Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1894-08-22
ToPEkALETTER.

Lnem when tue owners don't want tC
sell. The Advocate suggests as start
er, foreclosure of the mortgages the
government holds against the Union
Pacific system which has defaulted IN
interest. This would be perfectly legiti'
mate and the pIoper thing to do even If
the government does not want the road.
The people are taxed to keep up the
running expenses of the government
while large sum Of money IS due it
which is not available by reason OF
| having been loaned to this company
Should the government wish to own all
the railroads and their owners did not
want to sell, we would like to know
what law would prevent it (the govern
mentl from taking them just like the
owners of the railways got large por-
tion of the lands upon which the roads
are built. When a railroad wants a
piece OF property, no difference iii is
the main street of city or the sacred
homestead of an individual it takes it,
no difference whether it is for sale or
not. If you don't want to take its
price for your property it will take the
| matter into its courts and before its
subsidized judges and compel you to
take what the court says Your property
Is worth. This would be our method
for the people obtaining the railroads.
The matter could be drawn along
through the courts for four or five
years, by which time the roads could
earn enough to pay for themselves.
This, of course, would not seem to be
fair but it is the way the owners Of
railroads got them in some instances
and they certainly had ought not to
complain if the people should repossess
their property by the same methods it
was taken away from them.
This subject suggests another
thought which will look more plausible
the more it IS studied. Ii it is right
| and lawful for railroad COMPANY to
take, yet refuse to pay man what he
asks for his home, is it not equally just
and right that the same man should
demand of the railroad company con-
tinuous employment at his own price,
and if the railroad company refuse to
pay what he asked he could go before
court which was friendly to his inter-
ests that would decide what the COM
pany must pay him and that the en-
ployment must be perpetual? If it is
right for an organized company to take
ones home by process of law against
the owners will, why not make the
company hire whoever wants to work
for it at the workman'S own price or a
price set by some court? The corpora
ton wants continuous possession Of
his property for price set by some
court. The courts set the price on his
property and compel him to give it
up, yet 1T would not think of setting a
price and compel the corporation to
give the individual perpetual employ
meut.
Now, take for instance the case of
Gen. Sanders who took possession IF a
Mo. Pac. train. He offered the COM
pany certain price for the train and
the company would not take it. He
had to have the train so he did just like
stances when they wanted to run up a
certain street in town or across an
other road where the price asked was
more than 1T would pay. When the
or faI in hni
ty closely the company would lay ties
and put down rails and they had it.
All the owners could do was to go into
court and ask damages and if justice
was done alike to the rich and the poor
that was all that has been done to
Sanders men. His men no more stole
train than the railroads of the cOun-
try have stolen hundreds of homes from
the people in the same way.
The trouble is our laws are made fol
and applied to benefit capital and in
no instance where capital and labor
clash is the laborer on equal footing
before the law with his oppsessors.
1t is fine theory that If man does
not want to for the wages offered him
to quit and go somewhere else and seet
labor and 1t ought to apply to a corpor
alton which wants mans property
If the corporation does not want top
what he asks let it go elsewhere and
buy where the price does suit. Then
it may be said that the company wants
| 81 I
ton would not suit at all. AS a rebuff
tai to this may be said the same TO-
the aborer. He may want to work IL
Topeka where he owns home and
job in Kansas City might not be wha
he wants at all. If what is sauce fol
| the goose should be the same for TIT
gander, our present laws could be 81
construed to compel corporations t
pay certain price for wages and tina
tina wageworker would be given jol
where he selected it. These compari
sons will seem to some people radica
and inapplicabIe to the subject matte
we know, but the cold facts remain
just the same that laws are made ahC
administered Ill the interests OF capital
1t is thelaim of the peoples party whe1
once entrusted with the law maxim
power to equalize these laws and con
strue them alike to all litigants, an
when once it has majority of the su
D preIne bench in Kansas the commO
people will then realize tor the frs
time what blessing it is to have
! party in power whose alma is honest
e and fairness between all, and wher
e there is room for 4 doubt it Will be d.
n cided in favor of the poor man instea
? of the RICH corporations. The court
= are what they want nov worse than a
r things else, and If the iabofer, the mt
q chanic, the farmer and all commo
e people do not look we'll to the men WI