The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1896-04-08
TILLMAN'S BLAST.


Continued from First Page.D
country, which it most effectually does.
It has an outstanding stock issue OF SIS
100000. This is supposed to represent the
value of their several refneries and tools
of trade. 1t really represents the amount
Of money on which the sugar barons de-
sire the American public to pay tribute.
The Havemeyers and others engaged in
the sugar refining industry in 1887 turned
their properties into the Sugar Refining
company and took stock in the concern
to the extent Of two or three times the
actual value of their plant.
In other words, according to competent
experts an appraisement of the properties
comprising the present company would
show an actual value OF about $25, 900 ,000
The trust in order to pay its princely div
idends of 1 per cent per month, is ex-
tOrting from the masses tribute which
would be wholly unnecessary if it were
working on an honest basis. Even now it
is claimed in Wall street that the trust
has invested in cash nCAless than $11 ,000,-
600 in raw sugars The management hold
their sessions in secret, and no one but
the HavemeyerS and their intinnates are
permitted to know anything as to the
profits, investments or anything else to
which stockholders are justly entitled.
EVCu IlOIc outrageous 10 llldt great
combination of capital known as the coal
trust.
The entire hard coal district is COM
prised within a very limited area That
area is traversed by II railroads known as
"the coalers." They have formed COM
hine and control absolutely the entire
matter of coal consumption. Many of
them own large areas of coal lands and
are miners as wells as transporters.
There are large number of private min
ers, but they are entirely under control of
TIE roads embracing the coal combine,
since they can get no transit to market
or tide water except over these roads.
Once each month the sales agents Of
these roads meet and fix upon the outp,,t
Of coal for the coming month and the price
at which it shall be sold. This combine
includes several roads now in the hands
of receivers and therefore under the con-
troll of the United States courts.
These roads enter into the agreements
and are as greedy for their share Of the
coal output as any of the others. The
output and price is fixed by the weather,
the demands Of trade and is generally
about as much as the roads think they can
squeeze out of the public. The consump-
ton is about 40 900 tons year, so that
rise of only 10 cents a ton means aneX-
tra $4,000, 600 year in the pockets of the
coal barons. A dollar means 10000 900
year.
a private mine owner is compelled to
turn over his coal to the railroad COM
pany at their price as soon as it comes
from his pit Any attempt on his part to
send it to market and sell it at his own
price would be met by refusal to give
him cars in which to transport it.
The farmers Of the land, representing
many millions of people. after long agita-
tion and enormous petitions, have sought
in vain to get congress to stop this nefar-
ious traffic. The cotton, produce and
other exchanges, whose members number
less hundreds than there are millions
of farmers, have outweighed in the coun-
ellis of the nation at Washington the cry
for relief that has come from the sufferers
Yet there are statutes which make it
obligatory upon the attorney general of
the United States to protect the people
against these unjust combinations. How
many suits has he brought? Not one.
What further proofs do we need that
the government at Washington is abso-
lutely controlled by the money power of
Wall street, and that the president, tile
cabinet officers, the senators for many of
whom seats are purchased, the congress-
men and the courts are the tools and
agents of the actopus which has it's ten
tacles fastened upon the people through
out this vast country, sucking their sub
stance year in and year out?
Following close on the heels of the de-
monetization of silver came the resump-
tion of specie payments, entailing an
enormous contraction of the circulating
medium. The two causes have steadily
hammered prices down until today they
are lower than at any time within the
last three centuries. The masses of the
producers throughout the country, the
men who create it's wealth, are being rap
idly pauperized. Farmers who have
struggled to obtain homes are driven to
the most desperate straits to keep from
losing them, or have already lost them,
while these financial vampires, who pro-
duce nothing are revelling in wealth I'M
dreamed of in any past age of the worlds
history
We are rapidly coming to be a country
in which what should be, large, well-to-
DO, contented class of yeomen, such as
must ever be the strength of a nation,
are hopelessly staggering under burdens
OF debt with no prospect of relief, slaves
bound to the soil by mortgages.
The growth and development Of the
United States since the war has been the
wonder Of the world. One of the most re-
markable things in connection With that
development has been the expansion in
railroad building.
Who owns these roads and in whose in
terests are they run? Built, as many of
them were originally, by the aggregation
OF capital in small amounts from genuine
stockholders, they have been absorbed in
manner almost phenomenal, until TODAY
1t is safe to say that three-fourths of the
railroad mileage of the country is owned
and controlled by a few score men, most
OF whom have their offices on Wall street.
How coulG such things happen? will be
asked. They simply stole them, that is
all.
The railroads of the land are now rep
sented by capital stock of $3.50, 900 900,
a funded or bonded debt of $3.50, 900 900,
and floating debt of nearly $780,
100000. The gross earnings per year is
now about S1,100,000,0O0, leaving, after
paying operating expenses, net earnings
OF about 1926, 900, 900. This is divided into
interests on bonds of about $235. 900 900.
The passengers carried reach nearly 6OO,-
100000 per year and the freight traffic is
nearly 700,000,000 tons per year.
Every cent Of this enormous income
from this leading industry of the country
comes directly from the people. An ex-
animation would show that the money
honestly expended in the production of
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