People's voice., 1897-02-11

freight rates on certain articles When
the Standard Oil company was assessed
for part Of the taxes it justly owed,
Rockefeller said, add one-fourth Of a
cent to the price of oil till the people
have paid our taxes"
The only way to reduce the burden
on the people is by bona fide, genuine
out in passenger and freight rates 1t
may be said Of more than one railroad
commission that at a respectful distance
they initiate the ways of Providence in
one particular. It has been said, HE
takes a step, and ages have rolled
away" All railroad commissions prob
ably when first appointed have made
q show of reform by cutting of some
infnitesimal amount from railroad
charges, as one-eighth or one-fourth of
cent from passenger fares, and then
two or three generations hence, if the
people wait so long, they may possibly
cut OF another one-eighth Of cent. In
the meantime the multimillionaires
who own these roads, living in their
marble palaces in London and New
York, with their yachts, fast women
and fast horses, have gone on with their
fellow conspirators enhancing the value
OF the dollar, reducing the value Of prod
uce, and thereby more than doubling
their passenger and freight rates.
1t is in this way that Ireland, natu-
rally one of the foremost countries on
the globe, has been pauperized. All the
profits of the soil have been drawn in
the shape Of rents by nonresident land
owners to London, and, nothing going
back, the country has been impoverished
like field from which all the crops are
cut and nothing returned. In like man
ner today the south and west are impOv-
erished by all the profits Of agriculture
being taken to London and New York
in the shape of excessive transportation
charges, and, nothing being returned or
spent among us, the south and west are
rapidly being reduced to the condition
of Ireland.
In honest fact the railroad commits
sicns of the several states have served
only as buffers to protect the railroads
from real criticism by the people and
from direct legislation TO reduce their
rates, while the states have uselessly
taxed themselves to pay the several
commissions salaries to seem to do
something.
In the public distress we demand real
relief, and we must have it, and not its
phantom.
What is the remedy? The remedy is
to cut the rates, and exactly in proper
tion as these multimillionaire railroad
kings have, in combination with others
of their kind, cut the prices Of our prod
uce.
The supreme court Of the United
States has decided Chicago Railroad
versus Wellman, 149 U. S., and in sew
eral other cases) that rates which will
allow moderate interest on the actual
value of the railroad property are valid.
In that case it sustained a passenger
fare Of 2 cents per mile, Upon the same
basis every passenger and nearly every
freight rate should be cut in two. 1t is
what has been done with our produce
and will simply restore railroad charges
to their former basis. Can the railroads
stand it? Upon the basis of watered
stock, making the railroad patrons pay
dividends and interest on three or four
times the value of the railroad, they
cannot. But upon the legal requirement
of moderate interest on the real value
Of railroad property they can.
Besides, the dividends and interest on
stock and bonds on three or four times
the value of the property are not all the
present high rates are levied for. In
the first place, the freight shippers and
passengers are taxed to pay enormous
salaries to railroad officials, ranging
from 500, 900 per year down. The Off
cials are as numerous as their salaries
are exorbitant. ]. Pierpont Morgan pays
out of this levy upon the poor southern
people $50, 900 year to his chief man
ager, President Spencer, while his, like
all other big railroad systems, has three
or four honorary subpresidents at ap-
proximate salaries, each equipped with
palace car and staff of servants, and a
host Of other officials with high sound
ing titles, salaries in proportion and
duties in the inverse order, while the
real work is done by hardworking SUBJ
ordinates with moderate salaries. In
addition. the travelling and shipping
public is loaded with the sums used in
running newspapers, editors and law
yers, the maintenance of expensive lob
bies at all the state capitals and at
Washington, and with the free travel
ing of all those who the corporations
think can be influenced in that way, for
the cost of the passage Of those who
travel free must be added to the charge
against those who do not. 1t must be
noted that this host of s100 900, $50,
900, $25, 900 and $40, 900 salaries-not
one of which can be really earned-is
collected out of the people by the sta
tion agents as surely as the salaries Of
the governor and other state officers are
collected by the sheriff. The people Of
the greatest and wealthiest states do
not pay their highest officials upon any
such scale, and they have the same
right to regulate the salaries Of railway
officials, unless they can be paid inside
the 6 per cent interest upon the real