Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1898-05-27
PROPOSED WAY OUT.
HOLT" RECOMMENDS BUILD
ING PUBLIC RAILWAYS.
Policy Designed to Break Up the
Monopoly of the Present Railway
System and Create Good Tiines-Is .
New Idea.


road to utter ruin, civil war and mill
| lary despotism and begin reform that
will eventuate In other desirable re-
forms. That one way is for us to force
our governments, state or national, to
begin the building of transcontinental
railroads, paying for the work and
equipments with stock or greenbacks
made receivable for all transportation
by rail. In this way the roads could
| be completed and in running condi-
| ton without one dollar of debt. The
English people built and operated
roads for years by issuing stock IN
payment without one dollar in money.
| They built roads, says Lord Beacons-
field in an extensive note to chapter
I Of Endymion, to an amount equal to
| the national debt of Great Britain, and
| carried 1t on in very reckless, IN
! systematic manner. With greenback
made receivable for all government
dues and debts, and limited issue OF
stock receivable for railroad services,
there could not be a dollar OF debt
left soon after the completion OF the
roads. This policy would soon break
up the monopoly Of the present rail-
road system and would create good
times. To purchase their old roads
would be wrong. The companies have
| so burdened the old roads with debt
and fraudulent issues that they can
never be purchased. II we wait and
keep preaching for the referendum and
single tax, ETC., all good and absolutely
necessary reforms, 1t will take so long
that one Of two things must occur:
First, all the present and growing evils
will concentrate such a power in the
hands Of few persons who are now
secretly preparing to act that the
masses will be virtually enslaved.
These few have the power Of the gov
eminent In their own hands-the army,
the navy, and swarms of hirelings.
In fact they must absorb SO much
land that their tenants and laborers
will add to this army force great
enough to keep down "the enemies Of
law and order, the strikers, anar-
| chists and Socialists" as they call
those who do not belong to them. A
little violence will give them the ex-
cuse to re-enact the Chicago anarchist
| tragedy and the Lattimer massacre in
every state. This will put an end BY
terror to all thought of resistance
for, contrary to the general belief, 1t
is an easy thing to enslave a people
by terror. This is what will prob
| ably occur, as the trend Of events
| shows.
But If, on the other hand, enough
of the people, desperate under the in
tolerable burdens of labor, will rise up
armed, civil war, with its inevitable
I result, despotism, will follow.
How easy, before our war, it had
been to compromise by purchase of
slaves and prevent the war; But none
hardly would listen to that one only
solution. How comparatively easy
now for this people to unite and force
| government to begin this one reform
and prevent all the horrors that are
fastening upon us. Why will this one
reform do this? Simply because the
whole system of the evils rests on the
railroad monopoly and the money mo-
nopoly. The monopoly of money first
| by usury gave such enormous wealth
| to few that soon one or two men
were able to own a railroad-an in
| credible phenomenon once. Out of the
railroad monopoly grew the Standard
| OIL giant, and out of it has grown
others. Were the government to go
at it with as much earnestness as If
at war, and begin building two great
railroad lines as suggested, and issue
the greenbacks, in six months the very
fact would be such lesson and would
make such a change in the ideas and
circumstances of the people that moth
ing could resist their march onward
toward all the reforms desirable. And
with such blow at the keystone to
the arch of that whole pernicious sys-
tenn the railroad power would come to
their knees.
1t is sad to hear people talk of buy
| ing up their old roads, knowing that
in anticipation Of some such move the
roads are burdened with debts and
| contracts for SO years in some cases.
Whatever we may think about the
| building of roads as herein proposed,
! however contemptuously so many of
us may discuss the proposal, am sure
that the first step toward it will be
| regarded by the railroad emperors with
CONSERVATION, and before 100 miles
were built we should see another
Standard Oil warfare. Courts, legisla-
lures ard armies of men would be en-
ployed to interfere. Even that could
hardly be done without war. And
the alternative of not doing it is war
or increasing slavery. HOLT.