The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-02-13
EXCESSIVE RATES
Are Draining the Earnings Of
This Country
And Slowly Gripping the Tr ans
pOrtatiOn Business
SAID GOV. H.S.PINGREE
In an Address Before the Mar
quette Club of Chicago
At the Celebration of LincOln'S
Birthday Last Night.

Chicago, Feb. 13.-The Marquette club
last night celebrated the anniversary of
the birth of Lincoln by a banquet at the
Auditorium Hotel. About 600 persons
were present at the banquet, the most of
them being members of the club. The
great banquet hall of the hotel was decor
ated in a lavish manner with garlands and
with cut flowers and the national colors.
The banquet proper began early in the
evening and it was three hours later be-
fore the intellectual portion of the pro-
gramme was filled.
club, made short address and introduced
as the first speaker Herman b Wicker
neat little address. The list of speakers
included a long, list of governors of
The Duties of Citizens" Governor
Old Party.' Governor Lippett of Rhode
Island; .'Iowa-They said She Was Doubt
Old Dominion, Governor CO. or Atkinson Se of
West Virginia: 1.-The Farmer in Politics.
governor Mount of Indiana; Republican
Wisconsin, Governor. ScofieId of ,Wiscon-
sin; The Great Northwest Governor
Briggs of North Dakota; Municipal Re
FORMS" Governor Pingree of Michigan.
United States Senator E. Mason closed
the programme by a short address on Illi-
=, In the course of his address. Governor
f ~ gree, SAID; II assume that we all love
contract with a city and get it by paying
fathers pocket the price of course, il
the contract is for street railway, the
cause if they do not out watered stock
does not go off our hands very easy. The
game is to show in our contract that we
can pull millions out of the public. Then
we can get any amount of watered stock
in the hands of a gullible public. This, of
course, is speculation and not business
1t is a kind of lottery system. Almost
everybody knows it and admits it. We
condemn it in public and resort to it in
This speculation seems to have put
on the mask of business in the United
States.
THE apparent rights of speculation
are more apparent than real. The excess
sive rate of fare and freight transporter
draining the earnings of this country and
are slowly Gripping transportation be-
cause the excess reacts.
when / say that all true capital is the
earnings of the country I do not say any
thing new. 1 only repeat in new words
what Lincoln said. You can find what he
message can be found in the Congress
sional Globe of 1861 and 1868. This is what
he said:
Labor is prior to and Independent of
capital. Capital is only the fruit of la
Dor. Capital could never have existed il
labor had not first existed. Labor is the
superior of capital and deserves much
the higher consideration
Il do not know of a better way to keep
fresh the memory of the illuStrious dead
than to quote the words that pointed to
his work. 1 know of no other way to
keep &. party alive than doing the work OF
the party I know of no other way OF
keeping capital alive than by keeping la
Dor alive The true words of true man
live forever. The words of 1861 are true
If the work is shirked, the party dies. If
Lincoln's words are sacred, then the work
fame of the words and work of Lincoln
1t is nobler way TO continue that work.