The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-11-13
Big Publicity Bureau to Fight
Rate Regulation Closes.
Claims Made That 1t Has Ac-
cOmplished Its Purpose.
RUMOR SAYS FAILURE.
Work So ''Raw' That Cause Was
Harmed More Than Helped.
Gossip and Matters OF Interest
in Railroad Circles.

Chicago, Nov. 13--'Finis," the cpl
taph of the Michaelis and Ellsworth
railroad publicity bureau, has been
written.
The edict has gone forth that the
main Office in Chicago and all of the
branch offices throughout the middle
west shall be closed. The hundreds of
representatives who have been travel
ing industrially over the country lin
terviewing' the editors of newspapers,
and trying by one means or another
usually the other-to spread the pro-
paganda against President Roosevelt's
rate regulation programme, all have
been ordered in, to receive their last
pay envelopes and to have their
elastic expense accounts checked UP.
The order went forth Saturday. The
railroad men are as silent about this
closing order as they have been about
their interest in the bureau during its
existence. At the offices of the bureau
itself the subaSsistant manager. who
was the only person in charge. de-
clared that he had not been told yet to
close the office. Nevertheless the fact
remains that the bureau is to close.
There are several rumors as to why
the bureau viii close, each of which
has its adherents. On the one hand,
it is said that Samuel Spencer and the
railroad presidents who originated the
idea of having a publicity bureau to
wean the people of the United States
from President R0osevelt's ideas on
rate regulation have come to believe
that their object has been accom-
plished.
It is only a short time before the
converting of congress, and the rail-
roads win transfer all their energies to
Washington, to work direct with the
congressman and senators.
1t is said that the railroad eXecu-
tives have been led to believe from the
reports they have received from their
agents in the bureau that the work has
! been eminentIy successful, that news
papers all over the country are begin
ming to voice the railroads side of the
question: and that a majority of the
people would vote against a PROPOSE
| ton to give the interstate commerce
commission rate making powers, if the
question were put to them as a refer
endum tomorrow.
Another reason which is given for
the closing of the bureau is that
George V. s Michaelis who is said to
1 be the head and brains of the bureau,
! is lying at deaths door in a hospital in
New York.
Another Tumor concerning the clos
ing of the bureau, and this has even
more adherentS than the first FumOr, is
that the bureau has proven a failure
and an expensive luXury-its cost haV-
/ ing been about $4,000, 0OO-which has
| done the railroad cause incalculable
! harm, and scarcely any good. 1t Is
pointed out by those who believe in
this theory that the latest fasco of the
/ bureau was the rump convention in
/ Chicago which it organized so nullify
as much as possible the influence of
/ the Bacon interstate commerce law
! convention. Instead of helping matters
/ it only brought into more prominence
/ the braZen methods which the railroads
! have been using in their campaigns.
1t is recognized by every railroad
/ president in the country that in the case
/ of the ruTnp convention the bureau did
! a great deal of harm They were sc
| open in managing the rump convention
that every one with eyes could see that
| it was no more than a railroad scheme
It is also said that the cruX of the
matter came recently when a western
paper, whose editor had been offered