Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1892-01-15
TIAslEY & MORTON, Proprietors.
FRIDAY MORNING, JAN. IS, 1892.
A FEW KINDLY WORDS WITH THE

4 FEW KINDLY WORDS WITH THE
BANNER BEARERS.
Our esteemed contemporary the Roanoke
Herald says that, Zone of the most en-
eouraging signs of the pending railroad
war, is the unanimity with which the press
of the State has rallied under the banner OF
Development, Progress and Prosperity,
borne in the forefront of the railroad
army" This may be a very encouraging
sign for the railroad army, but it is very
discouraging one for the press. We, and
we suppose Of course others, have been
daily hombarded with marked papers con-
tanning such articles as 'Don't fight the
railroads, y ''Stand 10y the railroads. but,
and it is not healthy sign for the State,
we cannot recollect getting one with
Fair play for the Farmers OF Justice
to the People of Virginia" in it. Another
very discouraging sign, we should take it,
for the press, as an educator OF the people
is the little information given on the SUBJ
ject. OF all the hundred papers in the
Commonwealth, we can only call to mind
information of their readers. About all
that seems to be deemed necessary by the
others for the information of the people is
the publication of ''Don't fight the rail
roads, and about all the information that
most of the writer's themselves deem nee
essary to have on the question, is to lie
found in the brief sentence ''Stand by the
Railroads. - Such clear and simple cam
paign as that ought to be easy running.
And it would be, If there had been no free
schools in Virginia; if this generation Of
Virginians did not know thing OF two
more than their ancestors; if the tillers Of
the soil had not at last walked up to the
fact that a corporation is not a crowned
head with autocratic authority to fix the
rates they shall get for their
labor, and is not something that by proper
effort cannot be made as amenable to
law as a private individual vino commits
an injustice. The walk over in Virginia
of 1.-THE railroad army'' with 1.-THE press Of
the State' bearing It's banners in the fore
front, is not SO easy in the year 1892 A. D..
as it may have been in some of the years Of
the past. Indeed the railroad army seems
to realize the fact and is unremitting in
squirting up the rather unsteady and hySter-
ical banner bearers of the forefront to
greater activity.
One is led to believe from the utteranceS
Of the banner bearers, thata Railroad Com
mission in State, clothed with power to
enforce justice from the railroads of that
State is something unprecedented; that it
has never existed before anywhere, and that
its introduction in Virginia is an expert
ment fraught with great peril. All this is
pure imagination. State Railroad Com
missions, clothed with power to regulate
railroads, are both old and numerous. They
are now, and have been for years, in exis-
tence in Georgia, Kansas, Michigan. Min
nesota, Mississippi, Iowa, Massachusetts
and other States. and in several of them the
law is much more drastic than that propos-
ed in Virginia. Their object has been three
fold-to secure fair mot cheap rates OF
freight; reasonably convenient arrange
ments for shippers, and reasonable connec-
tions fer travel. In all this, no serious man
expects any fixed rule to be followed Oh any
Embarrassment of present arrangements.
The railroad men themselves, the most eX-
pert of them, cam OF give their reasons for
all the Rates Oh theif freight list. With the
exception of /: charletan here and there
they do rot pie end to do it. All of us rec
ollect the answer gwen 10y a distinguished
railroad export befure a Congressional
Committee when asked how they estimated
certain local freight. 1t has been promoted
to the dignity of an American railroad
phrase After thinking for moment he
simply said-''We put On it what the arti-
Gle will bea".'' And there you are. What
the producer OF shipper now asks, is that
he shall have some powerful friend to stand
by him and say how much the railroads can
shear" We all understand the difficulty
of this, the nice Work-guess work in a
good measure, of estimating the contingent
cies, cost and amount Of tonnage by which
railroad shall make just so much and no
more in Il year. And no man is expected
to do it. No more expected to do it than
the railroad men of Virginia are expected
to be able to estimate with accuracy the
contingencies Of crops, expense Of farm
labor. and the like. and, after taking all
into account, saying what the produce will
bear. And yet for many years, many gen
erations, the railroads of the State have had
the power to do that very thing, and have
done it. What the tilerS OF the soil OF
Virginia ask i, that they shall have body
of sensible, fair men clothed with State
authority to stand between them and the
corporations and say, not only what the
farm products will bear, but what the rail
road will bear, and in deciding that delicate
question. simply to Use their best judg-
ment to see that neither is manifestly
wronged.
But, we are told, there is immense CAPT
tai invested in the railroads! Do not the
Agricultural interests of Virginia involve
great capital? One would think SO. There
are in Virginia lis, 517 farms containing
8,510,1 13 acres, valued at S2l6, OPS, 10Y, with
and yielding an annual product of $45. 1885,
221. In making this annual product there
are 244, 900 persons engaged. 1t would
strike reasonable man that an occupation
engaging nearly quarter of million PEG
pie, involving capital of over two hundred
millions of dollars and making an annual
output of nearly fifty MILLIONS, ought to
have at least fair play. 1t ought at least
be put beyond the reach of any corporation
OF corporations making its value dependent
on their whin, OIL necessities, or greed
Should you give anybody the unregulated
power of regulating the value of this i'm