The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-02-25
1OUR PEOPLE ARE HELPLESS''
By LINCOLN STEPHENS.

part of State shall not be developed? Or, to get little closer to the case. why should the B. and O. wish to pre- vent the development of mine 3.9SO feet from it's lines? Railroads want to make money, don't they?
 The Governor of West Virginia makes guess at the truth in his letter, He says:
 T think an investigation would show that the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Is interested in the production of coal mot directly, perhaps. but indirectly and substantially.
 Tt makes little difference as to the effect upon our people whether'the cor poration itself is directly interested fE the production of coal in competition with other purchasers of coal or wheth- CT officers and directors or controlling stockholders are so interested. The re- suit is the same.
 No. It might make no difference as to the result. But 1t would make a difference as to the policy of the rail roads If the directors or controlling stockholders or operating officers of the railroad were personally interested in the coal business, that would explain why they ran the road-not to develop all the resources of the State, but to kill off, little shippers and protect large shippers. If the railroad men naDDeQe0 IO DC VI thV ANh shippers" we know they would will lingly see the railroad make less money if they could make more. How do we know that? By the evidence of the life insurance investigations of New, York. The directors of those companies are the same sort of men that run our railroads; some of them are the very same men that run our railroads. We know how they ran the life insurance business. They ran those sacred trusts as gratis. Why not the railroad? The greatest graft developed in the insur- ance investigations was, not the least stealings, but he-abuse of the power of the officers and directors who sac rificed the interests of the insurance companies to force the development of subsidiary banks and trust companies in which they were interested And this is the graft that we are looking at now. For Governor Dawson need not Eave guessed. The Interstate Commerce Commission makes no bones about the real reason for all this chi canery. The Commission says:
 Careful consideration of the evil dence convinces us and we find that a chief reason why defendant (the rail- road) declines to grant this connec- ton (switch and sidetrack) is that 1t desires to protect coal companies ," in which it is interested"
 It is a general policy of graft-big graft, big business graft, but none the less graft-that Governor Dawson says holds his State in it's grasp. But why doesn't he shake of that grasp and free his State? He is the Governor, and the Governor Is supposed to be the political head of a sovereign Amer ican State. Of course. Governors rare ly are the head of their States, and this Governor says the Pennsylvania Railroad rules West Virginia. That's like New Jersey, but listen to the first citizen of West Virginia: '..t
 Tt may be that the Pennsylvania Railroad Company does not own a con- trolling part of the stock of the Bal timore and Ohio or the Chesapeake and Ohio or the Norfolk and Western, but I have no doubt that an investigation will show that the Pennsylvania practically controls It makes it's own rates, and our people are help less controlled by an alien corporation practically in direct com petition with us.
 Isn't that a humiliating confession for the elected Governor of a commu- nifty of Americans to make? Why doesn't MT. Dawson enforce the law of his State? He answers, in that same letter: We have some law in this State bearing on that subject (railroad rate discrimination, but 1t is made quate, and we have no means of en- forcing it." Doesn't that sound Amer ican? Why doesn't he recommend to his Legislature an adequate law? We'll, we all can guess why--Legislatures rarely represent the common interests of their State. But why doesn't the Governor appeal to his people?
 Our people are helpless" he an- swers, and I have heard that cry in many States and in many cities of the IInifnd Stafaq And it'a fa1ua Ot,,- people" are not helpless. In West Vir- ginia they are corrupt. Oh, not all of them-no, God forbid. But an effective minority sell their votes for cash at the polls in West Virginia, and that's why Governor Dawson of West Virginia sits down in his humiliation and, to the hu- initiation of his people, writes his plea for help to--a United States Senator.
 And what Senator? Not to one of his own. West Virginia has two repre- sentatives In the United States Senate |