Yet, with all this, he was tenacious and able in safeguarding the rights of the owners who had risked their money in building railroads, and he pointed out on many occasions the fact, stated by Professor Baldwin, that the distribution of products or things was business just as much as the production of things was business. Some of the difficulties and inadequacies of the transportation machine of the United States to-day are the result of drifting away too far from the idea that transportation is business, which, in the long run, must be governed by the same great human and natural laws that affect all human affairs.
In saying this I do not wish to be understood as meaning that there should not be supervision and regulation of the great public-service corporations, and that changing conditions do not make necessary changes in method and in law. But I do say that care should be taken not to have that supervision and regulation go so far that it practically takes the real power of management away from those who have invested their money In the business. So long as
