The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1891-08-14
Friday, Aug. Ia, 1891,
a Railroad Department.

The railroad problem will never be settled
Till we have Railroad Department in the
general government with cabinet officer at
The head Of it, 10 whom every railroad COM
pany is compelled 10 make monthly or
quarterly reports, as regularly and as ex-
plicitly as the postmasters report. The first
business OF the Department would be to
ascertain the actual cost of the roads, or
rather, what it ought to cost to build and
equip them al the present time, and pro-
coed to extract the water from the stock and
bonds till nothing but pure. unadulterated
valne remained, dividing up the loss or
skrinkage, prorata among the stocks and
bonds. Then the salaries ofrailroad officers
should be fixed by law, ard rates fixed that
would pay not more than six per cent on
any road, and the rates for travel and trans
portation reduced to the cost of running the
roads and the interest on the debt, with a
sinking fund to pay eff the mortgage debt
in a series Of years, leaving no incumbrance
on the roads and people but the stocks. All
cutting ofIates or canvassing tor business
by agents to be forbidden, allowing trade
and travel to choose such lines as would
best accommodate them.
The railroads are for the accommodation
ofthe people ard not for the interest Of
Spectators and money investors, stock job
bers and gamblers, for whose interest they
are now principally used, the benefit to the
public being of secondary consideration.
Under such strictly business control
every railroad in the country would pay a
reasonable and steady interest on the stock
representing its actual cost, which would be
the safest investments in the country.
Travel and transportation under such bus
mess system would increase TO marvellous
extent and rates would be lowered in the
ratio to that increase. as the rates for mail
service diminish as the business grows, and
The industrial, producing classes would be
correspondingly benefited as we'll as every
legitimate line Of business. The substance
of the people is eaten up by a class of oper-
ators who infest the railroads as rats do a
grain or provision warehouse, who, judged
BY the result of their stealing must be
classed among thieves.
Oh what a shrinkage would take place in
the fortunes and incomes of the Jay Goulds
and Vanderbiltsl But the freed public
would shed no tears over the loss Of the mill
lions they have plundered from the people.
The systems which haye sprung up with
the labor saving inventions of the last half
century are the most corrupt and unjust,
when their magnitude is considered, the
world has ever seen. Justice to the people
by the people must and will be established
and the movement is now started that will
accomplish it, As the truth gradually breaks
upon The public mind the labor and honest
masses will gravitate 10 each other and a
government policy will take the place Of
our present system as radically unlike it,
as the government set up by the men of the
revolution differed from that of King
George. The interest of The whole people
is the irst consideration of government, and
not the interest Of exploiters, which has
come to be the controlling belief of the day,
Judging from the methods now in'operation.
To root out and break up the false systems
in vogue is the problem in political economy
the people are addressing themselves to. II
these systems were broken up men would
have to employ their time, talents and cap
ital in honest and useful pursuits. Three
fourths of the so-called s'business" of the
country, measured by the sum Of money ii
processes to represent is nothing less than
stealing il its various forms. Our railroads
furnish the greatest harboring place for the
parties who engage in this modern system Of
theft, misnamed business" and the people
By the power vested in them through ther
government must control them.