People's party paper. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1891-1898, 1897-05-28

certain localities, the railroads violate
the laws Of Georgia and of the United
States: the Commissioners know it
they refuse to enforce the law because
the combined corporations constitute
the power behind the throne, making
and unmaking laws and policies.
Nearly every railroad in Georgia has
been loaded down with watered
stock and fraudulent reorganization
schemes; the public is oppressed to
make it pay dividends upon these
fraudulent issues of stock the Com
missioners know it: they shut their
eyes to the fact, for the simple reason
that they can have an easier and more
prosperous time by standing in with
the corporations than by fighting them.
Take for example the Cen trail Rail.
road of Georgia.
Its original capitalization was 81, $780,
OOO-half of which was water, according
to Gen. Toombs. Pat Calhoun, Calvin
Brice, and other Wall street patriots
got hold of the property, worked re
organization scheme on it, and poured
$4,000, 600 of water into it
Consequently, the managers of the
corporation had to reduce expenses,
and to maintain rates which would
pay dividends upon S23, 500, 900 instead
of 81, 500, 900.
Engineers, Conductors, Brakemen,
&C., were made to work longer hours,
or to accept smaller wages: train
crews were in many instances reduced,
and the section boss was compelled to
keep the road-bed in repair with a
smaller squad of hands.
And these reductions fell, as they
always do, on the man who did the
hardest work and was least able to
stand the cut.
The salary of the President was not
cut. The General Manager, the Super
tendent, the Attorneys, &C., got no
smaller salaries than before In some
cases, they got an increase.
While this hardship was going on
inside the Company, the shippers were
catching it on the outside. The
fruit raiser almost cursed the day he
was born. The saw mill man, being
naturally profane creature, eased
himself partly by cussing the roads,
and partly by running up prices on the
man who bought his lumber.
The cotton planter had stood so much
already that he had hardly enough
strength left to growl, and therefore
while prices were falling on all the
markets he let the same old freight
rates gouge him without a kick.
The towns bought corn at s. cents
which the western farmer had sold for
Is cents and no merchant dared to
make the point that there was some
thing wrong with system which al
lowed three times as much for hauling
corn as for making it.
At last the fellows to whom Calhoun's
clique had mortgaged the Central,
got judgment, and sold the
at Sheriff s sale.
Another Wall Street crowd took
hold, and ''reorganizeS,,Mth the Central.
again.
Our good Samaritan, j. Pierrepont
was in the deal this time, and
we naturally anticipated something
zogeous We got it. He reorganized
the Central up to S45, 22O 900, in bonded
alone
In other words, the public were in
formed that, thereafter, it would be
to pay freight and passenger
I ates which would yield dividends
upon S45, 22O, 600 instead of on 81, 500, 900!
And the Railway Commission of
Georgia, by it's decision last week,
endorses the position taken by the
Wall Streeters.
If the corporations can compel the
public to pay dividends upon $45, 900, 900
for company whose stock is only FIVE
MILLION DOLLARS, then there is abso-
lutely no limit to what railway corpo-
ration can exact from the public.
When the Commission endorses the
position that the people must pay divi-
dends upon any amount of bonds,
mortgages and stock which the Wall
Street sharpers see fit to issue against
the property, they surely set sail upon
a shoreless sea. There is no sense in
any such decision: no law for it; and
no justice in it.
But the corporations are organized,
and furnish Doodle to the managers of
both the old parties while the people
are unorganized and have no Doodle to
furnish anybody hence the corpora
tions give commands and the people
obey them: the corporations levy their
taxes and the people humbly pay
them.
While the spirit of democracy covers
before insolent plutocracy in America,
it strides grandly forward in Great
Britain.
The Tory government has put upon
it's passage, in Parliament, bill which
is more sweepingly and practically
l. al