Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1899-08-18
PUBLIC FRANCHISES.

Mayor Jones, of Toledo, Ohio, says:
Private ownership of public fran
chises Is high crime against democ-
racy. II is contrary to the spirit Of
republican Institutions. It is a city
granting privilege 70 az Individual
to enrich himself, usually at the ex-
pense Of the classes least able to bear
1t, the poor people. The hard-earned
nickel Of the ,washerwoman and the
toiler 60 to make up the profits of the
street railway magnates. Let all those
who share this sort OF profit under
stand the source OF their wealth. I
want the ladies who wear diamonds
and the men who make gifts OF this
kind Of money to universities, hospl-
tails, missionary societies and churches
to be made aware of the source of their
revenue.
"In granting. in giving or in selling
franchise of that kind the city be-
comes party of the crime. The So
cial distress in our cities, our states
and nation today can be clearly traced
to our dishonest business methods. 1t
is not corrupt politicians that has
brought disaster so much as corrupt
business men. *
"The methods Of business have got
into our politics through every con,
ceivable form of bribery and appeal to
the vilest and lowest passions Of hu-
man life, with the result that we have
country in which few people are
wealthy, few are in what may be
called circumstances Of reasonable
comfort, the masses are on the verge Of
poverty and millions are in absolute
pauperism.
"The trust, the combine, the monon
oily, are all legitimate products of the
same wrong system, and the futile and
abortive efforts of our public officials
to get results from laws made to reg
ulate, restrain and control trusts is
striking illustration of the folly of our
method Of procedure.
1--WE have built up a social system
in which we have assumed that it was
pOoSlDlC tudl ali ouSICtu,
the very success of few is dependent
upon and can only come from the fall
ure of the many and it is because
see that suicidal policy of this kind
can lead to nothing but confusion
and COMPOUNDED" that protest against
It.
Through close personal contact with
biting poverty the great mass of The
disinherited are coming to understand
the source of their misery, the cause
Of their distress. They are coming
to see that our policy of granting sps-
cial privileges in the way of public
franchises, contracts and unusual OPP
portunities for proft-getting to a few
is inevitably making paupers of the
many, and our only salvation is to es-
tablish the purely democratic policy
in government of considering the in
terest of all the people as always ahead
of and superior to the rights Of any
individual or set of individuals.
"In my short experience in public life
I have learned two valuable lessons.
One is that public officials are not as
corrupt as they are popularity supposed
to be; the second is that business is the
poison that comes into the life of the
public officials and seeks to corrupt
it.
ut Is somebody's business interest
to get contract; it is to somebody's
business interest to get franchise or
extension of one, and the methods OF
business are too we'll known to call for
any comment at my hands.
IT know no better way TO study the
problem than for us to ad-
journ to the city hall, where we will
face to face with the municipal
problem as every official in this city
and every large city of our country
sees it day after day. 1t is the problem
of the unemployed. Scores of hungry
looking men in whose faces are plainly
written the lines Of hopeless despair.
And what special privilege or grant or
franchise do they ask? Only the privi-
lege that is the inherent right of every
mantle right to work.
when this right is once secured and
the place where men may work is as
easily found as the place where man
may vote, our problems will be solved,
for this is our municipal problem. 1t
IS our national problem"