The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-07-08

into an allpowerful one, which may
be said to mean the state.
The granger element and the trades
lation the two most impermeated with
these ideas. Whatever they may be
in conception, they become, the in
slant they leave the abstract to enter
into practice, the most thorough ex-
positions of centralism produced in
modern times.
How far the law would go in the
definition of equity as between the
railroads and the public, or the rail-
road corporations and their employees,
can only be defined by an accurate
perception of the actual interests OF
all concerned. And the confusion of
thought on this is the clearest evil
dence that these conditions are I'M
known. If the state decides that men
shall not be discharged at will by the
railroad officials, equity would demand
that the men may not quit the service
by their own will
How this principle would be changed
by government ownership is not APP
parent. In either case the men would
be under a feudal tenure, and could
not escape during term of service, with
a political liability that it might be-
come perpetual, as it has before. If
the government shall acquire the rail-
roads by purchase, they would be
paid for out of the taxes, and the
country is full of railroad corporations
that would be only too glad to let go
at fifty cents on the dollar. If it ac-
quire them by confiscation it would
obliterate the livings of millions, for
great as the fortunes of the railroad
magnRtes arc, they aggregate only
about SIT per capita, while their
bonded debts aggregate above $66 per
capita, leaving nearly $50 per capita
as held by small investors. Success
full pirates never confiscate their own
property.
All there is in the railroad question,
so far as the public is concerned, could
be established in fixed legal mileage
for transportation, and the prohibition
Of corporations from engaging in any
other business aside from transporta-
ton. The same conditions might be
applied to other syndicated corpora
tons. But it must be remembered
that the experiments of the govern
ment in this direction have been dis
NAL. so far as the public is concerned, |
as may be seen by investigating the
results of the interstate commerce
law.
The miscellaneous syndication of
many forms of products is even more
difficult of management, as their re-
lations with the public are more va
riable and complex. To prohibit such
stifie an industry entirely than lift |
a burden from the public, which four
times in five is not a burden, but |
benefit. Unless private ownership of |
property is to be obliterated, the right /
for owners of a product to market
it in any way to their advantage must
remain inherent.
The same argument applies to trades
unionists. Their right to combine is
one they cannot be deprived of with
out depriving them of liberty. How to
preserve a condition of equity with
out fundamentally altering the organic
laws relating to liberty and property
is the question, answered by the Pop
ulists only by propositions which in
variably would subvert both. 1t is
clear that the public will fail to re-
spond until it be seen clearly the
proper thing to do, in order that a
specific evil may be met with spe-
cific remedy.
Most of our troubles will cease when
the rich are compelled to obey the law,
and the law is the bulwark of the
poor, that must not be overturned
because it's parts are not in adjust
ment. 1t is not necessary to pull down
the temple in order to drive the money
changers out of it, nor to engage in
political adventures whose only GER
tainly foreseen result is a cataclysm,
and the bundle Of isms embraced in
Populism at present point to no other
direction.