Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1902-01-10
THE WORK OF THE CONVENTION.

THE WORK OF THE CONVENTION.
1t is now well recognized and admit
Ted that the suffrage plank in the new
Virginia constitution is by no means |
as important as many other questions
which have come to the attention of
the convention since it began its work,
and which at the date of the sembling
of that body were not looked upon with
the interest they merited. One of these
is the issuing of charters and the con-
trolling of corporations. In our present
Underwood constitution there was 10
effort made to regulate these bodies,
and naturally so, because they were
then infants, now they are giants,
they were then innocuous, now they
may not be, but can be very powerful.
The vast combinations of capital and
consolidation of railroads and other
corporations are admittedly not in the
interest of the people, that goes with
out saying. Those who have just been
inspired in working up these oombina-
ton have never looked at the public
good, but are working for themselves
with might tand main, regardless Of
who is hurt, so they are not, or who
starye SO they feast. Conditions are
now as Vanderbilt wanted them to be
a number of years ago when he said,
1.-The people be damned" No sooner
do we see the least particle of legisla-
ton begin, looking toward proper
and equitable control of those bodies
than we also see rush of magnates
to the point of attack, as we have seeg
them rushing to appear before the
committee on corporations in our con-
vention within the last few weeks, and
with eyas turned toward heaven, and
hands uplifted. telling what disaster
would follow should a law be adopted
similar to the one proposed. The rep
resentatives of corporations have been
before that body in numbers recently
all the way from the attorney to the
high salaried president, and with one
accord have bewailed the proposed
action of the committee. Have the
people sent anybody to appear for
them before that committee2 Not one.
The corporations are always represent
ed, the people never, unless it be that
they have an occasional friend on the
committee, as we know they have in
this instance.
But what can the committee do I'M
less the people support them by their
voices and influence?
Our people have not become aroused
We fear, to the subject of corporate
control and proper taxation. DO our
people know that by the policy of our
great railroads those who have owned
most of the coal lands in Virginia and
West Virginia have been so discrimi-
mated against, that their coal lands,
with four or five seams of coal. are
worth no more than ordinary farm
land, and that the railroads refuse to
haul coal for any but their favored
shippers? Do they know that there
are large coal properties which snip
millions of dollars worth of coal year
ly, which do not pay any more taxes
than some of our large farmers Our
convention is trying to remedy these
evils, and we may say outrages, and
that is why they go slow, because
these are questions which are being
fought from start to finish. The efforts
of our faithful representatives may be
defeated, for it seems impossible to do
anything of late that money does not
dictate, or which money opposes, but
we hope the people of Augusta will
never cease in urging that these mat
tiers receive the attention they deserve.
We hope they will not heed the MET
ropolitan'' press, as the Richmond
papers call themselves, and which are
control He'd by corporations, but stand
by the "Provincial' press, which is
still left usually unbought and unbrib-
g d to tell them where their real inter-
ests lie.