The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-02-11

mportance-what to do with the
railroad corporations. With every
attempt to repress this question; with
every endeavOr to push it in the
background it rises to higher impor-
lance, and steps more conspicuously
to the front. Everywhere it is in the
mouths Of men, always upon their
pens. 1t is felt, and rightly felt, that
the encroachments Of this new power
in civilization, the railroad corpora
alton, constitute danger to the very
fabric and foundation of government. |
In California this danger is more APP
parent than elsewhere; not only be-
cause of the greater magnitude of the |
evils already wrought, but by reason
of the greater concentration of the |
power that has caused them and
threatens others. This power is
practically centered in three men,
Messrs. Stanford, Croker and Hunt
linton. Their control is absolute
not car-wheel revolves in this State
but by their concurrent direction or
sufferance. The use they have made
of their opportunities need no his.
| torian; their actions are recorded in
the political and commercial litera-
ture of the State, covering the whole
period of their activity. By methods
that were criminal in both a moral
and legal sense, they have wrested
from every agricultural, commercial,
and industrial interest of the State
fortunes "beyond the dreams of
avarice." There have been years
when more than one-half of Cali
fornia's annual increase of wealth
has gone to them. To name here the
various classes of crime under which
their offence might be grouped would
exhaust the space that you would
care to give to this letter.
A half-dozen years ago the rapacity
of these men and their associates had
grown so their eXactions
and the corruptions by which they
effected them so insufferable that
public indignation began to manifest
itself through every channel of eX-
preston, and soon became so clamor-
Gus that the professional politicians
not Immediately in the service of the
| corporations which these men con.
trolled discerned an advantage in
bringing the matter into partisan
, contention. The Democrats first sci
) the sails of their ship to catch this
/ fax Tn
, Convention of 1888, the railroad power
received its first really formidable
/ challenge. The platform adopted by
. that Convention bitterly denounced
! the railway, and General Stonemar
, | was nominated for Governor distinctly
on the ground of his earnest, though
4 | fruitless, efforts as minority mem
: | Der of the Railway Commission Il
2 bring the great corporation under tn,
f action and restraint of law. The Re
: | publicans held their Convention late
, at Sacramento. Discerning the ad
vantage the Democrats had gained
| by being first in the field with anti
monopoly ammunition, they seizeC
the only opportunity left to them b.
, out-doing their wide-awake antagon
lists in hostility tothe common enemy
They made platform that not onl,
, denounced the railway in genera
Z terms, but demanded specific legisla
ton for its restraint and punishment
q They nominated Mr.. Estee for Cover
n nora man whose public life ha
a been marked by the bitterest an
4 most irreconci1able quarrels with tn
. rail. Never was public opinion s
o. reused and infiamed against indi
\ vidua1 citizens as it was during tn
It ensuing canvas against Stanford
! Croker, and Huntington. There wa
q even danger of their assassination
# and they made concessions to some c
y their aggrieved patrons almost at tn
) point of the pistol, knowing that the
~ were in q sense outlaws whom any
a. body might kill with almost assure
"a impunity.
Is The Republicans were beaten b
lie some twenty thousand votes-a re
,e suit which seems to have been almos
IL d1bOSSGASI OuS " PuOI1C u1S(EuSb
lie their party managers, nearly all {
whom had been (before the storm
active and Jealous in the cause of tn
corporation. which they now ha
found it prudent to oppose. Nobod
to believed in the sincerity of their cor
IS version; the masses of their part
10 and some of their candidates for til
, State offices, including Mr.. Este
lie himself, were in earnest, but the
distrusted their leaders, and wen
IS over to the Democrats. Besides, NJ
e Stanford and nearly all the promi
l. ment railway officials were themselv
!, Republicans, and that did nc
e strengthen the party. Other issue
entered into the canvass, Prohibition
ID Sunday legislation, ETC., but it
10 doubtful if these had any great infiu
Is ence on the result; nobody reall
]. cared for anything but the RaiIwa
IS question.
is After the election matters wer
10 worse than before. OF the tire