Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1900-08-09
Republican Party and the Rail-
roads.


II has always been part Of the stock
III trade Of the populIst party to abuse
The railroads and to charge that they
helped the republican party with con
triHutions to The campaign fund.
Every time a republican board Of rail
road assessors has had the subject be-
fore them, it has increased the assess
ment of the railroad property. There
upon the populists would set up a cry
that this increase was punishment
meeted out to the railroads because
they had in the campaign before re-
fused to contribute to the republican
treasury. When the next campaign
would come around the pop
ulist organs, forgetting their state
ment of a few months before, would
again insist that the railroad corpor-
ations were contributing large sums
of money for the republican cause.
An illustration Of how this is done
will be found in the following special
dispatch, which appeared in the Kan
sas City Times, May 2O,lS99, Just after
the republican board Of assessors. had
raised the railroad assessments:
Special, Kansas City Times, Topeka,
Kansas, May Goth, 1S9,-Several railroads
paid the penalty to-day of refusing to
contribute to the republican campaign
fund. The Missouri Pacific which put up
nothing, had Its assessment raised S23',-
900, and the Santa Fe which also stood
aloof suffered an increase of S23S,O Inc
Frisco Memphis, Grand Island, Pitts
burg & Gulf and the Great Western
also suffered smaller increases. but the
two roads just named must stand the
brunt of the total increase of $594,lS9 in
the railroad assessment announced to-day
by the State Board of Equalization.
The first point to suggest itself in
considering this demo-pop statement
is that the railroads refused to con-
tribute to the republican campaign
fund. 1t is a notorious fact that they
had contributed to the populist cam
paign fund, not because they loved
the populists, but because they feared
them and knew the only way to get
them was to buy them. The evidence
taken by the populist investigation
committee, concerning railroad legis-
lation in the populst legislature of
1897, showed that the railroad compa-
MES went into business of buying re-
formed statesmen on large scale.
While the prices yaried-some secur-
ing as high as $1,000, others were on
the baruain counter as low as Sl50-
the general proposition remained that
populist Legislators could be bought
and were bought. The same rule APP
piled to the same men when they
were in charge of the campaign as a
state central committee.
The corporations of Kansas have
never suffered much from the popu-
list party, except what they lost by be-
ing held up and forced to contribute
cash for Legislative votes. The popu-
lists also announced with a blare OF
trumphets that they proposed to
knock corporations silly but when the
test came, the corporations either
quietly bought up the head trumpet
ers, or the populist legislators made
the law so silly that the knocking
was done by the supreme court.
The only party the corporations have
TO fear in Kansas is the republican
party, and they have no fear of it, ex-
cept for wrong practices or unfair
charges. The republican party gave
the state a practical railroad law,
which should have been strengthened,
The populist party gave the state a
court of visitation, which has fraz-
zeled out like cotton string.
In the campaign just beginning the
populists will probably again renew
their wordy attacks upon railroad cor
porations, and will denounce the re-
publicans as the friends of railroads,
but out of their own mouths the pop
ulists are themselves condemned, for
they have said that the railroads re-
fused to help the republicans, and
they have sworn that the railroads
contributed literally to the populists,
and they have shown by their works
that the populist party were not un.
grateful to the railroads. The attempt