The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-03-04
IS THERE TO BE ONLY ONE RAIL.
ROAD?

| the Northwest is believed by many to
| be the beginning Of mighty railroad
| trust which will absorb all the railroads
| into one mighty combine just as the steel
trust has absorbed all the steel plants.
Already, we are told the plans have
been perfected for the Southern Securi-
Seaboard Atlantic Coast Line, the Plant
System, the Louisville and Nashville,
the Chesapeake ard Ohio and the other
Southern systems, provided the pending
litigation settles the right to effect the
combinations.
Writing of the suit instituted by the
Attorney General to test the right of the
Northern Securities Company to merge
before the Supreme court held that it
did not have original jurisdiction, the
Memphis Commercial Appeal discussed
the matter with its usual clearness We
quote:
THE suit to be instituted by Attorney
General Knox against the Northern Sc
curltieS Company for the purpose of dis
solving the great railway combination,
will be watched with sharp interest by
the people of the United States This
railroad merger has been generally re-
garded as the preliminary step to the
formation of great railway trust which
would eventually take in all the rail
ways in the United States. The govern
mental action against the merger was at
first thought to indicate a general war
fare upon the industrial trusts now flour
ishing in direct violation of the Federal
antitrust law The governmental Off
Gals, however, have FASTENED to deny
that the Sherman law is to be enforced.
The movement against the railway con-
sCiidation is said to have come from
President Roosevelt, and we can there
fore form no opinion as to either it's
nationality or its sincerity. There are of
course, times when our irrational chief
executive is rational, just as there are
times when that STACEY individual is sin
cere. He would be a rash man indeed
who would undertake to locate the Pres
idential motive, or forecast the Presiden-
tial course. When Mr.. Roosevelt was
Governor of New York he sent a blister
ing message to the Legislature to an
tagoniZe some legislation desired by Tom
Flatt; and when the Legislature ac-
guessed he called an extra session to
lrcmedy what he himself had brought
about.
4 THE Presidents movement against the
railroad merger is probably but another
ohe Of his grand stand plays. If he were
really intent on enforcing the laws he
would go after the trusts. There is a
Fe eral law which provides that every
contract, combination in the form OF
trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in re-
straint of trade, etc, is hereby declared
to be Illegal" Moreover every person en-
gaging in such a combination shall be
punished by a fine not exceeding s. 600
or by Imprisonment not exceeding one
year, Or by both punshments, in the dis
cretiOn OF the court" This law covers
nearly all the Industrial combinations
recently formed in this country. The
promoters of the various trusts all attack
the principle of competition, and all are
formed to restrain trade in such way
that they can fix prices. The President
has doubtless read the law and he knows
it has persistently been violated. If he
meant business he could have all the trust
promoters prosecuted and sent to the
penitentiary.
His war on the railway consolidation
will probably end as all his wars end
in a big noise and big smoke. When
he began his great fight on the canal
thieves in New York he appointed two
Democratic railway lawyers TO make an
investigation. These reported that the |
no Of
the statute of limitations; and thereupon |
Mr.. Roosevelt announced that the charges |
had been investigated By two Democrats, |
and there was nothing in them. That's |
the kind of a fighter our President is.
1.-THE railroad problem is one OF the |
most serious that confront the people of |
the United States, for it is by dominating |
and browbeating the railroads that some |
of the most powerful trusts have been |
able to grow. Take, for instance, the |
Standard Oil Company. Without the ia
vors which it obtained crimnally from
the railroads il could never have waxed |
great AS a sample of the way it oper-
ated in obtaining favorable discrimina-
ton, we quote the letter filed by the re-
ceiver of the Cleveland and Marietta
railroad, containing this demand: THE
oldHudTu VII Company threatens 10 STORE |
and afterwards pipe all oils under it's |
control unless you make the following ar
rangements, viz: You shall make a uni |
form rate Of 35 cents per barrel for all |
persons excepting the Standard Oil Com
pany; you shall charge them 10 cents a
barrel for their oil, and also pay them 20
cents per barrel out of the So cents col
lected of other shippers
1.-THE plain English should be used. You
shall rob every shipper, excepting the |
Standard Oil Company, of % cents on
every barrel of oil, ard you shall turn
this stolen money over to the Standard |
Oil Company" This system of highway
robbery was employed consistently by
the Standard Oil Company. How it came
TO get such a hold on the railroads can
rot be explained here, but it is stated as
an incontrovertible fact that it so con-
trolled the great Pennsylvania road and |
all other roads needed in it's business.
THE discrimination that hurts is such
as this. 1t hurts the carrier as well as |
the shipper who gets the worst of it.
When the Standard Oil was making it's
fight on George Rice of Marietta O., and |
he asked the railroads for the same rates
as the trust they met him with the an