576
THE GREEN BAG
may not be so. One tiling we know, viz: that this is the argument of all monopolists. We know, also, that, generally speaking, the people are the best judges of their own interests; and, on a well-established prin ciple of government in free countries, they should be allowed to decide such questions for themselves — whether to depend wholly on an organization such as the Bell Tele phone Company, or to establish a municipal system of telephones for their own use." 1
VII One of the most bitter controversies within this general dispute is over the right of a railway company to exclude all but certain favored hackmen from its station grounds. It is admitted by all, that a rail road owes such duties to its incoming and outgoing passengers that it cannot exclude from its station driveways hackmen bringing passengers, or hackmen directed by passen gers to call for them; for of course no one, upon reflection, would go so far as to deny the duty of the carrier of passengers to permit free access and egress for those whom it is serving. Notwithstanding this, it is maintained by many courts that the rail road company is under no public duty to admit hackmen to its station grounds to solicit business. One of the strongest cases for the railway in this matter is the New York, New Haven & Hartford R. R. Co. v. Scoville (71 Conn. 136). In that case it appeared from the complaint that the plaintiff by its Board of Directors adopted a regulation excluding from its station grounds all persons who, without special permission in writing, should come to solicit the carriage of passengers or their luggage. The defendant, knowing the regulation, soon afterwards entered upon its station grounds in Middletown to solicit business of that description. This is a bill 1 Compare People v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 166 Ill. 15; and see Cumberland Telephone Co. v. Morgan's La. R. R. Co., 51 La. Ann. 29.
for an injunction to stop this practice. The injunction was granted in the lower court, but the higher court set this aside. Mr. Justice Baldwin held that the main question to be determined was whether the regulation was reasonable; saying that it rested primarily within the discretion of the company: "In regulating matters of this kind, a wide discretion is necessarily en trusted to the managers of the railroad. They are in a situation which should make them the best judges of what promotes the comfort of those who ride upon their road. Courts will always be slow to pronounce unreasonable any rule purporting to be directed toward that end, which they have deliberately adopted. It appears from the complaint that the station grounds at Mid dletown are sufficiently large to allow the establishment there of a public stand at which to ply the carriage and express busi ness, and also that an exclusive privilege for maintaining such a stand there has been granted by the plaintiff to a third party. Such a grant was within its lawful powers, provided its terms were not inconsistent with the reasonable accommodation of the passengers upon its road. Nothing appears on the record to indicate any such incon sistency. It may well be more convenient for them to deal with a single local carrier than to be met, on alighting from their train, by importunate. solicitations from a number of rival competitors for their custom; and, in the absence of averments to the contrary, it is to be presumed that the prices at this stand are fair, and the service sufficient. If any of them prefer that of some other per son, they can secure it by an order in ad vance, which would justify his entrance on the grounds; or by passing by the stand established there, and going into the streets outside, to engage whomsoever they think fit. It follows that the defendant had no right to enter the Middletown station grounds for the purpose of soliciting busi ness." This rule that a railway mav exclude
