The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-04-12

the old private courier or private car
rier pigeon, or the more primitive fire
and smoke signals? The cheaper the
postage the more letters are written.
The cheaper the postage the more near
ly the department comes to making the
machine pay its way. I would rather
trust a, letter to the United States on
payment of two cents than to trust it
to the memory of a friend who hap
pens to be going that way. I do not
remember to have missed a letter
mailed to me, but I have found letters
given to me to mail, several days after,
well forgotten in my pocket.
The immense business that the Den
YER pOstoffice does amazes the unac-
quainted. 1t does this and does it al
most without a blunder. I can send
by post four pounds of merchandise.
I have often wondered why not try
forty pounds or forty tons-make a
United States express of it. If not,
why not?
The telegraph is sending a letter by
lightning instead of steam. The only
difference is the medium. Why is that
in private hands? The reason why
is not a good one. Make the service
of the telegraph cheap and I will write
more letters. The cheaper the rate
the more it will be used. A few people
will not get rich out of it, but the great
public will be served by it. I do not
keep a fire bucket. If my house gets
on fire the city will put it out. The boys
and the horses are in harness.
Under the old motto of Cain, if a man
got sick or hurt, he could help himself
or die. Now the city picks him up, or
the county or the state. The healthy
the whole, are taxed for the sick and
hurt. Every hospital so supported is an
evidence of socialism.
Under the old system, if q man was
murdered the next of kin took up the
dead mans quarrel and killed the
slayer if he could. Blood revenge is
now the law in Circassia. But here the
galloWs trees are SOcialistic. So of all
state asylums and homes for the de-
fective.
We are further along in socialism
than we perhaps thought. A city that
furnishes heat, light, water, transpor-
tatiOn and telephone service at cost
to its citizens is further along in social
ism than Denver. In Sweden the
government keeps the saloon. Whether
the United States can control and own
railroads and operate them to public
advantage would seem to be settled by
the fact that when railroad goes into
the hands of a receiver it is controlled
and operated by the United States
court.
How far can we farther go with So
cialism for the public good? I think
the nation or state or city ought to do
the common necessary chores of the in
dividual and give him more time for
his Individual calling. 1t would be a
saving Of time and friction if I could, by
dealing with one head, arrange forty
things.
In Australia, on government owned
railroads, you can ride a distance of
1900 miles for $3.50, first class, while
workingmen can ride six miles for 2
cents, Il miles for cents, 30 miles for
10 cents, and railroad men receive from
rs to 80 per cent more wages for eight
hours labor than they are paid in this
country for ten hours. In Victoria,
where these rates prevail, the net in
come from the roads is sufficient to pay
all the federal taxes, which is another
convincing proof of the possibility of
government without taxation.
In Hungary, where the roads are
state owned, you can ride six miles for 1
cent, and since the roads were bought
by the government the mems wages
have been doubled.
Belgium tells the same StOry-fareS
and freight rates cut down one-half
and wages doubled. Yet the roads pay
a yearly revenue to the government of
81, 900, 0o0 In the United States, IN
der private ownership, it is the other
way. We have paid the railroads bill
lions in land and money, and are now
paying them millions yearly for car
rying the mails, and yet freight and
passenger rates are so eXtOrtiOnate as
to be almost prohibitiVe, while wages
paid railroad employees are degrading
and almost criminal in their smallness.
Surely, America has &, deal yet to learn
from its various mother countries.
In Germany you can ride four miles
for cent on the government owned
lines, yet wages are oven 125 per
cent higher than they were when the
corporations owned them, and during
the last ten years the net profits have
increased Al per cent. Last year the
roads paid the German government a
net profit OF $25, 600, 600.
would like a central chore office.
1t would save me the fatigue of going
to 80 other places and bargaining with
80 other heads Nathaniel Hawthorne
interrupted in his work by a necessity