The Wadsworth dispatch. [volume] (Wadsworth, Nev.) 1892-1899, 1894-08-11
SATURDAY. AUGUST IL, 1894.
HOW TO FIX IT.

We are given to understand by many
statesmen in private life. also a few not
in private life, and numbers Of news
papers, that we as a people can never be
happy until Uncle Sam does the entire
railroad act himself. That may be 90.
but there are some things 10 be consid-
cred first.
Uncle Sam can manage forty or fifty
thousand soldiers and sailors pretty well,
because all such are bound to duty by
ties too strong to be questioned for one
moment ever by a word much less by act
or deed, so these men never think OF
going on strikes, or asserting the right to
do as they please in any way. But 1t
would be a vastly different proposition
when it came to handling say a round
million OF free and Independent section
men, s~witchmen, b%rakemen, firemen,
engineers, eteetera, a very great army in
short, every man with a vote and most
OF them with a pull on some politician Of
high or low degree, certain to stand by
them no matter how poorly they did
their work just 50 long as they would
stand by their respective bosses in re-
turn. These bosses conld soon dominate
the politics Of the entire country. APP
p)intments to railroad positions would
inevitably be political in character. Fit
ness would be no more the consideration
in such appointments than it is now
when political ends are to be subserved.
Corporations may be soulless, but they
have sense enough to know that self
interest demands the very best equip
ments, the very promptest service, strict
economy in all departments, and above
all, men of the highest abilities, espe i
ally in the higher departments. These
places are not filed by favoriteism or
''pnlls" Of any kind. Corporations are
not run on sentimental or puliliral con-
sideration. To succeed they have to have
and do have the IN ,st eiici. nj men money
can command. Many of them get larger
salaries than any government official,
civil or military, in tho United States,
the President alone excepted. Corpor-
atoms, railways especially, wouldn't pay
such salaries ii cheaper men could do
their work. But make the railway SER
vice a political machine, as it would be.
come under government ownership, and
almost any man with influence" would
do to direct railroad matters, no matt, r
whether his trains got there on time or a
couple OF days later. Uncle Sam takes
all the inc there is, pays for the best
tools, material and shops in the world,
yet the war-,hips he turns u are poor,
aud certainly more costly affairs than
corresponding ones turned Il OF private
and building railroads if he aver did
build any. Ii the object is to stop the
strikes. the first thing would be for
Uncle Sam to buy and run the coal
mines. There's where the most and
worst strikes occur, and everybody is in
terested in coal. After that will come
the railroad and other shops and other
businesses subject 10 strikes. In natu-
raj sequence it needn't be long till we
cm have a truly paternal government
one to carry on all trades, loan the land
owner money at W. per eent.-all this
SO nobody nee worry further than to
get a reliable nip on the public teat.
AS there are 172,00o miles OF railways
in the United States worth, say $4,000
per mile. the first thing Uncle Sam will
have to do will be 10 issue somewhere
about IS, 100, 900 900 4-per cent. bonds in
order to make the present owners of
these roads let go. 1t is plain that with
what we now have the woods, native
and foreign, woul1 be full of bloated
bond-holders. Most everybody, not
alone anarchists, despises the bloated
bond holder worse than any other style
OF capitalists, because the only chances