The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-10-25

8 II
for governor through the Republican
state committee. In fact, on the day
L saw him, he was preparing a fulmina-
ton against that body
IF Mr.. Mckinley loses the state of
Michigan" the mayor said. ''he will
have the state committee to thank for
1t. Those fellows are using the cam
paign fund against me, and can
prove it. They did not want me nom
mated. and they do not want to see
me elected and If / am elected they
propose to put in legislature which
will tie my hands. The man who is at
the head of it all Is D. M. Ferry, of the
seed trust and behind him is Jim Nc
MILAN. McMillan's dirty work became
so well known that he had to retire
from the committee, but he is behind
Ferry. and with him are all the big
corporations in the state. What have
they against me? Oh, they are inter
ested in the street railroads. which
brought down to a three-cent fare,
and some Of them in the gas company,
which has been made to cut its price
one-third, and some in the company
which had the contract for the munic-
ipal lighting, which is now done by the
city. Some of them are in the rail-
roads. and they are afraid that the
railroad companies will have to pay
taxes on the $18,00O,000 or $40, 96O, 900
worth of property they own here In
Detroit if / am made governor. They
pay a school tax to the state now but
1t amounts to. very little
/ asked the mayor to tell me. some Of
the reforms he had in mind to be sub
mitted to the Legislature If; he were
made governor. ss ~e-e
WHAT MR.. PINGREE WANTS.
'rFor one thing he said, st want to
know whether the provision in our
constitution against consolidating par
sileIs1roads is Of any value and why
! tie Michigan Central and, the Lake
Shore which are parallel lines are
permitted to run under one, manage
raent. Il want to know whether The
recent consolidation of the street rail-
ways of Detroit cannot be sannulled
Under the state constitution, and if it
cannot / want the constitution thrown
OUt and a new one adopted. l want
the railroads to stop r. issuing 1000
mile tickets at reduced rate to the
man who has 500 and charging full
rate to- the poor devil who L asn't so
much. / want those tickets, if they
ale issued, to be like those of the Bos-
ton & Albany road and not like these, y
And the gov ernor drew from his pocket
E. double handful of tickets issued by
Michigan railroads. 1.-THE Boston G.
Albany ticket can be used by any one.
Then I want a law which would COM
pei the railroads to charge only cents
mile instead Of cents. We make
tie Chicago & Grand Trunk haul pas
sengers for 2 cents mile. Why should
not our roads do the sane?"
I suggested mildly that the railroads
were not making very much money
and few Of them were paying dividends
That is what the railroad men all
say-haf the roads in the country are
in the hands Of receivers, said Mr..
Pingree. "But they wouldn't be in re-
ceivers' hands II they had not been
capitalized at g. fictitious valuation
if their stock had not been watered
again end again. People say to me:
you mustn't say these things before
tie election. NOnesfof the railroad
men will vote for you i tell them
don'tsvexpect a railroad official in the
81 ate to vote for me above a road boss.
Ordinary employees know that eompe-
t.tion between roads benefits them
I'm Detroit two street railway com
panies, both of which have been MAX
ing money even in these hard times
when competing, are attempting con-
SOlidatiOn. They have succeeded In
part, and with this result to labor
they have discharged s120 men. The
next thing In order will be the reduc-
ton of wages of those remaining and
the attempted raising of fares. The re-
the consolidation of the Michigan Cen
trail and the Lake Shore railroads a.
double decade ago-viz, the minimum
Of operatives. the minimum of wages
and the maximum of charges, which
operate against the community and
against the railroads themselves inter-
changeably. Such g. railway manage
ment is bad management in the long
run. A great country may stand 1t
for a time. but monopoly must end in
wreck!
RESULT OF COMPETITION.
81 shall go right on telling the truth
about the railroads as I know it, Only
the other day a man told me of an ex-
perience with the railroads which
used as an illustration in one of my
speeches, A railroad was asking him
$40 a car for hauling grain 100 miles
He had an offer from another road.
which came within ten miles of the
place, of SIT car for the same haul
AS soon as he gave the business to the
second road, the first road stepped in
and said, We will make you a rate of
SIT a car There was the result of
competition in Michigan, we would
have reasonable railroad rates"
Mayor Pingree became famous a
year ego as the father Of the three
cent street railway fare. He had tried
to force the Citizens Street Railway
company to reduce its rate Of fare to
three cents. and failing In this he
forced the granting OF g. franchise TO q
new company, which agreed to sell
eight tickets for. Is cents. The new
company found many OF the best
streets occupied. but 1t managed to lay
out a profitable system and opened up
In opposition to the old company The
old company fought it for a time.
Then secret arfang ennent for CONSOLE
dalton was made last June, The prime
mover In the new company was man
named Park. His chief associate was
q man named Everett. Park managed
Mayor Pingree1s canvass for the nomi-
nation for governor. He claimed to
have spent 5000 OF his own money In
the canvass. Meantir1ie he was saying
nothing to Mr.. Pingree about having
sold out to the cid street railway comes
pany, z1l0assuufM "a. sssgsssfEz eg.e q Il