The record-union., 1896-01-15
GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP IN
SANITY.

The so-called demand" for the Gov.
ernment ownership Of railroads has
reached the acute stage of idiocy in
California Nowhere else in the United
States is there such unthinking chatter
concerning this unamerican and i'm
practicable scheme.
In California in the presence Of sup
posed grievances that have their gene
sis in jealousy, anger, envy, demagogy
and misconception of the purposes OF
Government we meet this demand in
fullness, and nowhere else except in the
utterances of impracticable and radical
socialists who would upturn the foun-
dations of society and erect upon their
ruins the fanciful fabric of dreams as
illogical in conception as impossible OF
realization.
Those who, in lieu of good reasons
against a business-like settlement of
the Pacific railroad Indebtedness,
sound the note to monotony of Gov
ernment ownership in nine cases out
never show, even by the ingenuity OF
logic, that it is practicable or desirable
Whoever, therefore, favors this un-
american, monarchial and autocratic
scheme is weak-minded More than i'm
practicables, these driveHers who vainly
imagine that they voice the sentiment
of thinking people prove only that they
are fit candidates for admission to the
Home for the Feeble Minded.
There is no demand by the people for
Government ownership. Outside of the
bowling Of unbridled demagogues, po-
htical prostitutes and a hysterical press
there has been no demonstration of
public desire in favor of the Govern
ment Of the republic operating railways.
Not even a blatant ass will venture
to deny the proposition that that
Government is best which least in
fringes the personal liberty of the cit
iZen; that the Government is safest
and freest, and the liberties of the peo-
pie best assured where there is least in
least Governmental meddling with
trade and commerce.
Government ownership is beset with
so many dangers and difficulties as to
appal by their contemplation. Even
if 1t be granted that there is the con-
stitutional right for single instance
of such monopolization, it would be
putting the Government into the field
OF private enterprise and making it
a despot, beside which the most intoI-
erable absolutism would be as a
sucking dove for mildness and inno-
cence
For the Government to engage in
railroading would involve 1t in COM
pHcations. resulting in the utmost dis
order. With our spoils system, par
tisan politics and saturation with boss
ism, Government raiIroading would be-
come machine of such infinite capac-
fty for evil. and put into operation a
heartless civil service of such magni-
tude and possibility for oppression that
it would threaten the very foundation
of the republic. Once put the Govern
ment into the commercial field, with a
countless army of hirelings to do the
service of political bosses, and work
the ends of partisan manipulators. and
the prescience would be weak indeed
that could not name the day of the dis
solution of free government.
The narrower minded, unthinking.
clamorous crew that outrages reason
by the idiotic talk about Government
ownership, pirate of a FOOLS paradise,
do sometimes manage to cite Instances
Of Government assumption of private
business in monarchical countries. but
with puerile obliviousness to the diff
ference in conditions and systems be-
tween those countries and our own. AS
a recent writer has well said, in some of
the countries cited. there is so little
of private initiative that if such things
exist at all, they must be maintained
by State; in all of them the traditions
of paterna1ism are strong and repres-
sive of individual enterprise"
No conditions prevail here. or will
ever be tolerable, under which in aris-
tocratic systems it is possible to ac-
complish what our blatant demagogue
and feather-headed shriekers for Gov
ernment ownership demand. There is
here no lack OF capital. as has well