of this section support it with earnestness and sincerity. They intended it for a good purpose, and they do not vote for it for false, hypocritical or buncombe purposes.

The proposition before the Convention has been assailed from various quarters and for various causes, and it is impossible to discuss this proposition at length in the short time which is limited to any speaker. But, now, on this first division, where is the injustice or the wrong in confining these transportation companies to the business and the object for which they were incorporated? Where is the error in requiring that they shall not enter into and overwhelm with their competition the business of individuals throughout this State? Is the individual citizen nothing? Is the corporation everything? Is there to be a power vested in these corporations which they can wield, and which, as it has been asserted here this afternoon, they have wielded to the injury and the wrong of individuals who were dependent upon them for the means of transportation? The very privileges which were reposed in them by the Commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the benefit of its citizens have been warped and diverted to the injury of its citizens, and can be so warped hereafter, unless they are restricted by a provision such as this.

Now, sir, if there never had been a case in which such injury had been wrought, still the fact that under the present condition of our legislation and of the powers vested in these corporations such injury may be wrought, is a reason why we should protect the people against such results. Why, sir, we have heard the gentleman from Columbia tell us how he voted for years to prevent the introduction of a policy of this kind in the affairs of the State; and is that policy, which was wrong then, any better now? Because we have taken a wrong step, shall we never retrace it? What is the remedy proposed by those who do not deny the evil and the injury? The remedy they propose is simply competition, competing lines of railroad. Why, sir, no more delusive conceit, in my judgment, than that ever was entertained! What do your competing lines of railroad amount to, and what have they amounted to? They simply amount to this: That they fight each other until the one finds that it cannot devour the other and then they

"First endure, then pity, then embrace."

That has been the history of competing lines of railroad in this State. Why, sir, for nearly thirty years we knew of a warfare between two great railroads leading eastwardly from Pittsburg, one southerly, and the other more towards the middle of the State, and their opposing workmen almost came to blows; but since the time I believe that this article was under consideration in committee of the whole, when the courts came in and decided the dispute, what was the next result? Why, those two very railroad companies agreed with each other, and settled upon a single rate of tolls and transportation. Such is the information I have from the public journals of the day.

What is then this great principle of competition, what does it amount to? It amounts to nothing. Capital is selfish, and understands its own interests, and it is not going to fight beyond that point where it has a hope of making gain or profit; and the minute that two competing lines running in the same direction, or running from the same point to different points, find that their conflicts are no longer profitable and that the one cannot devour and destroy the other, that minute the competition ceases, and they who are enemies at first become friends and allies, and the parties who suffer by the formation of this "holy alliance" are the people who are dependent on these corporations for the transportation of their goods to market.

The history of competing lines in the State of Illinois verities what I have said here. They undertook to counterbalance the evils of their railroad system, the evils under which the people groaned and complained in that State, by constructing competing lines, and the result was that those lines were scarcely fin ished and their works in operation before the competitors became associates and a common toll-sheet was adopted regulating the freight and passenger traffic over their roads.

Mr. President, this Convention is called upon to do something in regard to the protection of the public interests in this behalf, and this section proposes to do three things. It proposes, first, to prevent transportation companies from engaging in the business of mining and manufacturing, business which is certainly alien to all the objects for which they were originally incorporated. Sir, shall we be told here when we undertake to accomplish a purpose of that kind, that

we are simply giving false, hypocritical and buncombe votes? Is that the way to meet that which is at least an honest effort to correct what has not, as I understand, been denied to be an evil of at least some magnitude? Is that effort to be so stigmatized when the interests of the public are involved in a question of this kind?

Mr. President, certainly there can be no ground for raising any objection to that clause in this section which is now imme

diately pending before the Convention. Now, what more does the section propose? It proposes to prohibit corporations from holding any real estate which is not necessary to carry out the original design of the corporation, and to enable them to transact their proper business. What is there wrong about this? Do you want to put the real estate of Pennsylvania

into mortmain? Do you want to have it all engrossed in the hands of corporations? Is there to be no restraint put upon this at all? What occasion have transportation companies with real estate, except the real estate which is necessary to enable them to transact the business permitted to them under their charters? The PRESIDENT pro tem. The gentleman's time has expired.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I move that we adjourn.

Mr. H. W. PALMER. I move that the time of adjournment be extended until we take the vote on this section. ["No." "No."]

The PRESIDENT pro tem. The hour of six having arrived, the Convention stands adjourned until to-morrow at nine o'clock.

Mr. PARSONS submitted the following resolution, which was read twice:

Resolved, That the Committee on Accounts and Expenditures be requested to report a resolution directing warrants to be drawn for the payment of the clerks and other officers of the Convention for one-fifth of their compensation.

Mr. DARLINGTON. I move to refer the resolution to the Committee on Accounts. Mr. HAY. This is a resolution of instruction to that committee. It does not need any reference.

resolution directing warrants to be drawn for an additional one-fifth.

The PRESIDENT pro tem. The question is on the resolution.

The resolution was agreed to.

SUBMISSION OF THE CONSTITUTION. Mr. BUCKALEW. I offer the following resolution, to lie on the table:

when the article on railroads shall have Be it resolved as follows: First, That passed second reading, the Convention will adjourn to meet again on the 15th day of September, at ten o'clock A. M.

Second, That articles passed on second reading, including the legislative article, be reprinted as amended; and that three thousand copies thereof be printed in pamphlet form for general distribution.

Third, That this Convention will submit the new or revised Constitution prepared by it to a popular vote at such convenient time as will secure its taking ef fect, in case of adoption by the people, on or before the first day of January next.

The PRESIDENT pro tem. What order will the Convention take on this resolution?

Mr. BUCKALEW. I desire to state that I shall call up the resolution hereafter. I do not wish to take it up at this moment. The PRESIDENT pro tem. It will lie on the table.

ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE.

Mr. HARRY WHITE. I offer a resolution, to lie on the table:

Resolved, That a committee of one from each Senatorial district be appointed to present the result of the labors of this Convention to the people of the State by preparing an address to accompany the new Constitution and the use of such other means as may be necessary to secure a proper consideration of the same by all the voters of the Commonwealth, and that such committee shall so present any article when it shall have passed through third reading.

The resolution was laid on the table.

PERSONAL EXPLANATION.

C.

ways in order. I find by the newspaper report of my remarks yesterday I am made to say virtually that I would not hesitate to trust the welfare of every man, woman and child in the State to the the Pennsylvania railroad company. I did not say that. What I did say was in reference to the head of that company, Mr. Thomson. I did say that I would not hesitate to trust the welfare of every man, woman and child in the State to his care, because I believe he is pure and honest and would usurp no man's rights. That is what I meant to say.

RAILROADS AND CANALS.

The PRESIDENT pro tem. The next business in order is the consideration of the article, No. 17, on railroads and canals. Is it the pleasure of the House to proceed to its consideration? ["Yes." "Yes."] The article is before the Convention for consideration on second reading. When the Convention adjourned yesterday the sixth section was pending. The question is on the adoption of the section as amended, on which the yeas and nays were called for but not ordered.

Mr. SHARPE. Mr. President: It is with extreme reluctance that I rise at this late day to consume any portion of the time of the Convention. Were it not for the uncandid and unfair criticism which some gentlemen on this floor have made, not only upon the section under immediate consideration, but upon the whole article, I would gladly have remained silent. But, having had the honor of being a member of the Committee on Railroads, and having participated in its deliberations and concurred in its report, I have felt it to be my duty, and I have felt impelled by a sense of honor, to stand up here for its defence.

The article is not the crude, hasty and ill-digested product of inexperience and ignorance, which some gentlemen have been pleased to stigmatize it. My knowledge of this subject, I confess, is limited. My pathway in life, from my youth up, has been in a different direction, and through a different channel of thought. But upon the Committee on Railroads were gentlemen of large experience and sound judgment about these matters, and the article which has been produced and which some delegates on this floor seem determined to pursue with a hue and cry, has been the result of calm, conscientious and ho est deliberation and con

As

sideration from the committee of the whole. If we turn to the present Constitution of the State we shall discover that it contains no section on railroads. At the time of the framing of that instrument the construction and operation of railroads was an almost unknown and unheard of phenomenon among the people. The whole system was then wearing the swaddling clothes of infancy; but after the lapse of thirty-five years we find great lines of railroad stretching out through mountains and through valleys in all directions. The stately steppings of these mammoth corporations sound throughout the Commonwealth like the tread of giants. We live in different times, surrounded by different circumstances and different influences, from those who framed the Constitution of 1837 and 1838.

Now, sir, was it expected that the Committee on Railroads should enhance or curtail the rights of railroad corporations? Was that committee to increase or diminish their prerogatives? Was it to plant more firmly the heels of monopoly upon the necks of a prostrate people, or was it to lift them off? Was it to attempt to bind this modern Sampson with the green withes of sympathy or the new ropes of delicate consideration, or was it to seize firm hold of him and shear him of his unhallowed locks, wherein his strength abides? The Convention was

not alone responsible for the appointment of the Committee on Railroads; but as the cry of the children of Israel came up from the land of Egypt to the ears of the great I Am, so the cry of an oppressed people against corporate oppression and corporate despotism came up and filled the ears of this Convention, demanding relief.

What says the voice of the people? It arraigns these corporations and charges that they were originally chartered to build highways for the commerce of the State; that their roads were to be open and free and common to the business wants of all the people, at reasonable prices and under reasonable regulations; that they were to be common carriers of passengers and freights and that alone; that they were to afford the people the fullest facilities to carry the products of their industry to the best market; that they were to serve and protect all alike, and to hinder and oppress none; that in consideration of these advantages to the people, they consented that the right of eminent domain and the high prerogatives of the Commonwealth might be lodged in these corporate bodies; that they authorized them to construct their roads where they pleased, and to take any man's property they chose, with the single restriction that he should be compensated for his property; that an examination of the original charters of these companies will show that the sole purpose and object of their creation was intended to be the transportation of tonnage and passengers.

But that same voice of the people complains now, that by various supplements these companies have entirely departed from the original object of their creation; that they have become the largest landed proprietors in the Commonwealth; that they have possessed themselves of the richest coal fields in the world; that they have almost usurped the monopoly of this greatest necessary of life; that they have become miners and manufacturers; that instead of being the common carriers of the products of other people, they are largely engaged in carrying the products of their own mines and manufactories; that they crush out whom they please and elevate whom they will; that they have assumed a deadly hostility to private capital and private enterprise. Aye! The people charge home upon these corporations that they have stolen from them-I use the term advisedly

have stolen from them, those august privileges and regal powers, by the conni. vance and with the consent of a bribed and a corrupted Legislature; that the railroad companies from being the servants of the people have become their masters, and that the Legislature instead of being the law-making power of the people, simply registers and and promul gates edicts of these imperial corporations. The whole scope of this article on railroads is to lead back these wandering companies to their original and legitimate functions. Especially is that the purpose and the object of the section immediately under consideration. What does it propose? It proposes two things: First, that "no incorporated company doing the business of a common carrier shall, directly or indirectly, prosecute or engage in mining on manufacturing articles for other persons or corporations for transportation over the works of said company;" and second, "nor shall such company, directly or indirectly, engage in any other business than that of common carriers, or hold or acquire lands, freehold or leasehold,directly or indirectly, except such as shall be necessary for carrying on its business;" with this saving clause: "but any mining or manufacturing company may carry the products of its mines and manufactories on its railroad or canal not exceeding fifty miles in length." This is "the whole head and front of the offending" of this section, that has caused such consternation, and excited such indignation amongst the friends and advocates of railroad monopoly. Why, sir, what good logical reason can be given why a company chartered as a common carrier should not remain such? What good reason can be given why a company chartered for transportation should become a mining and a manufacturing company, to the detriment of individual enterprise and individual capital? Did time permit, I could give many instances of the enormities practised on individuals by these companies, under the protection of the stolen immunities and privileges.

What is the argument against the seetion? It has a two-fold aspect. First, that the companies already organized and in existence have got all they need and all they want and that this section cannot and does not reach them. And sec ondly, that the section, if adopted, will prevent competition among companies