The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-09-01
PEFFER'S PLATrTUDE.
The Kansas Senator Says What Is Nc
True, or Else He Is Very stupid.

The Kansas Senator Says What Is Not
True, or Else He Is Very stupid.
Senator PETER has in his book. "The
Farmers Side" the following: $50 il
is all over the country and all over the
world Agriculture is behind, farming
Is prohtless, farmers are not doing bus
mess on a 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 unspeslSably 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 preearious
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 Atchisen, Topeka & Santa Fe 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
get out of the hands of receiver The
disappearance of value in the stock of
the Santa Fe road alone figures up to
something like SIS 900. In the re-
organization the bondholders lost some
thing like s25, 100000
1t is true that Il few men commonly
known as railroad men," have made
large profit ont of railroads, such
men, for example, as Mr.. Gould. But
the writer of this once heard Mr.. Gould
declare emphatically that he was not a
railroad man-that he was only BUSH
ness man. That was true. Mr.. Gould
made his money, not out of the railroad
business, but by speculations. When
people owning a railroad went broke
and had to. sell their railroad at a big
loss, and for far less than it was worth,
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 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 rs of iron miners and others
in similar lines of business, there would
hardly be a farmer in the country to-
day worth more than his debts. Even
in Kansas, where the farmers began
without anything a very few years ago,
any honest man will find in any county
of the state. east of the western ex-
tremes. more farmers who are worth
more than their debts than any other
class of people.
The merchant who stands in the door
of his store, with large stock of goods
behind him, appears to be in possession
of n large amount of wealth. If the
farmers could see the bills in his desk
which will fall due in twenty, thirty,
sixty or ninety days and will have to
be paid, they would not envy the mer-
chant his position. Over 95 per cent. of
the merchants in the country fail, and
the same is true of the manufacturers
and middlemen generally. Those who
do have good luck, it is true, generally
make large fortunes. They are, there
fore, conspicuous in the public eye and
the figures representing the average of
their classes are wholly lost sight of.
senator PETER seems to be deliberately
In evil Moses whose purpose it is to
nislead the people for his own benefit