Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1901-06-11
ALesson of the Panic.

Is there any food for reflection In
the fact that on Thursday, while
Northern Pacific stock was kiting
between 100 and 1000, government
bonds did not fluctuate by so much as
l per cent?
Suppose the postoffice had been a
private institution and there had
been corner in its stock, with two
hair-pulling sets of community of
interest" capitalists fighting for con-
trol-how would the market have felt?
Or suppose the Northern Pacific
had been a public highway, owned
and controlled by the government as
the postotfice is now, where would the
material for squeeze and a panic
have been found?
Go through the lists of securities in
whose wild fluctuations fortunes have
been made and lost within the past
few days, and take out all the shares
of railroad, telegraph, and telephone
lines, gas, water, and electric light
companies, and see how much ma
terial for stock jobbing would be left.
Then reflect that there are many
countries in which this contraction of
area of financial legerdemaln is an &C
complished fact.
Some philosophers have held the
theory that a benevolent disposition
is the best form of government.
Others have replied that it might be
the best form if you could be sure of
keeping up the supply of benevolent
deposits. But the general verdict is
that unlimited power over the lives
and fortunes of community is not a
good thing to intrust to any man even
a professional philanthropist.
Now the financial world is organ
lied on the principle. of ~despotism.
1t does not even make an attempt to
provide that its deposits should be
benevolent. But it has been comfort
ing itself of late with the theory that
they are so.
deSpotiSm means. We have seen the
men who own the great highways of
commerce upon which the prosperity
of the nation depends bombarding
each other with massed millions
while thousands of homes fall in ruins
in their track. Is there any reason in
the constitution of the universe why
such absolute irresponsible power
should be trusted to- any human be-
ing? Should any man be allowed at
his mere caprice to cut a Swath of
ruin through the community?
Political power, as it was exercised
by the Kings of Middle Ages, meant
for the masses of the nations little
more than the right to regulate thu
public police arrangements and tx
take certain small share of eact
mans property for taxes. Yet oul
forefathers thought such powers were
too great to be left to anybody's arbi
trary will, and they sheared away thu
royal perogatives. But now our king
of finance have and exercise the powe
not merely to tax their subjects, bu
to strip them of their possessions t
the last dollar and throw them beg
CARED on the roadside. Is it not tim
that progress should go littl
farther?
Most of the stocks whose manipuls
tion at the whim of grasping capita
lists has wrought such havoc are base
upon franchises granted by public ..au
thority. The Northern Paci tic is nc
tably such property. 1t is a roa
that was built by the direct aid of TIL
United States extended not onl
through franchise, but through
colossal grant of public land. Thel
would have been no corner in it if til
nation had adopted the policy
Public ownership of public frau
chises. -Ncw York Journal.
Who,, ;e PhiIinipo an Anoorican