Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1897-10-22

are actually WORTH the corporations that built
them continuing to run trains over them undc-
the regulations prescribed for all
2. 1t can prescribe just rates and regula-
tions, provide that any violation of them shall
work a forfeiture of the roadbed to the state for
the public, and order the proper officer to take
immediate possession, as soon as the laws are
violated-which they certainly would be.
3. 1t could build its own roads, beginning
with one, or few, or whole system, as might
be deemed best.
The inevitable effect of the adoption of such
policy by the state of Kansas would be the
immediate emancipation Of producers and bust
mess men from their present condition of in
voluntary servitude to Eastern and European
rcilroad kings. Farmers, stockmen, miners,
manufacturers, business men and others, would
thereafter be able 20 ship their produce and
goods 10 and from Kansas City, and every 9TH
er point III the state, at somewhere near reason
able rates-because An absolute monopoly would
no longer be possible. Is not the recovery of
even this much "liberty' (the right to all equal
opportunity to get to and from market) worth
great deal of effort, and considerable expendi-
ture?
1t is true that, at first, the western end of our
lines might have no friendly connections, but
that situation would not continue long. Noun
taneers not f. OILS, and the merchants, min
ers and other business mt Ui Denver, Pueblo,
and other point, in Colorado, would not be like
ly to allow foreign corporations to continue to
rob them of large part of their legitimate
earnings when merely building 10 our line
would give them control of their own state, and
secure permanent access, on fair terms, to all
Kansas markets--and connections. With rea-
sonable transportation rates, the business be-
tween the two states would soon be more than
doubled.
Nor can it be doubted that, if Kansas pro-
vides public railroads, Missouri will extend
them to the Mississippi; and, if Chicago re-
tenn and the measure of freedom it will carry
with it) does not stop until it reaches Lake
Michigan.
Looking southwark, we see ports that ought
to do nearly all of the exporting and i'm
porting business for Kansas and several
other states--and would do it but for the fact
that their own railroads are compelled to dis
criminate against them. AS matters are, every
new railroad Texas secures is an additional
chain on her already heavily -fettered limbs; but
a single public railroad to her northern line
would break some of those chains and weaken
all. Texas is the Kansas of the South Her
people have courage and common sense, and,
if Kansas will show her public railroad in
operation across this state or actually being
constructed, she will surely build f:om the
Gulf 20 the Red River, to meet it, and, if nec-
essary help Oklahoma to fill in the gap. Will
any man who really knows the Texas people
doubt this? Possibly, she will not even wait
for us.
That Nebraska and the Dakotas would
promptly avail themselves of such an outlet is
almost equally certain. Indeed, such all email
cipatlng system, onece put III operation in such
a state as Kansas, would spread from state to
state until it had liberated the continent.
iAeie 10 Placllcai pian Dy WHICH, at lnln-
mum cost, the monopoly feature of the rail-
,oad system can be absolutely DESTROYED, and
he producers and other business men of the
tate be. secured all equal opportunity to use
he public highways. Does it not deserve
.areful consideration from practical men?
The question whether the state should also
operate the roads, wholly or partly, could be
considered later. Under any system, the road
must be built before it can be operated, and the
me thing that is necessary now is thar the peo-