Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1884-1886, 1885-03-13
CUTS BOTH WAYS.

The people through their reprcsen
tatises, in legislative bodies, of late,
have been persistently enieavoring 10
take the management of railway and
other corporations from the hands of
the directors of such corporations and
to place it in the hands of executive
Off GERS and commissioners. The cor
porations becoming embarrassed and
fearing bankruptcy resort to cutting
on expenses. OF course the laboring
men or the employees are the first 10
get the benefit of such efforts TO keep
down expenses. These employees are
nevertheless constituent part of the
the original people who make the first
demand. Corporate property, in
America, is thus becoming the most
uncertain and shakev property in ex-
istence: and. while men deal in them
as stocks in the market. few can be
found who will take good hard
money out of the bank 10 put
into actual iron, ties and locomotives,
unless secured 10y 4 big bonus or sub
sidy of some sort, which j., in it-elf. |
vicious. Take Kansas to-day. We
have Il railway commission 10 keep |
the railroad maDagements within GER
tain ideal, rather than within prac- |
teal limits. This commission is now |
frr h.. Id nd If no
difficulty, and where no difficulty |
would have occurred but for the cause |
which called the commission into eX
istence. The only thing they can do is
to advise the strikers to accept the
situation. or 10 force the roads 10 &C
cede 10 the demands made upon them
or persuade a compromise, neither
probably practical.
If We were autocrat of all such inter
ests ia America. we would abolish all
freight aud tariff laws; all rebates,
drawbacks, cats and commits
sions; all pools and pool
ing directors, and determinations
and all Notwithstanding mar
kets, together with all preferred
stocks and inierest-guaranteed bonds
and let the railroads down to the same
level of "A printing house, or a steam
laundry, liable in all respects as they
are to-day and ameniable under the
laws in all directions as TO abuses and
damages, leaving the matter of mex
orable selfish interest and competi-
ton 10 regula tie their charges for SER
vices and for wages to employees from
the general superintendent down TO
the section land.
Under the rule Of the spirit of the
last decade of wears railway property
is becoming in America an unreal.
fictitious thing, vehicle with which
10 manipulate and create and destroy !
millions Of supposed values daily; ,
primarily only an instrument upon
which TO base subsidy schemes and
speculations, and with which 10 filch !
money syndicates OF Europe, Jut sec
ondary for the service of the public. ,
Instead Of being something tangible. +,
like peanut stand or corner gro ,
Gerry, a> they should be. with demand a
and supply regulating entirely their
value and services, they are !
being made an instrument to dciraud
both the capitalist and the laborcr.
Through some ',hiialuiin' notion of i
Interstate commerce and public 4
highway the railroad and some other
interests aud properties have been lift
ed from the plane of the stage coach, q
the freight wagon. the steam laundry,
the steamboat and the peanut stand.
value. n
The inevitable result Of the present v
policies and attitudes of the different a
states towards railway management
md the schemes, creOkcdness and 4,
into which managers :
ire forced, TO protect the owners Of o
'uch property, the unwarrantcd privi-
eyes granted by the laws upon the
me hand, and the unreasonable de-
hands made lay the same laws upon S'
he other; the public dissatisfaction
md striking employees, etc, we say the :,
Inevitable result must be, sooner or -
alter, forced governmental owner p
hip and control, which result IN re- d,
urn W i'll create hundred outrages So
or every dozen abuses under the old M
unsubsidized rule of +
quarter of century ago. h