Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ To engage in interstate commerce the railroad must get on to the land and to get on to it must comply with the conditions imposed by the State for the safety of its citizens. Contracts made by the road are made subject to the possible exercise of the sovereign right. ”

“ We agree with the Courts below that a street railway crossing the tracks of a steam road at grade in a public street increases the danger and may be required to bear a part of the expense of removing it. ”

“ The Western Union Telegraph Company makes similar objections and also says that its interstate commerce is interfered with and presents from its own point of view arguments dealt with so far as they seem to us to need mention in disposing of the principal case. The other plaintiffs in error own side tracks which will be dislocated by the change and they will be put to further expense if the plan is carried out according to what the New Jersey Court decides to be suggestions not commands. The rights in the side tracks are subordinate to changes in the main track otherwise lawful. ”

“ If it reasonably can be said that safety requires the change it is for them to say whether they will insist upon it, and neither prospective bankruptcy nor engagement in interstate commerce can take away this fundamental right of the sovereign of the soil. ”

“ The Erie Railroad's line in Paterson is over tracks originally belonging to the President and Directors of the Paterson and Hudson River Railroad Company and the Paterson and Ramapo Railroad Company, but now held by the Erie Railroad, by assignment of perpetual leases upon the terms that if in any unforeseen way the leases terminate the value of erections and improvements must be repaid by the lessors. They however are small corporations having no assets except their roads and the rentals received from the Erie Company. ”

“ They would have this property in that event and it would be subject to their obligation but the answer to the complaint of the plaintiff in error in all its forms is that which we have made. Whatever the cost, it may be required by New Jersey not to im peril the highways if it does business there. We agree with the decisions below that as the railroad company might have been charged with the whole expense the fact that no more than ten per centum of the cost of three crossings is thrown upon a street railway company is a matter of which it cannot complain. ”