The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-09-17
TRAIN ROBBERS AND wREcKEs.
Eigety-two Grimes Committed in the
Firt Six Months Of the Year.

From the Philadelphia Ledger.
The Railroad Gazette has collected
statistics Of train wrecking and train rob
bling for the first six months Of 1898, which
yield some surprising results. One is &C
customed 10 think Of train wreckers
and train robbers as infesting sparsely
settled western states, but the statistic S
show. on the contrary, that such crimes
are most prevalent in well settled states
The Gazette's figures show siXty-One
attempts 10 wreck trains and twenty-One
attempts to rob them. Massachusetts, and
Illinois head the list in the number of at
tempts to wreck trains, and Ohio follows
In these three advanced states were made
more than one-haH Of all the attempts
to wreck trains and the
great state of New York follows. The
only explanation offered for this prepOn-
uerance of train wrecking in well-set-
tied and, generally speaking. well-Rov-
erned states is that the mileage of rail
roads is greater in those states than in
others, and the tramps, who are RESPONSE
BILE for most attempts to wreck trains
flourish In thlckly settled regions. The
geographical distribution of attempts at
train robbery are still more curious. Iowa
heads the list the Indian Territory and
Oklahoma taken together have the same
number; Texas follows, and then comes
Kansas and Nebraska. Sixty-seven per
cent of all the train robberies or at
tempted train rObberies occurred in these
four states and two territories There is
a large criminal population, desperate in
character in the territories and in parts
of Texas, but what explains train rob
berries in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska
Disagreeable as the suggestion may
be, it is to be found in the attitude
of the populists toward railroad
companies. Governors and legislators
have been preaching for years that rail
road companies are the natural enemies
of the farmers, and that they ought to be
despOiled by heavy taxation and compul-
sorry reduction of rates 1t is quite natu-
raj that, just as Guiteau translated VIC
lent language into violent acts, train
robbers should arise in states where the
pOpulists have been preaching their per-
nicious doctrines. The leaders of the
party do not, of course, sanction such VIC
lence; they want to proceed according to
law (of their own maIing) but they have
weakened popular respect for the right
of property, and have insensibly taught
weak minds that it is no great crime to
rob railroad corporation, They have,
moreover, so tainted public sentiment
that train sObbery is not punished as it
should be, and there is a disposition to
consider the robbers themselves as
heroes. We have often mob,
called into being by men Of fair
reputation and good, or Mt least de-
fensible purpose. getting beyond the con
troll Of the leaders aud committing ex-
cesses which they deplore. So also politi-
clans of the pOpulist type, who seek 10 I'M
dermine the principles Of government and
to warp the laws to serve their selfish
purposes, lose control of their followers
and find themselves incapable of putting
restraints upon them They proposed to
wreck a railroad according to law and
rob its stockholders by statute; their fol-
lowers wreck the trains aud rob the pas
sengers by force of arms So far as these
statistics go, they are a significant warn
ing against the preaching of such doc
trines as tend to undermine the respect
of the community for property rights and
for the laws found necessary in all civil
lied communities for the protection of
ose rights.