact that the 
 improvements upon these upper roads necessary to be made will 
 require large outlay, and that they will extend over some years, 
 clemauds that there be a permanency about a lease that will 
 warrant investments of so permanent a character. So far as 
 the stockholders are concerned, it makes their investment much 
 more desirable than when it rests upon a short lease. The stocks 
 and bonds of railroads under long leases are the very best secu- 
 rities for savings institutions, trustees, for men and women to 
 lay by for old age or for their children. These are some of the 
 reasons in favor of a long lease. 
 
 Leases for 99 years are the rule. Even the Concord was will¬ 
 ing to lease the Portsmouth for 99 years ; and the objection now 
 raised is, in my judgment, absolutely insincere. When the 
 Atherton bill was introduced, it provided for a lease of the 
 Northern for 99 years. It has been amended, providing for a 
 thirty-year lease, and now the supporters of the Atherton bill 
 are lugubriously saying, “Oh ! a lease for 99 years is too long— 
 too long —but has any one of them undertaken to give any 
 firm and valid reason why ? Is this talk anything more than a 
 cheap and shifty diversion? The gentleman from Laconia, Mr. 
 Stone, says a lease for 99 years is too long ; but the only reason 
 he pretended to give why it is too long was, that before such a 
 lease would expire we and our children, and some of our grand¬ 
 children, would be dead ! But the marriage of the Concord to 
 the Montreal, which I suppose will last until death do them part, 
 
29 
 
 seems to Mr. Stone a most alluring and charming arrangement. 
 The bliss of the union doubtless serves to make the time seem 
 short. The idea of a ninety-nine-year lease sends a pang of dis¬ 
 tress to the bosom of the gentleman from Manchester, Mr. Sul- 
 loway, and he proceeds to denounce it in bursts of extravagant 
 and flamboyant rhetoric. But is not this revulsion from the 
 policy of a ninety-nine-year lease a little sudden and abrupt? 
 I should like to know if they are really honest about it, and op¬ 
 pose it on principle, or whether they have taken it up just now 
 as a convenient dodge, a handy deception, for this special emer¬ 
 gency. If it is a dodge, a deception, it requires no answer: 
 exposure of it is enough ;—but if the}- oppose a ninety-nine- 
 year lease on principle, their opposition is entitled to consid¬ 
 eration. Are they opposing it on principle? If they are, I ask 
 them how long since they adopted that principle? It is only a 
 few days since that this legislature passed a bill increasing the 
 capital of the Cheshire road $1,000,000, and providing it might 
 lease other roads, or be leased by other roads, within or without 
 the state, for a period of 99 years. That bill was reported 
 unanimously by the railroad committee, and was passed without 
 debate or roll-call. Where were these gentlemen then who op¬ 
 pose a ninety-nine-year lease now? 
 
 Why did not the gentleman from Laconia rise up, and in 
 measured, impressive tones say,—“ Gentlemen, your hair will 
 have silvered over and you will have gone to your graves, your 
 children will have grown to maturity and gone to their long 
 homes, and perhaps your grandchildren will have gone to their 
 long homes, before this lease terminates?” 
 
 Why did not the gentleman from Manchester rush to the 
 floor, roused and incensed, and vehemently and dramatically 
 denounce the bill as the scheme “of stock-jobbers, stock- 
 waterers, and railroad wreckers ” to destroy our liberties and 
 the liberties of our children and our children’s children, and say 
 that the consequences of such a bill could only be changed “ by 
 the tramp of armed men ” ? [Applause.] Where was their 
 principle then ? Where is their consistency now ? Does any 
 one need any other evidence than this to prove that this new 
 battle-shout of the Concord road, like that about “surrendering 
 our liberty” and “railroad wreckers” and “invaders,” is 
 
30 
 
 nothing but windy declamation and sanctimonious cant? [Ap¬ 
 plause.] 
 
 The gentleman from Manchester and the gentleman from 
 Laconia stood here and argued to you the other day, as a propo¬ 
 sition of law, that if we passed the Hazen bill we have so legis¬ 
 lated the railroad question out of the state’s control that we 
 cannot touch it for ninety-nine years. And the gentleman from 
 Manchester says that if anybody disputes that proposition he 
 will bury him under an avalanche of authorities so deep that 
 the trump of Gabriel will not reach him. Gentlemen, I am not 
 so old a lawyer as the gentleman from Manchester, but I do 
 not shrink at all from that avalanche. So far from his having 
 any avalanche, I say he has not got a flake of authority that 
 will back up any such proposition as that. 
 
 It is argued that we cannot do it because it would impair the 
 obligation of a contract. The gentleman from Laconia says, 
 that under the provisions of the constitution of the United 
 States, any attempt after we pass this law would be to impair 
 the obligations of a contract. Well, it is no doubt true that 
 the constitution of the United States will not allow any state 
 legislature to impair the obligation of a contract, and it is un¬ 
 doubtedly true that when a legislature passes a law of any kind 
 and anybodv acts under it, there is a contract between the state 
 and the person who acquires the benefits of that contract. 
 
 When the famous Dartmouth College case was decided, it was 
 intimated there by Judge StoiT that if states wanted to pre¬ 
 serve their right to repeal any statute which was passed, they 
 must include within the statute a repealing clause : they must 
 say that that act was subject to be amended, altered, or re¬ 
 pealed at any time by the legislature. And accordingly, in 
 1831, the state of Massachusetts passed a law which provided, 
 whenever a corporation was formed, that any law forming 
 the corporation was subject to be amended, altered, or repealed 
 at any time, so that in case they should pass a law and should 
 neglect to put in that repealing clause, they would be perfectly 
 safe under this general clause. And the state of New Hamp¬ 
 shire did the same thing. You will find the law on page 353 of 
 the general laws. 
 
 “ The legislature may at any time alter, amend, or repeal the 
 
31 
 
 charter or annul the powers of any corporation, whenever the 
 public good shall require the same.” 
 
 Accordingly we find that in every statute that is passed it is 
 provided that the legislature may at any time amend, alter, or 
 repeal it; and the supreme court of the United States says that 
 that provision is a part of the contract , and anybody that un¬ 
 dertakes to avail himself of that contract must take the whole 
 of it. So if, under the Hazen bill, or any general railroad law, 
 or under the Atherton bill, anything should be done, and at any 
 time the legislature should think best to amend it, they can 
 amend it under the saving clause of our statute, and under the 
 saving clause in the general railroad law, or in the Hazen bill, 
 or in the Atherton bill. 
 
 Now this matter has been decided by the supreme court of 
 the United States over and over again. And the first case I 
 want to call your attention to is reported in 105 U. S. 13, a 
 case that went to the supreme court of the United States from 
 the district of Massachusetts. It was decided bv Mr. Justice 
 Miller, and in his opinion he says,— 
 
 “It was no doubt with a view to suggest a method by which 
 the state legislatures could retain in a large measure this im¬ 
 portant power, without violating the provision of the federal 
 •constitution, that Mr. Justice Story, in his concurring opinion 
 in the Dartmouth College case, suggested that when the legisla¬ 
 ture was enacting a charter for a corporation, a provision in the 
 statute reserving to the legislature the right to amend or repeal 
 it must be held to be a part of the contract itself, and the sub¬ 
 sequent exercise of the right would be in accordance with the 
 contract, and could not, therefore, impair its obligation. And 
 he cites with approval the observation we have already quoted 
 from the case of Wales v. Stetson , 2 Mass. 143. * * * 
 
 “The history of the reservation clause in acts of corporation 
 supports our proposition that whatever right, franchise, or power 
 in the corporation depends for its existence upon the granting 
 clauses of the charter is lost by its repeal. * * * 
 
 “ It was therefore in the power of the Massachusetts legisla¬ 
 ture to grant to another corporation, as it did, the authority to op¬ 
 erate a street railroad through the same streets and over the same 
 ground previously occupied by the Marginal company. * * 
 
32 
 
 “ To this there can be no valid objection. The property of 
 corporations, even including their franchises, when that is neces¬ 
 sary, may be taken for public use under the power of eminent 
 domain, on making due compensation.” 
 
 And in another case, in 96 U. S. 499, which was Railroad 
 Company v. State of Maine , two railroad companies by their 
 charter were protected against taxation beyond a certain amount. 
 By a subsequent act of the legislature they were allowed to 
 consolidate into one company ; and after they consolidated into 
 this one company, the legislature undertook to pass a law which 
 would tax them more than they were taxed before they consoli¬ 
 dated. And they said, you cannot impair the obligation of our 
 contract. It was agreed in our original charter that we should 
 not be taxed beyond one half of one per cent. But the supreme 
 court of the United States said that when these two companies 
 consolidated they consolidated under that general law which 
 permitted them, and then they came within the purview and 
 scope of that new law ; and so long as the new law did not con¬ 
 tain any clause which limited the amount of their taxes, the leg¬ 
 islature had a perfect right to tax them as much as they pleased. 
 The court savs,— 
 
 “ The act of the legislature of Maine of 1856, authorizing two 
 or more corporations to consolidate and form a new corpo¬ 
 ration, was an act of corporation of the new company; and the 
 latter, upon its formation, became at once subject to the provi¬ 
 sion of the general law of 1831 (which is the same as our law), 
 which declared that any act of incorporation subsequently pass¬ 
 ed should at all times thereafter be liable to be amended, altered, 
 or repealed, at the pleasure of the legislature, in the same man¬ 
 ner as if an express provision to that effect were therein contain¬ 
 ed, unless there shall have been inserted in such act of incorpo¬ 
 ration an express limitation or provision to the contrary.” 
 
 Now, gentlemen, these are the decisions of the supreme court 
 of the United States, which are to this effect, that where we have 
 a general saving clause, as I have read to you, or where we have 
 a special enactment in any law under which corporate rights are 
 granted, that becomes a part of the contract, and the state may 
 at any time amend, alter, or repeal it as it pleases. 
 
 But even supposing the state of New Hampshire should grant 
 
33 
 
 away its right to amend, alter, or repeal a law of that descrip¬ 
 tion, I say they have still a remedy which goes farther than any 
 repealing clause of a statute. We have heard oftentimes of the 
 expressions “eminent domain,” “the right of eminent domain.” 
 What do we mean by that? We mean that every man holds his 
 property of every kind subject to the right of the state to take 
 it whenever the state thinks fit or proper, and devote it to a pub¬ 
 lic use. All property, it makes no difference what it is, rail¬ 
 roads or anything else, is subject to be taken by the state un¬ 
 der the right of eminent domain. When they lay out a railroad 
 through the exercise of that power, they go right on to a man’s 
 land, survey the route, and if he objects to the amount they 
 propose to give him, he appeals to the court, and his damages 
 are assessed. A man’s property can be taken for any public 
 purpose. If you wanted to lay out a new railroad, you could 
 take the property of a railroad company the same as of an indi¬ 
 vidual. It is within the power of the state, in its exercise of the 
 right of eminent domain, to take every single railroad in the 
 state of New Hampshire and form a new company. You cannot 
 divest the state of that right. It is something which inheres in 
 the sovereignty of the state. No legislature can barter it away. 
 Does anybody deny that proposition ? I am not going to bury 
 him under an avalanche if he does ; but I would like to read for 
 his instruction a few fragments from Cooley’s Constitutional 
 Limitations, and see how it jibes with the preposterous law that 
 has been asserted here upon this floor. I read from page 536 : 
 “Every species of property”—and I take it that includes rail¬ 
 roads—“ which may become necessary for the public use, and 
 which the government cannot appropriate under any other recog¬ 
 nized right, is subject to be seized and appropriated under the 
 right of eminent domain. Lands for the public ways ; timber, 
 stone, and gravel to make and improve the public ways ; a build¬ 
 ing that stands in the way of a contemplated improvement, or 
 which for any other reason it is necessary to take, remove, or 
 destroy for the public good ; streams of water, corporate fran¬ 
 chises, and generally, it may be said, legal and equitable rights 
 of every description, are liable to be appropriated.” 
 
 We have got within the sovereignty of the state a power that 
 
 no legislature can barter away, because no legislature can barter 
 3 
 
34 
 
 away the sovereignty of the state. That is the right of eminent 
 domain. 
 
 Now, the supreme court of the state of New Hampshire had 
 something to say on that. You will find it in Backus v. Leba¬ 
 non, 11 N. H. 19, and I will ask the clerk to read the sylla¬ 
 bus. 
 
 The clerk read as follows : 
 
 “ A charter granting to certain individuals the right to organ¬ 
 ize and form a corporation, with power to construct a turnpike 
 road, take tolls, etc., is a contract, within the protection of the 
 clause in the constitution of the United States prohibiting the 
 several states from passing laws impairing the obligation of 
 contracts. 
 
 “ But this does not exempt the property of the corporation, 
 including the franchise, from the power of eminent domain, or 
 from contributing like other property to the public burdens. 
 
 “ It does not impair the obligation of the contract to take the 
 property for public use, even if the powers of the corporation 
 are thereby suspended, or the corporation itself in fact dissolved. 
 
 “ The construction of a turnpike road, by a corporation char¬ 
 tered for that purpose, does not preclude the exercise of the 
 powder of eminent domain, in providing for a free public high¬ 
 way over the same ground. 
 
 “ Nor will a provision in the charter of the turnpike corpo¬ 
 ration, by which the state reserves the right to purchase the prop¬ 
 erty, after a certain period, at a certain price, prevent the legis¬ 
 lature taking the property for a public highway in the ordinary 
 mode. 
 
 “ It is not necessary, in the exercise of the power of eminent 
 domain, that there should be a special act of the legislature in 
 each particular case. It may be exercised through the action of 
 general laws, and of judicial tribunals.” 
 
 Thus you see, gentlemen, that the supreme court of the United 
 States, the supreme court of the state of New Hampshire, and 
 this eminent law writer, Judge Cooley, with all the citations 
 there found, say that there is no doubt whatever that the state 
 at an} 7 time may take any railroad franchise, or any railroad 
 company or property of any sort, and turn it over to any new 
 company, if in their judgment they think the public needs de- 
 
35 
 
 mand it; and nobody can question the judgment or right of the 
 legislature to do it. 
 
 CD 
 
 Now, I always like to prove a thing out of the mouths of my 
 enemies, if I can. And I think I can prove that all of this stuff 
 which they have been getting off here in regard to the state be¬ 
 ing precluded and estopped for ninety-nine years is a pretence 
 and a sham. They say, “ Gentlemen, this is a very solemn and 
 momentous occasion. We are going to do something here which 
 •cannot be changed for ninety-nine years.” If you will look at 
 section 8 of the Atherton bill you will fiud that they propose 
 right there to exercise the right of eminent domain : 
 
 “ Sec. 8. If the Boston, Concord & Montreal shall be united 
 with any other road or roads under the provision of section 1, 
 and at the time of such union any person or corporation shall 
 have, or claim to have, a lease of the Boston, Concord & Mon¬ 
 treal Railroad, the corporation formed under section 1 may nev¬ 
 ertheless take full possession of, hold, and use said Boston, 
 Concord & Montreal Railroad, upon making compensation as 
 hereinafter provided.” 
 
 Right here in the Atherton bill they are proposing to exercise 
 this extraordinary right of eminent domain, and take the Bos¬ 
 ton, Concord & Montreal out of the hands of the Boston & 
 Lowell and turn it over to the newly formed corporation. What 
 do you think of lawyers standing up here and telling us that the 
 passage of one of these acts prevents the state from ever doing 
 anything, while right in that very bill they are proposing to re¬ 
 sort to the extraordinary remedy of which nobody can divest 
 the state or prevent the state from exercising. 
 
 While I am on this point I want to call your attention to 
 another legal proposition. The gentleman from Nashua, in his 
 first speech, gave it as his legal opinion that this Hazen bill is 
 unconstitutional; and he, with others, has argued in that way 
 because it is an attempt, as he says, to make valid an invalid 
 contract. Mr. Sulloway says it is a mandate to the supreme 
 court, telling them how they shall decide a case. What does it 
 say? It says simply this, that this act shall be construed as 
 authorizing the Boston & Lowell to lease these roads. Does it 
 say that the supreme court of the state of New Hampshire shall 
 decide this case differently from what they have? Why, gen- 
 
36 
 
 tlemeo, if you will turn to the first page of the General Laws 
 of New Hampshire you will find a long chapter there which 
 goes on to define what certain words shall mean. For in¬ 
 stance, it says the words “ spirit, spirituous liquor,” or 44 intox¬ 
 icating liquor,” shall be intended to mean all spirituous or in¬ 
 toxicating liquor and all mixed liquors, etc. It says the words 
 44 published, publishing,” or 44 publication,” shall be intended 
 publication in a newspaper circulated in the vicinity ; and so on 
 for a whole chapter, declaring how certain words shall be con¬ 
 strued. Is that an infringement upon the prerogative of the 
 supreme court? So this bill says that the Colby act shall be 
 construed to include the Boston & Lowell within its purview. 
 It is simply making clear beyond any question what has been 
 attempted to be obscured here, so there shall not be any ques¬ 
 tion about it in the future. That is all it means. It is no di¬ 
 rection to the supreme court. And if it were a direction, this 
 is the supreme judicial tribunal of the state, and if we choose 
 to dictate to the supreme court in this way we have a constitu¬ 
 tional right to do it. 
 
 Now, they say it is proposed to make valid an invalid con¬ 
 tract, and that a law of that sort is unconstitutional. Well, I 
 don’t know but I will get an avalanche on this. I will read 
 again from ‘‘Cooley’s Constitutional Limitations.” 44 On the 
 same principle, legislative acts validating invalid contracts have 
 been sustained. When these acts go no further than to bind a 
 party by a contract which he has attempted to enter into, but 
 which was invalid by reason of personal disability on his part to 
 make it, or through neglect of some legal formality, or in con¬ 
 sequence of some ingredient in the contract forbidden by law, 
 they cannot well be obnoxious to constitutional objections.” 
 
 This you will find on page 375. On page 376 he says,— 
 
 44 The case of Goshen v. Stonington was regarded as sufficient 
 authority to support this law ; and the principle derived from 
 that case is stated to be, ‘that where a statute is expressly retro¬ 
 active, and the object and effect of it is to correct an innocent 
 mistake, remedy a mischief, execute the intention of the parties, 
 and promote justice, then both as a matter of right and of pub¬ 
 lic policy affecting the peace and welfare of the community, the 
 law should be sustained.’ 
 
37 
 
 “We have already referred to the case of contracts by mu¬ 
 nicipal corporations, which, when made, were in excess of their 
 authority, but subsequently have been confirmed by legislative 
 action. If the contract was one which the legislature might orig¬ 
 inally have authorized , the case falls within the rule we have 
 laid down, and the legislative action is to be sustained. 
 
 “In none of the cases to which we have referred is it of any 
 importance that the legislative act which cures the defect was 
 passed after suit brought, in which the invalidity was sought to 
 be taken advantage of. The bringing of suit vests no right to 
 a particular decision ; and the case must be determined on the 
 law as it stands when the judgment is rendered.” 
 
 Does anybody dispute the proposition that it was within the 
 power of the legislature of 1883 to correct this defect in this 
 law? Nobody will deny that. And if it was a defect which they 
 might have corrected , then this legislature may note pass cm act 
 correcting that defect , and in that way make valid contracts that 
 are invalid by reason of that defect. 
 
 Gentlemen, is n’t it perfectly manifest from these decisions of 
 the supreme court of the United States on all these points, that 
 these propositions have no foundation whatever, and are not 
 the “ragged follies” of the^ legal pretensions “stripped 
 naked as at their birth”? If the gentleman from Manchester 
 lias got any avalanche, I bid him let that avalanche slide. I think 
 I will have pretty good company under that avalanche when 
 Gabriel is sounding his trump, and Brother Sulloway is on the 
 other side of Jordan hobnobbing with my friend Samuel B. 
 Page. [Applause.] 
 
 I have endeavored to show that the passage of the Hazen bill 
 is demanded as a measure which completes the policy adopted 
 by the state in the enactment of the general railroad law ; that 
 it is demanded as an act of good faith and honor on the part of 
 the state towards the Lowell road and towards the stockholders 
 of the Northern and Montreal. Now, upon plain, simple, eco¬ 
 nomic principles, and as matter of ordinary business, I claim it 
 should be passed. Supposing both of these contestants stood 
 on equal, equitable grounds : the inquiry then is, Which of the 
 two. judging from their past history and present attitude, is the 
 more likely to have the disposition to serve the people of the 
 
38 
 
 state well? aud which of the two is in the more advantageous- 
 position to do so? In the first place, we may as well recognize 
 the fact that no railroad will be run simply as a public benefac¬ 
 tor. The Boston & Maine and the Lowell are not managed and 
 will not be managed by archangels, any more than the Concord 
 has been and is managed b} T seraphs. I am aware, too, of the 
 fact that has been so solemnly asserted here so many times by 
 counsel for the Concord road, that men die and the management 
 of corporations changes. But, gentlemen, I hold, nevertheless, 
 that the methods, the traditions, and the policy of a corporation 
 are impressed upon its managers as they succeed one another,, 
 and that a railroad company acquires in some sense a character, 
 which abides with it and distinguishes it. The Boston & Maine 
 and Lowell have always had the reputation of being on the 
 whole well managed companies. They have been run on busi¬ 
 ness principles, and have seemed to recognize the truth that the 
 way a railroad gets business is by making business and not by 
 killing it. They have been enterprising, alert, progressive. 
 They have made mistakes, no doubt, but, generally speaking,, 
 they have been uncommonly well conducted roads, and tlieir 
 standing to-day, as it always has been, is that of first-class 
 companies. Mr. Stone says “*the Boston & Maine has been a 
 magnificent road in the past. Its management in the past has 
 been like the management of the Concord road, so far as being 
 conservative and saving money is concerned.” The gentleman 
 from Manchester, Mr. Sulloway, I know, says that the Boston 
 & Maine and the Lowell are conducted in a most reckless and 
 dangerous manner. He asserted over and over again that they 
 take the earnings of those roads and put them in their pockets, 
 and then issue stocks to pa\ 7 running expenses ; that this is the 
 financial system that prevails with those roads. But did he 
 produce a particle of evidence in support of that assertion? Not 
 a particle. Did he cite a single instance where that has been 
 done? Not one. It was all bald and baseless assertion. Why, 
 gentlemen, if such a policy as this were pursued, who would buy 
 the stocks in those roads? Whom do they sell them to? They are 
 
 worth to-day $220 and $160 in the market. Whom do thev find 
 ^ «/ 
 
 to buy those stocks at these prices? If the stocks of these roads 
 are ground out in the lawless and reckless way the gentleman 
 
39 
 
 so graphically described, is it not strange that they can get any¬ 
 body to buy them ? Who is it that ventures to take such stocks 
 at these prices, with such a management as that? Is not the fact 
 that the stocks of these roads maintain these large prices posi¬ 
 tive proof that this statement of the gentleman is absolutely 
 groundless ? 
 
 The Concord road has always been well managed, so far as 
 making money goes ; but its character, methods, and habits and 
 traditions, from the commencement to this moment, so far as 
 their patrons were concerned, have been of a kind that may ap¬ 
 propriately be described by the one word sordid. Its location 
 was such as to relieve it of the necessity of being energetic and 
 accommodating ; for whatever might be the condition of busi¬ 
 ness elsewhere, the stream of trade and travel brought along by 
 the confluent roads above and below it was compelled to pour 
 through its banks, and made sure and certain sufficient income 
 for large dividends and an accumulating surplus. It seemed to 
 have a genius for greed and a predisposition for selfishness from 
 the start: for it was expressly provided in its charter that no 
 parallel road should be built for thirty 7 years, and its fortunate 
 environment naturally made it indifferent, illiberal, overbearing, 
 and hard. The charge of the servant against his lord, “ I knew 
 thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou has not sown 
 and gathering where thou hast not strewn,” is one which aptly 
 applies to this road. 
 
 And I affirm, as a general proposition, that its dealings with 
 other roads have been without the slightest purpose of serving 
 the public better, or increasing traffic, but only with a view to 
 making the current of its income flow full and flush without ef¬ 
 fort of its own. It projected the Hillsborough and Bradford 
 roads, not for the purpose of helping that part of the state, but 
 to cut off and destroy the North Weare road, which, through 
 manifold difficulties, was slowly creeping up the Piscataquog 
 valley and opening a new route from Boston to the Connecticut 
 valley and Vermont. Its managers forced that road into bank¬ 
 ruptcy ; got possession of it under foreclosure ; smuggled an 
 infernal clause into the belly of a law which they claimed gave 
 them the right to discontinue the road ; and crowned the iniquity 
 one Sabbath day by an act of vandalism that reads like a tale 
 
40 
 
 of Attila and his Huns. Judge Bingham says they bought it 
 out of the surplus, and that ever since they have let the public 
 have the use of it without charging them a single cent. Well, 
 that is news indeed to the people living along that road. The 
 Concord road paid $55,000 for half of that road and $195,000 
 worth of bonds ; and the other half, that belonged to the estate 
 of Governor Gilmore, they snatched from the creditors of Gil¬ 
 more for a claim against him of $64,000, and left the rest of the 
 creditors out in the cold. That was how they got it and paid 
 for it. Judge Cross says that they bought it “ to help the peo¬ 
 ple of Goffstown and Weare.” Great heavens! After destroy¬ 
 ing their road and sinking all they put into it, they say they got 
 it to help the people of Goffstown and Weare. It reminds me 
 of the man out in California who shot his companion to get his 
 gold, and he had such au exquisite sense of the proprieties and 
 courtesies of society that he then took the dead man’s flask 
 from his pocket, and in silence took a drink out of respect for 
 the memory of the deceased ! [Applause.] 
 
 Why, gentlemen, they ran but one mixed train a day over 
 that road, with one brakeman, for twenty years, and it was so 
 unsafe that people were afraid to ride on it, aud men accustomed 
 to travel over it made their wills and bade their wives and chil¬ 
 dren good-bye. [Laughter.] About fifteen years ago they 
 commenced, after long urging and imploring, to run two trains 
 a day, and charged sixty cents fare from North Weare to Man¬ 
 chester, nineteen miles, and from $10 to $12 per car for wood 
 and lumber. They squeezed the w r ood and lumber trade so dry 
 that green wood would almost season in going from Weare to 
 Manchester. [Laughter.] And when, in 1859, a bill was in¬ 
 troduced here, looking towards making some restitution to the 
 stockholders of that road and redressing their wrongs,—men 
 who had put their scanty savings into it, and some of whom are 
 poor to-day by reason of it,—the Concord road bought up the 
 representative from Weare who introduced the bill, killed it, 
 aud the next year the man, in a public speech in Weare, ac¬ 
 knowledged it, and told the people just how much he was paid. 
 They ripped up the road from Candiato Pembroke, and so forced 
 the coal supply of the central and northern part of the state 
 around by Manchester. They used the Acton road, according 
 
41 
 
 to the report of the Massachusetts railroad commission of 1878, 
 simply as an instrument for forcing hard contracts out of the 
 Lowell, and after they had got the contracts they ran but one 
 mixed train a day over the road ; and the commissioners say it 
 was just sufficient to keep a stage-coach off the line. The mon¬ 
 strous, high-handed performance by which it forced freights 
 from the Northern and Montreal roads over the Lowell, by which 
 it damaged those roads to the extent of $250,000, and took 
 $400,000 itself out of the people besides, has already been dis¬ 
 cussed. It is now in litigation, and there is no doubt that one 
 main reason why it desires the passage of the Atherton bill is 
 to get these roads, so that they can make no leases with any 
 other road, and then compel them to abandon their suit as a 
 condition ; for you see, gentlemen, that there is nothing com¬ 
 pulsory about this consolidation. The Concord may clo it if it 
 chooses, but if it does n’t choose, the other roads are left in the 
 lurch. It left the Suncook road broken off like a stick at Pitts¬ 
 field, instead of putting it through to the lake and opening up a 
 new, attractive, short route for summer tourists. 
 
 And so, I say, that in whatever the Concord road has done 
 with other roads it has got hold of, it has had no sort of inten¬ 
 tion of benefiting the public and increasing business, but instead 
 and simply to stop up everything all round so its profits would 
 be sure and certain without any labor of its own. They say 
 they are going to be real good now. They have changed and 
 reduced the fares since the legislature met. They have been 
 convicted of sin and repented; but death-bed repentance is 
 always unsatisfactory, and in a railroad company won’t save it 
 for it has no soul. Besides, the fact that in the Atherton bill 
 they show the same old determination and disposition to get 
 all there is and permit no one else to come near, shows that the 
 ogre is an ogre still, and that the leopard has not changed his 
 spots. They are going to build the Lake Shore road. What for? 
 They say in their resolution that the time has come to do so as a 
 matter of “ protection Exactly—protection !—not to help the 
 people up there, but to close that road up, and let no one else get 
 it. And now they are posing as friends of the dear people, 
 they are so anxious to help them, and are in a nervous shiver 
 and cold sweat alternately for fear the people are going to be 
 
42 
 
 “ gobbled up.” Why, not since “ Rogue Riderhood” protested 
 and protested that he was “ an honest man as gets his living by 
 the sweat of his brow,” has there been anything so delightfully 
 absurd. And so I ask you, gentlemen, which of these two 
 roads, judging from their past history and character, is the 
 more likely to be the more agreeable, satisfactory, and com¬ 
 mendable public servant? I do not think it is the Concord ; and 
 instead of its presenting itself here with its hypocritical fears of 
 outsiders, and with a bill with the engaging title of “An act to- 
 secure to New Hampshire the control of its railroads,” they 
 ought to call it An act to make perfect, perpetual, and perma¬ 
 nent the odious and intolerable domination of the Concord cor¬ 
 poration over the welfare of the state, and to divert the surplus 
 of the Concord road from the control of the state treasury into 
 the pockets of the Montreal syndicate. [Applause.] 
 
 The next question, and to my mind the only real question, if 
 this monstrous stock-jobbing scheme were eliminated, is, Which 
 of these two roads, the Boston & Maine or the Concord, has 
 the better facilities, the better arrangements? which is the more 
 advantageously situated, and prepared for doing the business of 
 this part of the state the more cheaply, satisfactorily, aud expe¬ 
 ditiously? It is a simple, plain business question, and to it, it 
 seems to me, there can be but one answer. In the first place, 
 this fact should be kept in mind, that New Hampshire being 
 distinctively a manufacturing state, a state which is obliged to 
 import large quantities of its raw materials, must have cheap, 
 rapid, efficient transportation service. In the next place, it 
 should be remembered, that no two New England states are so 
 closely identified in respect to manufacturing and commercial 
 interests as Massachusetts and New Hampshire. At one time 
 New Hampshire belonged to Massachusetts, and no New Eng¬ 
 land state is so much dependent on another as New Hampshire 
 is upon Massachusetts. Maine has an extensive sea-coast with 
 numerous shipping ports. Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode 
 Island have short direct rail and water routes to New York city 
 and the west. Boston is the commercial centre of New Eng¬ 
 land, but it is so preeminently, so far as New Hampshire is con¬ 
 cerned. It is the distributing point for New Hampshire prod¬ 
 ucts, the point whence flows the great stream of summer travel, 
 
the source whence our manufacturing materials are largely 
 drawn. The Boston & Maine road holds a most advantageous 
 and commanding position in Boston in respect to terminal facil¬ 
 ities and traffic arrrangements, and connections with various 
 transportation lines diverging from that city or converging 
 there. 
 
 Mr. Sulloway says “ this talk about terminal facilities amounts 
 to nothing ; terminal facilities are of no great account,” because 
 the Boston & Maine are obliged to let other roads use them. Is 
 it not strange, gentlemen, that railroad companies will pay mill¬ 
 ions for terminals in the great cities, and struggle desperately to 
 get them, when they are of no particular advantage? All they 
 need to do is to let some one else buv them, and thev can use 
 them just the same ! 
 
 The unparalleled sloth and stupidity of the Concord manage¬ 
 ment permitted the Boston & Maine to gain control of the Worces¬ 
 ter & Nashua road, by which it commands short and direct con¬ 
 nection with the Boston & Albany and Hoosac Tunnel routes to 
 the West, as well as the Providence and New Haven lines to the 
 city of New York, and on completion of the Massachusetts Cen¬ 
 tral it will control an easy route to the coal-fields of Pennsylva¬ 
 nia. These advantages are fixed and permanent. It is beyond 
 the power of the Concord road to change them or to obtain their 
 like. True, the Concord road may compel their service to some 
 extent, but only on such terms, by paying for them, that mani¬ 
 festly place it at a disadvantage ; and they make certain and 
 changeless the character of the Concord road as a mere local 
 line in all essential points, from which not even its fine depot in 
 this city can rescue or redeem it. Judge Bingham says the Con¬ 
 cord “ is a bright and shining star of the first magnitude among 
 railroads.” This may be true ; but every star of the first mag¬ 
 nitude does not aspire to be a sun or the centre of a stellar or 
 solar system ;—and it is useless for the Concord road to aspire 
 to become the nucleus or centre of a railway system. Its geo¬ 
 graphical situation forbids it. Its apathy in the past has ren¬ 
 dered any approach to such a thing impossible now. The city 
 of Concord might as well attempt to become a sea-port town, as 
 for the Concord railroad to try to develop into a railroad sys¬ 
 tem. The hard fact is, gentlemen, the Concord road has let its 
 
44 
 
 chances and opportunities go by. They are beyond recall, and 
 it is just as impossible to restore them bv a bill as it would be 
 to restore a man stricken by lightning by reading a chapter on 
 health over his dead body. [Applause.] 
 
 Edmund Burke says, “ The situation of a man is the monitor 
 of his duty”—a remark full of practical wisdom. We must 
 decide this matter, or should, as our situation and the situation 
 of these parties seem to indicate and compel. It seems to me 
 that the situation discloses but one course to pursue, and that is, 
 to place the business interests of this state in direct, instant, 
 and efficient connection with the world, instead of trying to 
 hedge them in by creating so senseless an institution as a u New 
 Hampshire system of railroads.” In plain truth, the Concord 
 road has been for years sitting comfortable in the sun of abound¬ 
 ing prosperity, content to pursue its policy of “I don’t know,” 
 complacently jingling its 10 percent.,—10 per cent, dividends,— 
 and patting, with soft, fat hands, its swelling surplus until it 
 has gone to sleep ; and when some bright, enterprising, driving 
 young fellows started in around it and in spite of it, and stirred 
 up some business and commenced to make things lively, the 
 dear, delightful old gentleman woke up suddenly, and rubbing 
 his eyes, said,—“Boys, what in the world are you doing here? 
 What does all this racket mean? What are you doing with my 
 railroad business ? I ’ll have to see about this ! I can’t stand 
 it to have so much noise around here. I can’t sleep. I shall 
 have to go to work and learn something about railroading. I 
 guess I’ll just step into the legislature and have them put a stop 
 to this thing. I ’ll tell them these chaps are foreigners and in¬ 
 vaders, and want to be millionaires and ride around here in pri¬ 
 vate palatial cars. That will scare the legislature, I guess, so 
 they will drive these fellows off; and then I can go down to my 
 new depot and go to sleep again, and take some comfort out of 
 it.” [Applause.] 
 
 But it is said that New Hampshire should “ control her own 
 railroads.” That cry, in every imaginable form, has been raised 
 and uttered for.the last three months. The title of the Atherton 
 bill is, “An act to secure to the state of New Hampshire the 
 control of its railroads”—a title, gentlemen, which I submit is 
 designedly and purposely misleading and disingenuous, but a 
 
45 
 
 title that was probably selected as being especially captivating 
 and cunning when it was expected that the “ foreign corpora¬ 
 tion” argument would be a winning card, and before the coun¬ 
 sel of the Concord road had been apprised of what the law is 
 ' in respect to the removal of causes into the United States 
 courts. ‘‘An act to secure to New Hampshire the control of its 
 own railroads!” Well, gentlemen, who proposes anything dif¬ 
 ferent? What is there in the Hazen bill which seeks to divest 
 New Hampshire of that control? I know of one bill that seeks 
 to divest New Hampshire of its control of the surplus in the 
 Concord. I know of but one railroad in New Hampshire which 
 she has not controlled in the past, and that is the Concord ; and 
 that not because she was unable to do so, but because of a most 
 unaccountable forbearance and good nature. I think she pro¬ 
 poses to control that road in the future. She took the first prac¬ 
 tical step in that direction when the Colby bill was passed in 
 1883. She will take another step in that direction when the 
 Hazen bill becomes a law. But is it not a little absurd—nay, is 
 not irony itself exhausted—when a railroad company that his¬ 
 torically has spurned the authority of the state, that notoriously 
 has defrauded the state, that systematically has shuffled and 
 dodged and evaded the control of the state, should present it¬ 
 self here with a bill entitled “An act to secure to New Hamp¬ 
 shire the control of its railroads”? Secure control, indeed ! The 
 trouble has been that this control has been secured too much. 
 That was what suited the Concord road exactly in the past: 
 this is what it wants now and in the future. The Colbv act pro¬ 
 posed something different. The act establishing the railroad 
 commission proposed something different. The Hazen bill pro¬ 
 poses something different. They propose that the state of New 
 Hampshire shall not only control her railroads, but that she 
 shall exercise control over them and make them her agents and 
 servants for enlarging and diversifying her opportunities, devel¬ 
 oping her resources, and carrying their benefits in equal meas¬ 
 ure into every region within her borders. 
 
 But what is meant, precisely, by the expression “ the control 
 of railroads”? As it has been used in the course of this con¬ 
 test, in the newspapers and elsewhere, it is in every sense 
 mere “sounding brass.” But the expression has a substantial 
 
46 
 
 meaning, a legitimate signification, and it will serve to demon¬ 
 strate how hollow, deceptive, and insincere this cry is about the 
 state’s securing control of its railroads under the Atherton bill 
 and of losing it if the Hazen bill is passed, if we stop for a 
 moment to analyze what that control is and how it may be ex¬ 
 ercised. In the first place, the state may, if it choose, own all 
 its railroads, and run them as a state institution, as Belgium 
 has long done. That would be one kind of control, but a kind, 
 surely, which the people of this state are not ready to adopt, and 
 a kind which, when adopted, has been proved to be dangerous 
 and unwise. 
 
 Secondly, the state mav permit individuals to own railroads, 
 entrust to them their management as a business enterprise, and 
 in that case the railroads are the servants of the state, possessed 
 of certain valuable rights, and charged with corresponding duties, 
 but with those rights and those duties equally subordinate to 
 the power of the state operating through its executive, legisla¬ 
 tive, and judicial departments. The power of those several de¬ 
 partments of the state’s authority is fixed in the constitution, 
 unmoved and immovable by anything short of revolution. Any 
 railroad in this state, by whomsoever owned, can exist and re¬ 
 main only so long as it is permitted by the sovereign will of the 
 people, expressed through the supreme legislative power of the 
 general court, which may at any time alter, amend, or repeal its 
 charter, or the law under which it is organized. The details of 
 its management, whether it be in matters of construction, 
 equipment, train service, or charges, are within the prerogative 
 of the general court, acting immediately or through the dele¬ 
 gated power and authority of a railroad commission. It is sub¬ 
 ject to the processes, mandates, and orders of the courts of law 
 and equity, and through them may be summoned to answer for 
 any violation of its obligations, and for any injury done by it to 
 the state or to any citizen thereof. And if any railroad operated 
 within this state should, in the quaint language of the constitu¬ 
 tion, “ in a hostile manner, attempt or enterprise the destruction, 
 invasion, detriment, or annoyance of this state,” the governor, 
 as captain-general and commander-in-chief of the military forces 
 of the state, may summon them forth and destroy it. These, 
 gentlemen, in general, are the methods and means by which the 
 
47 
 
 state controls its railroads. They are ample. There can be no 
 other control. No other or different is necessary or possible. 
 Nothing contained in the Hazen bill can abridge or modify or 
 •change it. It inheres in the sovereignty of the state, and no 
 railroad operated within the state can escape out of that control, 
 any more than you or I can escape from the air that surrounds 
 us or the force that binds us to the earth. 
 
 Judge Bingham and Judge Cross try to make it appear that 
 there would be great difficulty in getting at the Boston & Maine 
 in case some one wanted to commence a suit against it, and 
 Judge Cross spoke of the obstacles in the way of getting at the 
 officials of this road. Judge Bingham said,—“This Boston & 
 Maine Railroad is a corporation whose officers are all out of the 
 state. You can’t reach them by legal process if you want to 
 see their books, or if you want the testimony of one of their 
 •clerks ; you will be compelled, in all your business of a legal 
 nature wJth the railroads, to go down out of the state to find out 
 anything about them.” 
 
 Gentlemen, I am amazed that such arguments should be se¬ 
 riously urged by lawyers of such eminence as Judge Bingham 
 and Judge Cross, when every lawyer knows that any corpora¬ 
 tion, domestic or foreign, mav be summoned into court by serv- 
 ing any one in its employ; and if a railway company has a 
 ticket agent here, and every official is out of the state, service 
 •of a writ may be made on him. So far as examining books, 
 they can always be examined in any proper case by order of the 
 court; but I suppose Judge Bingham wants that thing arranged 
 in the way the Concord has it. Their books are open to any 
 one that comes along at any time ; and if anybody has occasion 
 to see one of the officials who happens to be busy, he can go 
 down and rest himself on one of the luxurious couches that 
 Judge Cross described, that are provided for rich aud poor in 
 the new depot. [Merriment.] 
 
 The men who own the stock in the railroads of the state, the 
 directors, and managers, may live here, or in Boston, New York, 
 San Francisco, or Australia. The railroads are here, and above 
 and over them is the sovereign might and domination of the 
 state. In what respect is the control of the state over the Boston 
 & Maine and the Lowell anv less or different than it is over the 
 
48 
 
 Concord or the Northern, or how can it be any less or different? 
 Massachusetts compelled the Concord road to fulfil its duty in 
 respect to the Acton road as absolutely as though it were a 
 Massachusetts corporation. New York enforces obedience to 
 its laws from the Boston & Albany, Pennsylvania from the 
 Lake Shore, Ohio from the Pennsylvania. When the New York 
 Central proposed to consolidate the eleven separate roads which 
 constituted the line from Albany to Buffalo, some of them par¬ 
 allel and competing, and when afterwards this consolidated line 
 united to itself the Harlem & Hudson River, did the state of 
 New York start up in dismay and cry out that an overgrown, 
 dangerous corporation was going to swallow up the state? And 
 when later this combined railway went into Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
 Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois, and undertook to control aud 
 manage the great Lake Shore combination, and when, later still, 
 it came into possession of the New York, Chicago & St. Louis, 
 which is parallel to the Lake Shore and within sight of it, did 
 these states cry out that they were being invaded; that an 
 outside or a foreign corporation was coming in to “ gobble up ” 
 their roads, and were going, as Mr. Chase expressed it, u to 
 make them pay tribute to a road whose officers were outside,” 
 who had no pride in these states and no interests there, and 
 that they proposed to have an Ohio system or a Michigan sys¬ 
 tem ; that Illinois should control her own roads, or that Indiana 
 roads should be managed by Indiana men ; that they did not 
 propose to have a great company, whose officers and directors 
 were in New York cit}’, coming in to manage their affairs and 
 to ruin their people ? No, they welcomed the invader; they 
 hailed the prospect;—they said, the New York Central is a pow¬ 
 erful company ; its lines touch the greatest centres of trade in 
 New York ; it has its terminus in New York city, the metropo¬ 
 lis of the continent, the distributing centre of commerce ; it has 
 its depots, and ware-houses, and elevators, and docks there, 
 all the facilities for handling the traffic which must have its out¬ 
 let there ; our products can be transported over such a line 
 more cheaply, more quickly, more safely, to the markets of the 
 world ; and that the increased responsibility which such a com¬ 
 pany must feel and have to carry is the best guaranty and 
 assurance that it will be managed with a view to the prosperity 
 
49 
 
 and business advancement of the country it proposes to serve ; 
 for that is the surest means to secure its own prosperity. These 
 combined consolidated roads have become a mighty continental 
 highwa}\ Every farm and town, village and city, within its 
 reach has drawn from it untold advantage and unmeasured 
 wealth. In the light of such an example as this, which is only 
 one of a score, how short-sighted and purblind is the policy 
 which would cut off New Hampshire from the benefits of such 
 a system, and how absolutely foolish, how exasperatingly stupid, 
 is the proposition that the Concord road should be permitted to 
 sit in the lap of this valley like a Jew in the market-place, to 
 obstruct commerce and to suffocate business under the pretence 
 that the state will be ruined, its business destroyed, if another 
 New Hampshire company is permitted to throw open an avenue 
 from the Atlantic to the Canadian line ! 
 
 Again : It is said by the opponents of this bill that we want a 
 New Hampshire system of railroads controlled by New Hamp¬ 
 shire men, whose interests are in New Hampshire, and who will 
 be interested in building up New Hampshire business. Gentle¬ 
 men, to my mind such talk as this is absolutely meaningless for 
 any purpose except to breed a petty prejudice. What is there 
 in the situation, the business, the interests of New Hampshire, 
 that she should require a railroad system unique, singular, or 
 different from that which other states require? The commerce 
 and trade of this state are not limited by state lines. They are 
 inextricably associated and interwoven with the trade of every 
 state and of the world. The problem before New Hampshire is, 
 not how she can most effectively isolate herself, but how she can 
 most readily and easity reach the marts of the world. She can¬ 
 not live to herself alone, and the proposition that she shall 
 attempt to establish a railway system upon a plan that consults 
 state lines is a proposition to revert to the condition of things 
 which obtained at the close of the Revolution. Then every state 
 undertook to circumscribe its industrial and commercial interests 
 bv state lines, with the result that everv state steadilv declined 
 in all material interests. The jealousies and rivalries and con¬ 
 sequent losses which followed disclosed the supreme necessity 
 for a federal union ; and the federal compact whose paramount 
 
 object is to secure “the general welfare,” and the federal con- 
 4 
 
50 
 
 stitutional provision which confers upon congress the exclusive 
 Tight to regelate commerce among the several states, have stood 
 for a hundred years an historic monument of the principle of 
 consolidation in ivhatever touches the common concerns of the 
 states. How the unparalleled growth of every state in wealth, 
 in population, in all the arts of a refined and advanced civiliza¬ 
 tion, which has come from their unrestrained and unrestricted 
 commerce, rebukes the attempt to revive in New Hampshire in 
 any form a policy which she discarded a century ago ! 
 
 The Duke of Wellington once said, in parliament, that in deal¬ 
 ing with railroads it was necessary to keep in mind the analogy 
 of “ the king’s highway.” English railroad legislation which 
 followed that analogy has been abandoned. It could not be 
 made to conform to any such limitations; but the analog } 7 of 
 “ the king’s highway” was the perfection of wisdom as a guid¬ 
 ing principle, in comparison with the proposition that the rail¬ 
 road legislation of auy American state, in these days of conti¬ 
 nental competition for the markets of the world, shall be deter¬ 
 mined with reference to state bounds and to the residence and 
 birthplace of stockholders ! 
 
 The gentleman from Nashua, Mr. Moore, closed his speech on 
 this motion with a sounding and rhetorical period, in which he 
 gave this as a reason why this bill should be postponed : “In 
 after years, when the West and South shall count their fifty mill¬ 
 ions, the centre its fifty more, and the tired sons and daughters 
 of New Hampshire shall return to climb the hills they climbed 
 the earliest, let no such meaningless and misplaced legend greet 
 them as ‘ Boston & Maine’ or 4 Boston & Lowell,” but let it be 
 the ‘ New Hampshire Railway,’ controlled by New Hampshire 
 men.” 
 
 As I listened to that sentence from the accomplished gentle¬ 
 man, I was constrained to ask myself, Is it possible that such an 
 argument as that can be addressed to a New England legislature, 
 in a New England state, the state that claims the home of Web¬ 
 ster, within sight of his birthplace, under the shadow of his statue, 
 and in this year of our independence the one hundred and 
 eleventh? Can it be that a cultivated New Englander will argue 
 like that? Why, gentlemen, I can conceive of nothing better 
 calculated to make a returning son or daughter of New Hamp- 
 
51 
 
 shire “ tired” than such talk. Aud if such a legend as the gen¬ 
 tleman proposes is to be written over the doorway of the Granite 
 state, I fancy that a son or daughter returning from the South or 
 West, on seeing it, would say,— u Well, they have fenced in the 
 dear old state. I guess I will go back where the air of freedom 
 is still clear and the fountains of liberty are still sweet and 
 pure.” [Applause.] 
 
 Again : It is said that if the Boston & Maine road shall 
 become the lessee of the Northern and the Montreal, we shall be 
 delivering ourselves bound into the hands of a great corporation,, 
 which will control in its own interests the legislative and judi¬ 
 cial powers of the state, making aud unmaking laws to suit its. 
 own purposes and the ambition of its managers. It was pre- 
 cisel } 7 this sort of argument and prophecy that was used in Eng¬ 
 land during the discussion of the problem ; and how completely 
 these arguments were refuted aud these prophecies falsified by 
 the results which followed, everyone knows. I have shown you< 
 how completely subject to the authority and control of the state 
 every and all railroads are, lying within the state, irrespective of 
 who or where the stockholders or directors are. But, gentle¬ 
 men, what is the necessary inference that must be drawn from 
 the proposition to which I have referred? Why, this, that no 
 legislature in New Hampshire can be elected that will not be 
 venal and purchasable, no judiciary appointed that will not be 
 corrupt; and that the people of this commonwealth have not 
 enough civic virtue, honesty, principle, and integrity to preserve 
 them from the contaminating and destroying influence of money,, 
 and would sell their birthright of constitutional liberty. Gen¬ 
 tlemen, though only an adopted citizen of this state, my heart 
 thrills with pride when I recall the history of her early strug¬ 
 gles, the triumph of her industries over the forbidding and sul¬ 
 len obstacles of nature, and her growth into the beautiful, pros¬ 
 perous, and happy republic that she is to-day. The men who 
 fought their way into the mountain wilds of the province of 
 New Hampshire, and undertook the work of building up a 
 Christian civilization, were of no common stock, of no low and 
 vulgar strain. They were men of hardy virtues, who brought 
 hither the truest traditions of personal and political freedom* 
 and impressed them at once and forever upon the character of 
 
52 
 
 the commonwealth. None of the colonies were quicker to dis¬ 
 cern the encroachments of the crown than New Hampshire, 
 none more instant to repel their advances ; no clearer voice 
 than hers was raised to protest against them ; and on the field 
 where the first blood of the Revolution was shed, as on the last 
 where England’s pride was humbled, her sons were found to 
 resist them. When the Revolution was ended, although her peo¬ 
 ple were the most impoverished and bowed down of all the col¬ 
 onists by the losses of the war, the most distressed and debt- 
 burdened, it is to her eternal glory, and an enduring memorial 
 to her integrity, that New Hampshire alone, of all the New 
 England states, refused to compromise her honor by issuing a 
 worthless paper currency. In every vicissitude through which 
 the nation has passed from that hour to this, the sturdy, sub¬ 
 stantial, sinewy little state of New Hampshire has ever been 
 found steadfast, loyal,—true to whatever makes for the welfare 
 of herself and the great republic which she helped to establish. 
 Shame, shame upon the son of New Hampshire who shall tell 
 us that the principle, the fidelity, the virtue, the honor of the 
 state are fading awav or have departed ; that her people to-day 
 are any less watchful of their liberties than the men who march¬ 
 ed to Bunker Hill or to Bennington ; or that any man or combi¬ 
 nation of men, corporation or corporations or syndicate, can 
 steal away her freedom or overthrow her sovereignty, so long as 
 summer skies shall smile above her lovely valleys, or winter 
 storms shall sweep her heaven-aspiring mountains. [Applause.] 
 Gentlemen, I have listened to all of the speeches of counsel 
 for the Concord road ; I have read all the testimony they have 
 produced in opposition to this bill; and in all of the speeches 
 and testimony I have not found a single argument or reason of 
 substantial merit, or that is calculated to influence the judgment 
 of any candid man. Out of all the thousands of patrons of the 
 Boston & Maine and the Lowell roads, which have been described 
 and depicted as formless monsters, how many have been found 
 who would come here and utter a word against them under oath ? 
 Just four. And who are they? Ira Whitcher, who complained 
 because the Boston & Lowell road, rather than let his trade be 
 done by a Vermont road, hauled his lumber from Woodsville to 
 Lebanon, a distance of one hundred and sixty-three miles, for 
 
53 
 
 the same price that was charged by the Passumpsic for fifty-two 
 miles ; A. L. Brown, who by overloading cars, and by means of 
 a secret unconscionable contract had been for years beating 
 every honest lumber dealer in the state, until he was compelled 
 to stand on equal ground with all other dealers ; E. C. Morse, 
 of Haverhill, Mass., whose zeal for the welfare of his city was 
 measured by a four per cent, investment; and Tom Smith, 
 whose ethereal, sublimated organism had been shocked at the 
 sanitary condition of the Boston & Maine road, notwithstand¬ 
 ing the New Hampshire state board of health had commended 
 “ its general excellence.” The speeches of counsel were not 
 arguments designed to explain and prove the general and com¬ 
 prehensive advantages which would accrue to the state by a 
 consolidation of these roads under the Concord management as 
 against the Boston & Maine. They were the arguments of de¬ 
 spair, appeals to the most unworthy motives, to the fears, the 
 passions, the prejudices of men. The key note of Brother 
 Chase’s speech was “ foreign corporation.” The text of Brother 
 Mitchell’s was “ invaders,” “ violators of the law.” Judge 
 Cross had nothing better to offer than u unmitigated cant ” 
 about millionaires and Goulds and Vanderbilts; and Judge 
 Bingham’s four-hour speech was chiefly devoted to denounc¬ 
 ing imaginary stock-watering, and arraigning gentlemen who 
 had acted on his advice. Not a business man of Concord or 
 Manchester or Nashua was willing to go on the stand and say a 
 word in commendation of the Concord management. Not a cit¬ 
 izen of Dover, who said that the Hazen bill should be killed, ven¬ 
 tured to come on the stand and say why we should “ kill it.” 
 They preferred to testify in a newspaper, and to be cross-exam¬ 
 ined by a reporter. The methods generally that have been pur¬ 
 sued by the Concord road in the conduct of their case have been 
 the methods of desperation, and characterized by an insincerity 
 that has become more and more evident and emphatic as the ex¬ 
 igencies of their cause have grown daily more pressing and immi¬ 
 nent. They have been the methods of ward meetings and of ward 
 politicians. Witness how the lobby, the gallery, the aisles, and 
 the seats of this hall were thronged night after night and day 
 after dav with men who were brought in here to manufacture 
 
 4/ O 
 
 applause and to create an apparent public sentiment! Witness 
 
54 
 
 the disgraceful performance enacted upon this floor when retain¬ 
 ers and ex-judges and members of congress poured into these 
 seats and filled these spaces, and at a given signal broke into 
 cheers and shouts and applause that called forth the rebuke of 
 the speaker, for the purpose of stampeding this house out of its 
 senses ! We have heard a great deal said about some outside 
 organization that was trying to come into the state to corrupt us 
 or ruin us ; but, gentlemen, when we have in our midst a domes¬ 
 tic growth, wholly native and indigenous, that possesses such 
 qualities and such resources as have here been exhibited and 
 revealed within a few days, I do not think we have much to fear 
 from anything of foreign growth or imported character ;—and if 
 the state has got to be dominated by any organization of that 
 kind, for Heaven’s sake let its home and habitation be in Bos¬ 
 ton and not in the capital city of this state ! 
 
 There has been nothing sterling, or ingenuous, or manly about 
 them. They have been specious and paltry, and evasive from 
 the beginning until now. They have recalled to my recollection 
 a hundred times the old couplet,— 
 
 “ All seem infected which the infected spy, 
 
 As all seem yellow to the jaundiced eye. 5 ' 
 
 Mr. Lincoln once said, k ‘ You can fool all of the people some 
 of the time ; you can fool some of the people all of the time ; 
 but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” I think 
 this observation will be verified by the results of this contest. 
 All of the people of this state will not be fooled all of the time 
 in respect to its railroad interests by the Concord road. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, let us cast aside all of the irrelevant and 
 immaterial issues that have been imported into this matter for 
 the purpose, I believe, of obscuring what, it seems to me, are 
 the only two issues of substantial merit involved, and meet and 
 decide them calmly and dispassionately. Let us not be deceived 
 by any of the cheap political arts that have been used to influ¬ 
 ence our action ; but let us vindicate the honor and integrity of 
 the state. Let us seize the noble opportunity which we have 
 for advancing her prosperity. Let us keep her face to the fut¬ 
 ure, and not turn it backward to the past, and to a return to the 
 narrow, colonial, insular policy that she left behind her four 
 
55 
 
 years ago. Above all, let us not adopt any such miserable un- 
 American policy as would attempt to circumscribe our interests 
 by state lines and repel the resources and enterprise of neighbor¬ 
 ing states and fellow-countrymen by uplifting the motto, “None 
 but New Hampshire people need apply.” Let us rather swing 
 wide our gates to the world and to mankind, and inscribe above 
 them those words which even a heathen queen of Carthage had 
 the wisdom to utter to ASneas and his storm-tossed allies,— 
 
 “Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur,”— 
 
 “ Trojan and Tyrian shall be treated by me without any discrim¬ 
 ination.” [Loud and long continued applause.] 
 
I 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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