The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1900-10-19
ERIC LET'S LOOSE.
Gives Some Pointers About
Linds R. r. Commission.
Says They Have Accomplished Nothing
in Behalf of. the Farmer.---
Latest Move. "a. Farce.


Press, Eric Olson, the well known
P opulist, of Sherburn, addressed a
gathering of perhaps 200 or 300 at the
corner of Front and Hickory streets
Friday evening. Previous to his talk,
M. S. Park, of Glencoe, spoke for
few minutes, referring to the work of
the railroad commission. He said
that it was fraud and accomplished
nothing but pile up expenses for the
farmer. If anything more was needed,
he said, to prove his statement, it was
the expense account of the gr an in
spection department, for the past year,
which had inspected less cars of grain
and had more employees than during
previous years. He claimed the COM
mission had never accomp any
thing beneficial to the farmer and that
as result it ought to be abolished.
Fl his listeners to study well
the questions of the day. and said they
should be studied up to election day
before the voter fully made up his
mind how he would vote.
Eric Olson then mounted the box
and addressed the crowd. He said he
was not stranger to Mankato, and
briefly detailed some of his early ex-
periences Mr. Olson is not without
humor, and there was vein of it
running through all that he had to say
He gave his reasons for being abroad
and said the Democrats were afraid
he would hurt them, and had en-
deavored to head him off, but said
they ought to know him we'll enough
by this time, not to waste time and
energy that way. He said if the
Democrats had done their full duty
they had promised they would have
no need of being afraid of me- He
then turned to his subject and waded
into the state railroad and warehouse
commission and Gov. Lind without
gloves. He gave quite detailed &C
count of the reduction that was made
in grain rates from the southwestern
part of the state He told of the at
tempts he had made to get reduction
of the rates. How he had called the
attention of the commission and of
Gov. Lind to the matter and been
turned down by both. How Senator
Miller, Of Luverne, and = others had
taken hold of the matter and how the
commission came to act, and what a
great thing they claimed they
had done for the farmer. ~ He
said it was admitted :. that a rate
of cent ton a mile was about
right as basis. He then cited Pipe
stone as an illustration of the great
work the commission did. He gave
the distances on the three roads from
that -peint to Minneapolis The
shortest was about 10 miles, the Sec
ond little farther, and by the Mil
waukee road around by Austin about
1874, miles. The direct route would
have made the rate about 10 cents,
but the commission took the Milwau-
kee route as the basis and the rate
was fixed at ID cents. There was no
question he said in sarcastic manner,
about the commission being the friend
of the farmer and shipper, and Gov.
Lind approved of the work commits
sion. Fhe governor and his commits
sion claim, said Mr.. Olson, that they
have saved the farmers and shippers
Of the southwest portion of the state
$4O0, 600 annually, but he denied that
they had saved them a cent. What
ever has been saved, he said, is re-
suit Of the efforts of Senator Miller and
others who forced the commission to
act Mr.. Olson claims that had it not
been for this pressure, they would have
done nothing.
Mr.. Olson then took up the recent
move of the commission for a reduc-
tion of rates over the entire state, and
completely riddled it. He said it
amounted to nothing and that it look
ed as though there had been no inten-
tion from the first that it should. He
said that the commission with great
flourish started out to make schedule
of rates for the roads of the state but
having had no experience in that line
they got badly mixed up. Being in
their Office at ST. Paul one day while
they were at it, he said he advised
the commission to hand the matter
over to the railroads as they were
more familiar with such details, that
being their business, and the commits
sion followed his advice. The roads,
he said, did better job of it. They
favored themselves, as matter of
course. They always do. But the
commission had not even obliged them
to follow their own proposals, nor had
Gov. Lind ordered his commission
to do so. Only three or four towns
had been given better rate, of which
Mankato was one, but the arrange
ment was such that little benefit
would come from it. The whole
thing he characterized as a farce. Said
it looked as though Gov. Lind was
trying to pose as the especial friend
of the roads and the people, and was
telling both on the side how he had
saved each from the other.
He said that he did not want to Grip
pie the. railroads, all he wanted waswhat
was right, but he did not like to see
the governor and the commission tell