Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1880-12-11

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are public highways.
The reasonableness Of the freight
tolls or taxes that may be charged
upon any railway, will depend on
the expenses Of running and repair
ing it and on the cost of construc-
tion.
Most of our Western roads were
built with the proceeds Of public
lands granted mediatsly or immedi-
ately by the United States to the sew
eral companies which now have them
in charge. They did not really cost
the stockholders anything, and in
some cases they got lands worth a
great deal more than all expenses of
making, stocking and running the
roads. The two companies between
Omaha and San Francisco raised in
cash out Of Government bonds,
lands and mortgages OF their franch-
ises four or five times as much as they
necessarily expended upon the roads.
The stockholders, without paying
anything, put the enormous surplus
into their pockets.
If railroad corporations have the
unlimited power which they claim,
then all business is at their mercy !;
agriculture, commerce, manufactures
must suffer what they choose to in
fict. They may rob labor Of the
bread it wins and deprive all enter
prise of its just reward.
They boldly express their determi-
nation to charge as much as the traffic
will bear that is to say, they will
take from the profits of every man s
business as much as can be taken
without compelling him TO quit it.
1t is the habit of the railroad com
panies to change their rates Of trans
poltation often and suddenly, and in
particular to make the charges ruin
ously high without any notice at all.
Just now it is said that the railway
companies have agreed among them
selves to raise the freight FIVE cents
per hundred weight, which is equal
to an export tax upon the whole crop
of probably seventy-ive millions OF
dollars.
The farmers must submit to this
highway robbery, or else keep the
products of their land to rot on their
hands. They submit, of course, as
all other classes of industrious people
submit to similar impositions.
Common justice imperatively re-
quires that freights be fixed, settled
and prescribed by law, and that they
be not changed at the mere will Of
the railroad companies. But the dis
ordinations which make the rates
unequal, are the most odious feature.
A grain dealer at Baltimore gets
reduction or drawback which is da-
MED to others, and he makes for
tune for himself while he ruins his
competitors by underselling them,
Such wrongs as these are done, not
only in few sporadic cases, but gen.
orally and habitually on a very large
scale. Certain oil men, whose refn-
cry was on Long Island, got rebates
amounting to $l0,000,000 in eighteen
months; and sevsnty-nine houses Il
believe that is the number) engaged
in the same business were broken up.
The creditors of the Reading rail-
road, having coal lands of their own,
made determinations between them
selves and others which drove all
competition out of the field, gave
them the monopoly Of the Philadel-
phia market, and enabled them to
charge for their coal as they charge
for their freights-whatever they
pleased. Thus producers, dealers and
consumers all suffer together. Worse
still than that, the prosperity of large
communities is blighted by the refus-
al of railroads to carry the products
of their farms, gardens and shops.
unless they submit to the payment of
rates much larger than what are
charged on similar goods from other
regions much further away from the
common market. The case you men
ton of 81 from New York to Salt
Lake and only $3.50 to San Francis
co is perhaps not the most unright-
eous, but it is as gross a violation of
legal principle as can be conceived.
If the railways belong to the peo-
pie, then the rights of all citizens are
precisely equal, and all discrimina-
tions arc unlawful. Without refer