when the advantage ceases to be reciprocal, the privilege may be withdrawn from the non-reciprocating party by the party from which it was derived. In other words, a corporate franchise has no reason for being, except as it is in effect a pledge on the part of the corporation to do a public service to the greater advantage of the public than could otherwise be secured. Any theory of corporations, or of contracts smuggled into the doctrine of corporations, which denies to the public the right to get itself better served by adjustment of claims and termination of contract and franchise, is fiction for the gullible. There is a very general superstition that the legal person known as a corporation may dawdle, and waste, and neglect and destroy, but that the party paying for its presumed services may not discharge the unprofitable servant. The superstition goes further, and believes that for a moderate Wehrgeld a corporation may rob, maim, oppress, banish, kill, but that it may neither be executed nor disfranchised for its felony.
No legislative franchise has any more of the attributes of divinity than the law of entail or of primogeniture. Corporations are presumptively servants, not masters, of the public. They are to be judged by their performances, and should be treated accordingly. A corporation which is deficient in the discharge of its delegated function should be restored to usefulness by vigorous measures, if necessary, just as the proper public authority should repair a bad road. This principle was assumed by congress, when it passed the interstate commerce bill in 1886, in view of the eighteen distinct classes of delinquencies on the part of the railroads, recited by the Cullom committee of the senate. A corporation that has turned its social office into a personal "snap" should be abated like any other nuisance.
These opinions are sustained by the law of the land, as interpreted by our courts. At the same time, it must be confessed that the complexity of our administrative and judicial system has been a stumbling block to many persons of large intelligence who have not been specially instructed in constitutional law. The interlocking state and federal jurisdictions, the curiously dis-
