Mr. GoWEN. Mr. Chairman: The Committee on Railroads and Canals in this report in one case propose to treat these roads as public highways to the utmost limit of that construction, and in the other they propose to treat them as an estate in fee simple in a town lot, and permit them to be taxed and sold. Why should this be done? The large companies are taxed upon dividends; they are taxed upon their capital stock; they are taxed in a hundred ways that an individual is not taxed; and why should you permit a roadway or public highway to be taxed? In the State of Connecticut there is no taxation whatever upon the business of large manufacturing companies. The result of that is that industry is attracted to that State. The right way, I apprehend, and the position which 1 have always taken on this floor in any thing of this kind is this: To treat the property of a railroad exactly as you would the property of an individual. Where an individual has a right to maintain a public highway do not tax it, but tax every other property outside of it. If a turnpike company has a roadbed you do not tax the roadbed but you tax the real estate which is necessary for the use of the roadway. Do the same with the railroads. Tax them the same as the individual is taxed. Remove these oppressive taxes from corporations in this State, and you will invite capital from other States to come here and from other countries to come here. We certainly want them. We do not want to drive them away. Why should we adopt, as an article of the Constitution of the State of Pennsylvania, a provision which will not only destroy rights which have been long vested, but which will prevent, and largely prevent, capital coming into this State, and most surely drive it into the borders of other States.

Mr. BARTHOLOMEW. Mr. Chairman: I move to amend, by adding to the end of the third section, "at the real value, which value is to be determined by the county commissioners of the respective counties through which the road is located."

Mr. Chairman, I have listened with much pleasure and some chagrin to the remarks of the gentleman who has preceded me. He has floated in Asia, and through the world in an air balloon, but

dividual rights of the citizen, but of the capital of the country in corporations. Does any man question this? Does any man dare question this? A corporation which has a fixed capital, borrowing money upon the streets at two and a half and three per cent., and which absorbs the capital of the country, and the capital of every individual citizen, flowing into the corporation! Is there any question about that? I ask the gentleman who represents the great corporations of Pennsylvania to go into Third street to-day, or into Wall street to-morrow, and there find out who are borrowing money to-day, taking the money of the people to carry on the traffic which they propose.

I say this, that this proposition is right. We should tax the corporations of Pennsylvania legitimately for the purposes and the uses which the citizens of Pennsylvania, if corporations, would requirc. That is a proposition, and a simple proposition.

A section was adopted yesterday which limits the amount of indebtedness which a county can assume to two and one-half per cent. of its assessed property. Now, look at the county of Schuylkill, absorbed by a corporation, owned body and breeches by a corporation! Eighty thousand acres of land, with forty or fifty mining collieries located on this land. Are the people there to be deprived of education? Are they to be deprived of that which is required for the sanitary regulations of men, simply because, forsooth, a corporation owns them? Why, it is an absurdity upon its face. This corporation owns it, and shall we be restricted in our taxation to furnish the needs and necessaries of life, because they own the county? Will any man in this body dare to rise and say that because a corporation owns within our limits eighty thousand acres of land that, therefore, we can never tax them above two per cent. to build up our people, to educate our people, and give them the sanitary regulations which they require? Does the gentleman ask for that?

Why, we know there is no intelligent man in this body that does not know very well that the power of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to-day is drifting into the hands of corporations, and these corporations, divided not in number by four or by five, but by two and by three;

and that to-day Pennsylvania is distributed, not among a dozen corporations, but under compromises, and under obligations, between two and three. Who dare deny it, that to-day, in Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Contral railroad and the Philadelphia and Reading railroad own, body and breeches, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. [Laughter.] Who dare deny it? Look at your legislation; look at your history! Why, it is an absurdity to deny it.

And you talk about taxation. I say to you, “gentlemen, yes! Own our State, but you will be under our law! You shall obey that which we have conceived to be just." We had based our republican institutions, so help us heaven, whether we are right or not, upon the education of the people. That is a question which, whether it be right or wrong. I do not propose to duscuss. But we have so deeided, and having based it upon that fundamental doctrine, I say these corporations, having bought the State, shall pay for the education of our people. That is what I propose ----

FRIDAY, April 18, 1873.

The Convention met at ten o'clock A. M., Hon. Wm. M. Meredith, President, in the chair.

Prayer was offered by the Rev. J. W. Curry.

The Journal of yesterday's proceedings was read and approved.

PETITIONS AND MEMORIALS.

Mr. WHERRY presented two petitions of citizens of Cumberland county' praying for the adoption of a constitutional provision prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage, which was laid on the table.

He also presented a petition of citizens of Cumberland county, praying for the recognition of Almighty God and the christian religion in the Constitution, which was laid on the table.

Mr. EDWARDS presented a petition of citizens of Allegheny county, praying for the recognition of Almighty God and the christian religion in the Constitution, which was laid on the table.

Mr. BROOMALL presented the petition of Obediah Wheelock, of Philadelphia, asking that the right of suffrage be given to women, which was laid on the table.

Mr. WRIGHT presented a petition of citizens of Luzerne county praying for the adoption of a constitutional provision prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage, which was laid on the table.

Mr. FINNEY presented a petition of citizens of Clearfield county, praying for the recognition of Almighty God and the christian religion in the Constitution, which was laid on the table.

Mr. REYNOLDS presented a petition of citizens of Lancaster county, praying for the recognition of God and the christian religion in the Constitution, which was laid on the table.

Mr. CURRY presented a petition of citizens of Blair county, in favor of the recognition of Almighty God, which was laid on the table,

Mr. BANNAN. Mr. President: I offer a petition of citizens of Schuylkill county,

requesting the acknowledgment of Almighty God in the city of Philadelphia. The PRESIDENT. Such a memorial cannot be received; it is not in order.

LEAVE OF ABSENCE.

Mr. J. N. PURVIANCE asked and obtained leave of absence for Mr. Mitchell, for a few days from to-day.

THE LEGISLATURE-MINORITY REPORT. Mr. D. N. WHITE. Mr. President: I present a minority report from the Committee on the Legislature in relation to the apportionment of the State for legislative purposes.

The PRESIDENT. The minority report will be read.

The CLERK read as follows:

SECTION - The State shall be divided into fifty senatorial districts, of compact and contiguous territory, as equal in population as possible, and each district shall be entitled to elect one Senator. No county ty shall be divided in the foundation of a distrtct, unless such county is entitled to two or more members; and no county or city shall be entitled to more than onesixth of the whole number of members.

SECTION. The House of Representatives shall consist of not less than one hundred and fifty members, to be apportioned and distributed throughout the State in proportion to the population, on a ratio of twenty-five thousand inhabitants to each member, except that no county shall have less than one member, and the city of Philadelphia, or any county having an excess of three-fifths of said ratio over one or more ratios shall be entitled to an additional member. In case the number of one hundred and fifty members is not reached by the above apportionment, counties having the largest surplus over one or more ratios shall be entitled to one additional member until

the number of one hundred and fifty members is arrived at.

SECTION -. As soon as this Constitution is adopted, the Legislature shall apportion the State in accordance with the provis ions of the two preceding sections. Coun

ties, and the city of Philadelphia, entitled to more than one member, shall be divided into single districts of compact and contiguous territory, as nearly equal in population as possible; but no township or ward shall be divided in the formation of a district: Provided, That in making said apportionment for the House of Representatives in the year 1881, and every ten years thereafter, there shall be added to the ratio five hundred for each increase of seventy-five thousand inhabitants. The minority report was ordered to be printed and laid on the table.

RAILROADS AND CANALS.

Mr. D. N. WHITE. I move that the House now go into committee of the whole upon the article on railroads and canals.

The motion was agreed to, and the Convention resolved itself into committee of the whole, Mr. Broomall in the chair.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee of the whole resumes the consideration of the article on railroads and canals. The question is on the amendment of the gentleman from Schuylkill to the third section, which the Clerk will read.

The CLERK read the amendment, which was to add to the article the following words:

them with bowed heads and broken hearts, leave their county, driven away by the fiat of the president of a railroad company, a ukase more imperative than ever the Czar Issued. They have gone, purchased, but purchased under compulsion.

On this question of taxation this Convention can readily understand the simple proposition, that there are two parties in this matter of taxation. Taxation means a payment for protection; and can it be said, will any enlightened man say that a railroad company which is absorbing the capital of the country, shall run through our land, and have the protection which she has of her rights and her franchises granted by the generous Legislature of Pennsylvania, until we have left no rights that are worth granting away, and that she shall be protected without the payment of her just burden of taxation that is incumbent upon every citizen? And why, in the name of God, should she not pay her just proportion for that protection under the law which we have given her? Where is the reason for it?

"At the real value, which value is to be determined by the county commissioners of the respective counties through which the road is located."

Mr. BARTHOLOMEW. I was about, Mr. Chairman, to conclude my remarks when the committee rose yesterday. The remarks that I made yesterday were with⚫out consideration, but having had the opportunity extended to me by the reporters of reading what I then said, I for one confess that I heartily approve what I then uttered. [Laughter.) "With malice towards none," with a disposition to do "exact justice to all," 1 stand here a representative of a peculiar district, under peculiar circumstances. I represent the great county of Schuylkill. Reared as 1 was, among her mountains and her hills, with a heart filled with love for her, I saw her in her glory, and I, like one of Israel's children, have seen the glory depart from her. I have seen two hundred and fifty men whose lives and best exertions had been spent in developing the mineral resources of that grand empire, because an empire she is-I have seen

tions of capital. But another period came, a period when corporations ceased to be the children of the Commonwealth and to need her assistance, and became aggressive, when they attempted to aggregate to themselves the power of the Comnonwealth, and that day we have lived to see; and to-day the corporations of Pennsylvania not only extend their power over the legislation of our land, but, nay more, the national government is being absorbed by the corporations of this counry.

Reciprocity of interests is the great point. I pay my taxes, becoming a part and parcel of a civil government, that I may have protection, that I may appeal to the courts of justice and of law, so that mere force and physical power shall not determine my rights. For that I pay my taxes. We give that same right to railroad corporations, and therefore I say, protecting them, giving them all the rights that an individual citizen has,

giving them the right to appeal to our courts of justice, the right to call upon the posse comitatus and upon the power of the Commonwealth to protect their interests, they should pay that which individual citizens pay for their protection. They are now taxed for State and not for county purposes.

In my county to-day a corporation exists that is withering and blighting the individual industries of our people.

To-day a hundred men make their bread and butter by reason of the sale of that which has been their legitimate traffic and their business. To-day a corporation comes within their midst and leases a store-house, and puts into it goods of all kinds to furnish to the people; and to-day the miner of Schuylkill no longer purchases his shovel and his pick, and his wire-rope, and his oil and his hardware from a store-house, but he goes to a corporation and he gets it at their rate and on their terms; and the man who lived in that county prosperous, rich and happy in the expenditure of his money, believing in his safe investment, is to-day a bankrupt and a beggar, turned out upon the streets.

the gentleman who manages the railroad' interests of my county is concerned, he well knows that our relations have been for years of the most intimate, friendly, and kindly character. But, sir, I speak for my people; I speak for what I deem to be the interests of this Commonwealth.

I say, as I have already said before in this Convention, and it is a patent fact. that there never was a land in which there did not exist an aristocracy, and it has fallen to the lot of this great Republic, this free land, and this free people, to have an aristocracy of railroad corporations, soulless and heartless. The peer of England in his pride still has a heart; the marquis of France still has human feelings; but the aristocracy erected in America, is without heart and without soul, and tramples like the car of Juggernaut upon the rights of citizens, and only laughs at the bloody stream it leaves behind.

This is a new question. I take it that all advancements have their corresponding evils. In the days of wooden plows, of carts with cow and woman harnessed to them, in the days of omnibusses and stage coaches, I do not believe the coun

Mr. HUNSICKER. I move that it be extended twenty minutes longer.

took railroads and telegraphs to produce So magnificent a thief. We have corres ponding evils, with corresponding ad

Mr. HUNSICKER. Then I offer an amendment to the amendment, to insert after the word "persons" the words "except the roadway;" and I will give the gentleman from Schuylkill my time.

Mr. GoWEN. Is there not an amendment pending?

Mr. GoWEN. Allow me to suggest to the gentleman from Montgomery the phraseology which I was about to offer, because there is something beside the roadway.

faith; we see contributed to it the christian's faith. We see dynasties and nations falling one by one, and history shows that they are decaying and are passing away; but yet above all is this grand edifice crected from the in

Mr. BARTHOLOMEW. Mr. Chairman: I do not propose to say much upon the pending amendment to the amendment; but yet in justice to myself, I want it to be distinctly understood that in what I say this day and this hour, there is no personal feeling, no malice, nothing that could actuate me to strike unfeelingly or ukindly at any individual. So far as

of our land, and to-day the Jew runs from Solomon to Justinian to get justes; he turns from the faith of his fathers to the heathen to get justice.

I have heard in this room sentiments which, to me, were an outrage upon mankind. I have heard it said that charity and all that was good emanated from the faith of the christian religion; and yet the follower of Mahomet does that which