The herald., 1896-10-27
NO FRIEND OF CALIFORNIA.


vocate the election of Major Mckinley
in this city today. That he will be
greeted by a large and enthusiastic
crowd of people there is no odubt what
ever. Mr.. Reed is one of the great men
of this generation, and the people will
honor him because he is a great man.
But greatness and goodness are not
necessarily twins. The one is not con-
tingent upon the existence of the other.
1t is not intended to reflect upon Mr..
Reeds business integrity or moral
sense. If judged by his own standard
of official conduct, no doubt he would
meet every one of its requirements, but
at what point of conduct is his standard
fixed?
California has been under the iron
heel of most grasping railway mo-
nopoly for many years. 1t is corpora
tion that was brought into existence
by an act of congress. and congress
still has jurisdiction over 1t. and Thom-
as B. Reed is the autocrat, the speaker of
congress. Not content with having
plundered the industries and the COM
merce of California for more than
twenty-five years, this monopoly, to-
gether with its co-conspirators, asks
congress to practically cancel, under
the guise of funding act, a debt due
to the people aggregating considerably
over 500, 900, ,00O and Speaker Reed not
only favors such cancellation, but he
arranged the personnel of the congress
sional committee having the refunding
bill in hand so as to give the railway
,%ar t,IIt fnV
the vigilance of Senator White and a
few of the other members of California's
delegation in congress, there is no doubt
that the refunding scheme would have
been fastened about the necks of the
people.
1t SO happened. too, that Mr.. Reed
permitted himself to be welded to the
scheme of this same railway monopoly
to first defeat the plan to construct a
great harbor for ocean ships and inter-
national commerce on the coast Of
Southern California, and, second, to
make Santa Monica that harbor in the
event the government should decide ad-
versely to the railway corporation. Mr..
Reed is great man and is the leader
of his party, even if Hanna did beat him
out of the st. Louis nomination, and
hence it would be belittling his intelli-
gence to say that he is not familiar with
the plans and purposes of the Southern
Pacific Railway company in the matter
of refunding its debt to the people and in
the matter of Southern California har-
Dor. He knows. therefore, why the rail-
way company does not want an ocean
point of traffic accumulation and dis
tribution in Southern California. He
knows that such harbor would be the
objective point Of a large freight ton
mage, which would deprive the railway
Of the long rail haul from San Francis
co and relieve commerce of mighty
burden.
Mr.. Reed knows, too, that IL this rail-
way monopoly fails to defeat all efforts
to establish harbor in Southern Cali
fornia. it would very naturally want
Santa Monica selected, because the rail-
way company owns the place and all
the land approaches to'it. Now, all the
aims of this railway organization are
Numerically opposed to the best in
terests of Southern California, and
Thomas B. Reed is giving the railway
the full benefit of his influence. That
being true, the. people of Southern Cali.
fornia do not take kindly to Mr.. Reed,
great as he is. and however large the
crowd that greets him may be, the fact
will remain that he is a powerful enemy
of the best interests of Southern Cali
fornia in particular and the whole state
in general.