Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1897-05-05

No honest man can deny the State
ment that the peoples party has been
the chief agency by which the people
have been advised and instructed--so
far as that instruction has gone--of
the danger that exists and is rapidly
growing from the increasing encrOac-
ments and audacious impudence of cor
poration and monopoly greed. Some
men are continually lifting warning
voice on matters of this kind, and these
warnings are so loud and clear as to
make it a wonder why more people do
not see and act upon the facts made so
clear. One of these men is Governor
Pingree, of Michigan. In his message
to the legislature he touched upon the
question of existing and growing cor
porate power in such a way as TO indi-
cate that Michigan is having an eX-
perience with railroad rings and kings
something like that which North Caro-
lima is now having He set forth the
fact that the question of granting pub
lie franchises by the state and by
municipal authorities, and the condi-
lions under which they should be
granted and operated is orAe of the
greatest problems with which we have
to deal. A public franchise, when it
has passed beyond state or municipal
control, may become a power greater
than the sovereign or municipal pow
er. 1t may become an engine of OPP
preston and corruption The moment
a franchise is granted, the whole peo-
pie surrendered 10 few of their num-
Der the right to exercise a public func-
ton, and the question which should be
considered is what proportion of that
right should be reserved to the people
themselves in the way of regulation
and control.
Combinations aud consultations by
franchise owners are growing all over
the United States. These combina-
tions and consultations are for the
purpose of keeping up tolls. The
amount of wealth that is being accu-
mulated in the hands of a few by these
favored holders of special privileges is
appalling. These tolls are indirect
taxes, and to the extent that the right
to regulate the tolls is abandoned by
the sovereign or the local power to
the franchise owner. to that extent the
right to levy taxes is given away. The
state or the municipality appoints an
agent for period of thirty years, more
| than the life of the generation, and be-
| fore the term has half expired the
agent becomes the master and the mas
ter becomes the slave.
By way of illustration, the amount
actually invested in a railroad is one
million dollars. After the road is com
pleted it is mortgaged and bonded for
two million. This could only be done
by executing a mortgage upon the
! license itself. In other words the few
! men who formed tho company and
/ their associates advanced million dol
| lars and Immediately thereaf cs.1 placed
mortgage upon the inu dstry and
! earnings of the people for thirty years
to come to the amount of two millions
and then when the question of regulat-
ing the fares is brought up the govern
ment authorities are met with the
bland statement that the original
owners have transferred their vested
rights to innocent purchasers and in
order to pay the bonus of million dol
lars, and the interest upon it for the
thirty years the company lcannot live
If the fare is reduced.
This system of indirect taxation is
going on in every state and city in the
United States, and hundreds of mil
| lions of dollars of fictitious values,
which must represent some form of
human labor, have been created for n
few by the simple stroke OF the pen,
and in order to pay these immense
sums tribute is laid upon every man,
woman and child in the country. 1t
simply means that these hundreds OF
millions of dollars are to be taken
from the ordinary channels of legiti-
mate trade to the injury of every mer-
camille and manufacturing and farm
ing industry in the land, for no ones
interest can suffer without a CORES
ponding injury to all 1t is not strange
that in the presence of this insidious,
but constant process of concentration,
learned financlers, wise statesmen and
profound political scholars wonder why
the few become rich and the many
become poor.-The Caucasian.
How tho Farmers Were Buncoed.
Anent the high flown sentiments ex-