The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1899-07-13
PINGREE AND POPULISM.

The supreme court Of Michigan has
unconstitutional and Volo
the law enacted by the legislature pro-
viding for the appointment OF the De-
troit street railway commission, whose
object was the purchase and mnhieipai
ownership and operation Of the street
railways of Detroit. The court based
its opinion almost wholly on the prop
osition that the law is In cOntravention
of a section of the state constitution
which provides that the state shall not
be party to or interested i'll any work
of internal improvement nor engage In
carrying OH any such work except in
the expenditure Of grants to the state
of lands or other property. The de-
cision is hailed with much satisfaction,
apparently, by many newspapers as OF
course it is by the companies contract
ing municipal purchases, The "com-
mon people," however, cannot reason
ably be expected to regard such de-
cisions as proper subjects for congratu-
lations. ''More great fortunes have
been made out Of street railways with
in the past few years than from gold
Mines" says the Philadelphia Post.
properties costing from ten to twenty
millions have been capitalized at from
sixty to one hundred millions, and the
securities of these have been sold at
high rates. In the difference between
the costs the plant and the value of
the property the public has seen, as it
never saw before, the enormous wealth
which has been given away in public
franchises. In only few cities is there
an adequate return through taxation or
special clauses in the charters. The
cities get a percentage of the gross
earnings which supports their park
systems, but as rule the companies
pay only the usual tax rate, taking
their great profits with no legal obliga-
ton to let the city or state share in
their good fortune. Recently in all
new city charters the most important
provision is that no public franchise
for the use of the streets shall be given,
but it shall be sold to the highest bid
der in open market on the most adj
vantageous terms to the municipality.
In the meanwhile, the franchises
which were given away under the old
system continue to increase in value to
the corporations which own them"
Governor Pingree, Of Michigan, is
rallied at by many influential papers
and persons because of his earnest and
persistent advocacy of various reforms
in the interest of the people as a whole,
as opposed to the corporations which
have waxed fat and arrogant upon the
enormous profits of the privileges which
are public in character and which
should not be allowed to pass into pri-
vate control without adequate return
to the public. His ideas are called
"Utopean" and "Populistic" and sin
attune with the long-whiskered and
ideal conception of what the govern.
ment might do if selfishness ceased to
exist and every man labored for the
general good" A special dispatch to
the Post-Intelligencer, exaulting over
the courts decision in the railway case
referred to, says: "For upward of a
half q score of years Shoemaker Pin
gree has been steering his political
bark by the compass .of Populism, and
the finger of the compass always
pointed towards the lode star when it
indicated the municipal ownership of
anything from the water plant and
street railways to the public control of
the telegraph and steam railroad. 1t
was on this basis lat he made his
tight, on this that he appealed to the
quantity and not the quality of voters
in Detroit to begin with, aud afterward
to the same potential feature in the
state"
And he won in both the city and the
state, He had been mayor of Detroit
upon this sort of a platform for eight
years when he was elected governor,
and he is now serving his second term
as chief executive of the state, and it is
well enough to bear in mind that it is
q Republican state and that if the Gov.
ernor's ideas are "Populistio' it is very
evident that they are shared by large
majority of the people. who are Repub-
ticans also. In the best governed cities
in the world the water, light and street
railway systems are owned and oper.
ated by the municipalities, and there is
no good reason why the cities of this
country should not be governed as well
rs Glasgow or Toronto upon the same
general lines The people will not long
he content to have tLeif effbrts 10 in.
Rugurate much needed reforms shat,
tered by the courts upon the rock d
'eonstitutiGnality.n The constitution
OF the various states all emanated from
the people aud the people can append
them. and amend them they win q
the necessity for 80 doing becomes
clearly apparent. If this power yers