The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1899-03-13
BURNS HND THE RAILROAD.

= PREPARATIONS, like men, usually work for
their own interests, and although it is frequently
- thought that account OF their advantages they
acquire much power and too much influences they
are not commonly abused because they are not phil
anthropists but act upon selfish motives. In this
State however, the group of corporations now epto-
nized by the Southern Pacific Company seems to
have been possessed by evil and malicious spirit
which has inspired it to antagonize the people even
when the antagonism was Improbable. Its contempt
for public opinion and its virulent love OF power have
been manifested to degree that has caused amaze
ment at home and abroad. The Central Pacific Rail
road had hardly been completed through the munll-
cent endowment OF the Federal Government by the
State and by municipalities before the words all the
traffic will bear expressed its undertaking policy Part
of the ordinary railroad business became the cultl
vation by the establishment of opposition towns, Of
nimical relations with thriving communities in the
San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys Wherever there
was railroad station it was used as custom house,
from which a tariff which Disseminated between To-
cates and even between individuals and that was
frequently prohbitory, enforced. The absence
or the suppression of competition for twenty eight
years or Whereabouts and the unrelenting greed and
selhshness of this singuarly favored monopoly drew
into its treasury very large proportion Of the net
earnings of the State and through its concentration
OF purpose its close relations with every form OF BUSH
ness and OF industry the skilled intelligence 1t COM
manded and its stern and unbending discipline, its
power over politics. society legislation and, as many
believed even the administration OF the law, grew to
be almost unlimited and intoerabe.
This unnatural position, impossible except under
our isolated condition, not obtained without
steady and uncompromising resistance and in grow
ing American commonwealth reaching out in all di-
rections for connections with the civilized and even
with the uncvilized world could be permanent
" held The railroad always opposed, not within
its legitimate sphere but in its aggressive cupidity
and in its insolent dogmatsm and sometimes it was
beaten At last point was reached where two facts
seemed to concr first that all practical questions be-
tween the railroad and the people settled and
closed and second, that its brand upon political
organization insured defeat. Our citizens OF any rec
ognized party not sandlotters nor proletarlans
They have no prejudice against the railroad, no wish
to conhscate its property nor to deprive 1t OF just
compensation for services rendered, but earnest
desire to protect its substantial interests and for the
permanent restoration of that harmony which would
never have been broken but for its unjust exactions
and its despotc methods. When the campaign of
1893 began appeared that the time ripe for the
complete assertion of conservative and yet progressive
Americanism through the Republican party, combin-
ing in its support the best elements of population
and for the seizure and of unexampled opportun-
ties with broad and acute comprehension of their
significance and with united determination in this
evenul period to place California where she belongs
in the vanguard of the Union
1t at this precise time that the railroad under
Democratic leadership accomplished its deepest
treachery to the Republican party and to the State
1t proclaimed broadcast its absolute and irrevocabe
withdrawal from interference with politics. It's decla-
rations accepted and acted upon in good faith
and the banner Of national Republcansm was carried
to triumphant Hardly was the election
over however, when the railroad pledges were boldly
repudiated, the determination to send its agent to
Washington avowed and the unprecedented candidacy