The Forrest City times. [volume] (Forrest City, Ark.) 1871-1919, 1897-11-05
A MENACE TO THE NATION.
National Disaster Threatens Through IA
Republican Rottenness.


The fact of overshadowing I'M
portance connected with the Union Pa
cific deal is not that the government is
to lose millions of dollars by the trans
action and thereby line the pockets of
a syndicate of capitalists who contrib
uted heavily to the campaign fund
which debauched the country that Nc
Kinley might be president, but that
consummation of the bargain as agreed
upon between the administration and
the favored syndicate will concentrate
in the hands of one man powers that
will make him the absolute master of
the transportation business of the
United States.
This man is j. Pierpont Morgan. lie
Is now plotting, with good prospects of
success, to get control of the Baltimore
& Ohio road. With the requirement
Of this property and its merging into the
vast railroad monopoly which he now
directs, the last element of competition
in the carrying business between the
Mississippi Valley and the Atlantic sea-
| board will have been crushed out. Place
in Morgan's hands the Union Pacific and
his mastery of the railroad situation on
the continent will be as complete as is
that of the Rockefellers in the oil field.
He will be the supreme dictator of the
prices of all products and other property
in the United States. By fixing freight
rates at whatever figure he pleases, Nor
gan can determine the prices of all la
Dor and the products of labor He can
| build up new centers of commerce and
manufacture and destroy those already
in existence if it suits his purpose to do
so. Thus he can control the value of
land by shifting the centers of con-
sumption. He can issue millions of
watered stock and wiring from the pro-
ducers of wealth tribute in the shape
of dividends to keep up the fictitious
values of his securities.
No present law can reach him or curb
his power, because no lawmaker had
apprehended the danger of such stu
pendous forces being concentrated in
the hands of one man. He can set at de-
fiance and laugh to scorn the interstate
commerce act. New enactments will
have to be placed upon the statutes to
check the evil of his sway. This will oe
the work of years and will usher in an
era of corruption in national legislation
such as has never been witnessed in the
new world, for his resources for manip-
ulating the lawmaking body will be
limitless until the people awake to a full
realizat ton of the enormous forces OF
corruption he commands.
Reftar that tha uayarpnapt chnuid
lose every dollar it has invested in the
Union Pacific than that the road should
pass into the hands of Morgan under
the circumstances that now environ the
deal. Better that the government should
present its interest in the property as a
free gift to some one who would guaran-
tee to keep it as an independent line
competing fairly and openly for the
transportation of the products of the
farm and shop and factory, than that
it should be swallowed up by Pierpont
Morgan, Coils Huntington, the Wander
bilts and their English associates.
President Mckinley can avert this ma
tional calamity by a simple act. He can
force his encouragement to enter an
appeal from the decree of foreclosure
that was obtained by questionable meth.
DDS. This would give congress an op-
portunity to scrutinize the deal, and
congress would dare not approve. 1t
would also stimulate competition in the
bidding by affording chance for bid
ders to get together the purchase money
and agree among themselves on terms
To his own conscience and his sense OF
obligation 20 the honorable traditions
of the exalted position he now occupies
Maj. Mckinley owes this plain duty
st. Louis Republic.