Daily capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1896-1899, 1898-02-02
The Highways Should All Belong to tn
People.

The Highways Should All Belong to the
People.
Only half a century ago tOll-gates
were almost as common as log cabins,
and all pious and conservative settlers
declared them TO be as necessary as
the roads,and thirty years back every
bridge over the Connecticut river,
was a toll bridge, maintained for
private profit. There are men still
living who can remember when there
was tOll.gate every ten miles on all
great highways in the eastern states.
There are few of these obstacles
still left in the United States, but
public sentiment is overwhelmingly
against them, as the tOll-gate riots
10 Kentucky prove. Toll-gates were
never necessary. Private individuals
should never have been allowed to
own the roads No man has right,
for the sake of private profit to tie a
knot In the veins Of commerce. II is
very fortunate, in these days OF Nc
Kinley prosperity, that the roads haYe
become public property. For they are
the only part Of American soil that
the unemployed and wage-worker
can call there own.
Fifty years ago the capitalists said.
''If it were not for us there would be
no roads, and they sat still and levied
tax on all who moved about But
when the people became wise enough
they took possession of the roads,
without any blood shed or dynamite,
and this remnant of barbarism was
removed, the wooden toll-gates are
gone, but the humane tOll-gates still
remain. Any man or people, who
taxes the labor and activity of Othes,
Is nothing more than tOllgate, He
may call himself a manufacturer, a
landlord or banker, or other high
sounding name, but If he receives
money without rendering any personal
service he is toll-gate.
Rockefeller stands between the
whole nation and the oil fields, and
takes toll on every gallon. When you
buy pound of sugar you have TO pass
through Havemeyer's toli-gate, and
in front of nearly every railroad de-
pot Plerpoint Morgans tOll-gate
stands.
Every capitalist has his toll-gate
and stands behind it like a medicanU
friar, holding out his hat for that
compulsory charity which he calls
present, profits and interest, the self
Importance Of these obstructionists
would be amusing If it were not so
fatal to the nations welfare. They
imagine there would be no business if
it were not for the obstacles they
put in the road. They think
a steamer propelled mol by
steam and machinery, but by the
barnacles that stick to the bottom.
The human toil-gateS claim to
'provide us with work" but
tire-bug could claim the same virtue.
Capitalists make work and so does a
naughty baby. If work is a good
thing, why do they try to escape it.
If it is a bad thing why do they try
to make more? they claim to have
superior ability" So did the old
slave drivers There is nothing else
for it. Comrades, private capitalists
must go, Just now the mOnopOliStS
are rejoicing at their capture of Amer
lea, bat unless some of us are greatly
mistaken, before ten years sc me of
them will be implOring Europe to send
over some 500 Hessians and help them
get loose, Clear the roads for the hu-
man race is marching on. Away with
the corporation Joll-gates, for the
shackels shall be broken loose and the
bands that bind the laboripg world
shall be shaken off. j.