The Globe-republican. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1889-1910, 1893-09-01
PETERS PLATITUOE.

The Kansas senator Says What L. Not
True, or Else He Is Very Stupid.
Senator PETER has in his book, ''The
Farmers Side," the following: $50 it
is all over the country and all over the
world. Agriculture is behind, farming
is prOitless, farmers are not doing bus
mess on cash basis The railroad
builder, the banker, miner and manu-
facturer are growing richer, while the
farmer and his co-worker are poorer as
the years pass"
Senator PETER either lies in the fore
going, or he is unspeakably stupid.
Every railroad in the United States,
with possibly two or three exceptions,
has gone into bankruptcy at least once,
and many of them very many times,
and yet the railroad business is little
more than fifty years old.
No better example of the falsity OF
Senator PETERS statement is found
than that in the railroads of Kansas.
The Missouri Pacific railroad has re-
peatedly been a dead loss to its owners,
and its stock is in a most precarious
and unpromising condition. The stock
of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe
railroad, which practically all cost its
owners par or over, is now quoted at
about thirteen cents. The holders of
the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fee rail-
road bonds couple of years ago had to
accept tremendous volunteer scaling
down, new bonds being given for old
ones, or else take what little they could
ont of ha bar If u ho
disappearance of value in the stock of
the Santa Fe road alone figures up to
something like s75, zoo, 900. In the re-
organization the bondholders lost some
thing like So, 100000
1t is true that a few men commonly
known as railroad men, have made
large profit out of railroads, such
the writer of this once heard Mr.. Gould
declare emphatically that he was not
railroad man-that he was only busi-
ness man. That was true. Mr.. Gould
made his money, not out of the railroad
business, but by speculations. When
people owning railroad went broke
ana had to sell their RAILROAD at :. big
Mr.. Gould was shrewd enough to be
around with money with which he
could buy the deprecated property.
The fact that Mr.. Gould made money
is not at all inconsistent with the other
fact that the railroad owners, as a whole,
went broke.
AS regards the other people men,
toned by Mr.. PETER, the same is prac-
tically true. If the same proportion of
farmers had failed in the last twenty
five years as Of iron miners and others
in similar lines of business, there would
hardly be farmer in the country to-
lay worth more than his debts. Even
IN Kansas. where the farmers began
without anything a very few years ago,
my honest man will find in any county
If the state. east of the western ex-
more farmers who are worth
more than their debts than any other
class of people.
The merchant who stands in the door
IF his store, with large stock of goods |
behind him, appears to be in possession
If a large amount of wealth. If the |
armers could see the bills in his desk |
which will fall due in twenty, thirty,
,ixty or ninety days and will have to
De paid. they would not envy the mer-
liant his position. Over 95 per cent. of
he merchants in the country fail, and |
he same is true of the manufacturers
md middlemen generally. Those who
10 have good luck. it is true, generally |
make large fortunes. They are, there
ore, conspicuous in the public eye and
he figures representing the average of |
heir classes are wholly lost sight of.
PETER seems to be deliberately |
In evil Moses whose purpose it is to