Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1892-10-19
THE RAILROAD EMPLoYE.
Tools of Plutocracy are Trying to Blin
Him to His Real Interests.

Tools of PlutOcracy are Trying to Blind
Him To His Real Interests.
The Registers hypocritical profess
sions of hatred of monopolies and love
of the farmers ought TO deceive no one,
as long as it continues to publish from
railway journals at SO much per line
long articles attacking the Farmers
Alliance and denouncing all who advo-
cate control of railway rates as dema-
gogues. In the Register of the 18th ap-
peared an article of nearly column in
length taken from the Railway Age
and Northwestern Railroader bitterly
attacking those who insist that the
public highways shall not be absolutely
given over 10 private corporations to be
run on the what the traffic will bear"
plan, and used to build up individuals
and localities at the expense Of others,
the managers shall dictate. This ar
ticle has been sent out in circular form
to all the papers of the country "a copy
having been received at this office) and
closes as follows:
1.-The lines in the western states are
operated with half the force that En-
glish lines employ; not because they
ought to be so operated or because they
wish to be. Simply because under stress
of the compulsory reductions of rates
and earnings they are compelled to do
So 1t is not safe. The railways can
not be kept and operated in the condi-
tion in which they should be kept for
ordinary security of travel There
3 Al
service of the railways of the country
than there are. And that they are not
and for the perils which result from it
the men who are out of work and the
public have to thank the granger poll
tician and the Farmers Alliance"
That this is all lie, we propose to
prove from railway authority. We
quote from the work of Mr.. A. B. Stick
ney, chairman of the board of directors
of the Chicago St Paul & Kansas City
(now Great Western) railway, entitled
''The Railway Problem" He says,
page 78:
During the whole course of so-called
granger legislation, no legislature has
esta blished by law nor has any railway
commission promulgated, a schedule OF
rates so low as materially to reduce the
revenues of the companies, had the
companies adopted the schedules and
enforced them as a whole-Page sc.
The truth is-and it is time the invest
ing public should be told the truth-it
is not the so-called granger law nor
the interstate law, nor the acts of coEa-
missions, which have reduced the rates
of transportation to the present un-
profitable level, but the mismanage.
mont of the companies. Page 81: The
truth of the conclusion in regard to
rates will appear by comparing the
average rate of the principal Illinois
lines with the commissioner tariff.
The average rate per ton per mile fol
the past year on the Chicago & Alton
was nine and two-tenths mills
on the Illinois Central ten and
three-tenths mills; on the Chicago
Rock Island & Pacific nine and seven
tenths mills- The lowest rate on ths
lowest class (coaD of the Illinois com
missioners for the longest haul is si1
| and one-half mills, and If this tariff haC
been applied to all the business of thes'
three companies, 1t Is probable that i
would have increased their earning
from 80 to 20 per cent"
The railway managers are thus shown
to be cowardly, trying to throw the re
sponsibility of their mismanagemento OF
the Farmers Alliance, and are aide'
and abetted in their efforts to preiudic'
railway employees and others agains
the ''grangers" by the monopoly organ
which has the gall to pose as a defende
of the people against monopolies-
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