The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1898-10-19
L00TINC OUR TREASURY
Capitalists Appointed by the Govern
ment to Contract With Themselves.

The noise and dust of patriotism, that
sOrdid interests are raising for the pur-
pose of concealing their official malfeas-
anves, may be loud and dense enough
to drown and cover the voice of protest
now. But the nervous reaction is bound
soon to set in, and then the day of reck-
oning will come. In order to hasten on
that day and facilitate it's work, we call
NOW attention to the following facts,
cleaned from the official records of con-
gress.
To put the broad side of the wedge
first-Federal officers are appointing a
railroad president to manage the trans
portatiOn" of our soldiers; these cap
italist captains of industry" are thus en-
abled to contract with themselves; in
pursuit of the object they had in view
when applying for such management; 4"
and of the object of giving them the
JOB, they are looting the treasury of the
nation; anu by doing so, are playing in
'98 variation of the very same tune
that they played in 62, when their class
passed the legal tender act whereby they
put money into their own pockets and
took it out of the pay of the soldiers The
following are the details:
One of the items in the urgency de-
ficiency bill, just passed, is $6,OOOO00 for
transportation of the army. This item,
which is to cover only the remaining two
months Of the fiscal year, is almost equal
to the entire pay for a whole year of the
combined volunteer and regular army.
This in itself is highly supicious and
fishy circumstance. Deeper inquiry re-
veals the reason therefor, and, along with
that the foulness of the affair.
No sooner was war declared and the
army and volunteers called out, when a
scampering of railroad agents took place.
They wended their way to Washington,
there they beset the war department and
a system of wire-pulling was instituted.
For what? For the choice of the points
of rendezvous for the volunteer and other
forces. The Importance of these points
of rendezvous lay in this: If the point
of rendezvous was a city accessible only
by one railway line. that line would have
the monopoly of transportation and could
bleed the treasury all the more Each
company pulled the wires in it's own fa-
vOr, and got the stock holders in office
whom it could control to throw the
weight of their Office on it's side. A few
instances of this competition throw
much light upon the whole affair, and
not little upon the sources of the pa
triOtism," that is trying to make the
country insane. One instance is this:
The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and
the Baltimore & Chesapeake Railroad
are two lines running through West
Virginia. Each tried to secure a point
of rendezvous in that state situated on
its own line exclusively. The B. & o.
"inf1ooence' secured from the secretary
of war the choice of Martinsburg, ac-
cessible only by that line. Thereupon
the C. & o. got it's "inf1oonce' to play on
the governor of West Virginia, and he
appointed as the rendezvous Charleston,
accessible only by the c. & o. The re-
suit was a deadlock, under which these
capitalist patriots, who brought it on.
and the political lackeys, who carried out
their wishes, were perfecly willing to
let the country run the risk of finding it's
soldiers unmobilizable.
Another instance of direct plunder is
this: A Michigan railroad had agreed
to transport troops from Detroit to Nor
folk for So another company thereupon
quickly contracted" for the same work
at over $12-and THIS COMPANY GOT
THE CONTRACT.
Frank Thompson, president of the
Pennsylvania Railroad. the property of