The independent. [volume] (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907, 1905-09-21
PLATFORMS AND PASS HOLDERS
Continued from Page u

PUBIC SENTIMENT THAT HOW 6AlSlS
against free passes. The pass
holder is railroad procured man, and
the people cannot trust him. The
pass-hOlders are responsible for polit-
ical conditions that have existed in
Nebraska for twenty-five years. The
people have been betrayed by some
body, and this somebody is the old
time pass-holder. Because a resOlu-
tion is now passed in a convention
does not mean that all these old pass
holders have become regenerated, and
that they have purged themselves of
corporation influence. 1t means moth
ing of the kind The fact that he,
with passes in his pockets, votes for
an anti-pass resolution simply shows
that he is adding hypocrisy to the be-
trayals that he has already practiced
upon the people all these years.
Unbribed Officials Needed
So that l will be clearly under
stood let me say that populist and
democratic pass-holders belong in the
same class. / am not now talking
about any political party. am speak
ing about pass-holders. In the ranks
Of the republican party will be found
hundreds and thousands of voters who
are not tainted with railroad influ-
ence, and these republican voters
want to throw off the railroad yoke,
] believe, just as much as populists
and democrats do in this state. You
will never get rid of railroad inf1u-
ence in this state, however, except
by delegates and candidates and pub
lie officials who are free from rail
road influence and who therefore must
be free from railroad passes.
Rejected Anti-Pass Bill
Last winter, while the Nebraska
legislature was in session, ! appeared
before the committee on railroads to
advocate the passage of an anti-pass
bill / had drawn. The committee
looked at me with glass eyes. 1t had
no sympathy with any kind of an
anti-pass bill, and members of that
committee arose in that meeting and
openly boasted that they were riding
on passes and proposed to do so as
long as they could get them, and only
regretted that | did not do the same.
That committee treated that anti
pass bill with contempt. It did so
because everyone Of them, as I am
informed, at that very moment had
their pockets full of railroad passes
from all the railroads in Nebraska. If
that committee had been committee
OF free and Independent men, who had
not been riding on passes for years,
they would have passed that bill or
another one that would have abolished
the free pass system. Let the people
not be deceived. Old time pass
holders cannot be trusted. If the
state government is ever purged
from railroad influence it must be
done and will be done by men who
have not been the political agents
and friends and representatives OF
the railroads all these years.
Throwing the passes away when the
public with the whip OF righteous in
dignation is whipping these recreant
officials into line is like a death bed
repentance-it means nothing Public
officials who throw their passes away
simply because the public makes them
throw them away will again take the
passes just as soon as the public
quiets down upon the question. They
do not refuse the passes from a mat
ter of principle, or because they be-
lieve the acceptance of them to be
wrong, but they refuse them because
they are obliged to to save their
political lives. Beware of these old
pass-holders.
A Meaningless Plank
In the second place the resolution
passed is meaningless. If the reso-