Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-12-23
SUBSIDIES.


Hood.inkinJ HE Taxpayers, and B!a1neD-
ing the Laboring Men Criticized.
To the Editor of the Globe
MINNEAPOLIS, Dec. 2O.-Why is there such
seeming desire to call together all classes
of citizens to attend the narrow gauge rail-
road meetings2 The workingmen are par
ticularly invited and told that the building
of the proposed roads will furnish such an
amount of labor for years to come as will
employ hundreds of them at shops and car
building, etc. sit will be of more advantage
to mechanics, operators and laborers than
any other class of our citizens. "-z'ribune.
Is it not astonishing what political and finan-
cial bilks will do to carry their ends, especially
when by little soft soap, and stepping
they may be able 10 accomplish something
in the way of filing few pockets ort of the
taxes of the people?
Something over year ago the same gentle
men nearly thought the city charter should
be changed, so as to give continuous power
to the party that represented the largest
taxpayers (by right, but not in fact And
a series of meetings were held, a new char
tsr changing the ward boundaries was
formed and presented to the meeting. All
were invited to attend and hear how beauti-
fully the city could be remapped under the
proposed new plan, and what fine system
of water works would be furnished the East
Division to the amount of fifty thousand
| dollars, if said East Division would only
| 81 ol@ 80 =
dollars of the bonded debt then by charter
belonging exclusively to the West Side. The
proposition was made in q meeting called of
the citizens, and did not suit sons of
| them (most of whom were working,nen.)
| Twas then the projectors realized that
changing the city charter did not require the
vote of the people to make it possible, and
in the face of the strongest kind of protests
and petitions the people were ignored, aud
the Hennepin county delegation vas sten,
aud under the party lash in the hands of Col
q. G. Hicks the measure was carried
through the Republican legislature, some
Of our Democrats making very feeble oppo-
sitlon, and others avoiding the Issue al
| together.
| Now new scheme is on foot, but this
will take q vote of the people, and the work
| ing men must he pet cd and palavered into
the right way of thinking and voting. AS
soon as the city says by her majority vote
that she will give $25O,OO0 in bonds to a
| corporation to build railroad. then the
| thing will all be lovely. and working men
will be called communists and trarnps, and
all kinds of pet names, if they think of any
| way to letter their own condition until
| called on again to help the elect of the land;
the chosen few on to the highway to lazy for
tune. At the charter meetings last
winter, "Many were called but few chosen
| and those few chosen ones got their tool to
draft their charter and paid him for it, and
now suggest to all working men that they
let the chosen few see how much they can
accomplish without-agaiust the votes of
communists and tramps. Go on, gentlemen.
with your roads; you can carry the bond
propositions; you did the charter. The Dem
ocrats elected your great chief to Congress.
Just get the idea abroad that the safety of the
property of all business men in Minneapolis
depends on the "bonus," and all will lie
WE'LL Let Bill King loose, and he will
make the business men of this town
imagine, that il time is not taken by the
fore lock now, and this bonus "a mere baga-
telle) voted, the whole business of the "Me-
tropols of the new Northwest" will move
down to, a point some ten miles below
us He is the man, and only he can accom-
plish it.
If, in the estimation of the calmest iudg-
ment of the shrewdest business men in the
city, these roads can pay from the start, and
pay largely. in the Immediate future, they
can be built without any bonus. If the pro-
posed corporation wants to borrow money or
credit would favor measure loaning the
credit of the city to sach an enterprise; but
no more bonuses in mine. Subsidies have
ruined the cou airy, and corporations that
cannot, and will not, proceed with their bus
mess without them, either contemplate fail
ure, or fraud, or BOTH It is argued
that the government should not own
Or operate railroads, if that is q
good argument, and perhaps it is,
she should not build them and equip them
out Of the COMMON fund and then give them
to set of rascals who wreck them as soon as
they get possession, and can divert enough
of the earnings of them into their own
pockets to make farther railroading beneath
their dignity. Such men take good care
that none of their money goes into either
the construction of railroads or their operat-
ing expenses. I have no doubt in my
own mind, that if we do not get these roads
next summer, that wheat will not 60 over
| No. anywhere in the whole tract of coun-
try through which they ruu-on paper! On
with the dance, no matter who pays the
piper. THIGENTHU.
l.