Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-08-13
He Will Advocate State Owner.
ship of Railroads and Other
Public Utilities
HIS NEW YORK ADDRESS
He Will Attack the Trusts and Declare
There is No Way of Regulating
/ Then-That They Must Be Destroy
! ed-Will Favor Amendment to Per-
I. NIT Income Tax Law.

81 81. Louis, MO-, Aug. 10 iAo''N
Bassford, staff correspondent of the
St. Louis Republic, writing from Zu-
rich, Switzerland, under date of August
3, gives the first definite statement of
William j. Bryans program for turn
ing the railroads Of the country over
to the federal and state governments.
The plan is new and has been carefully
worked out.
.Mr. Bryan will attack the trusts in
his New York speech writes Mr..
Bassford, land / suppose 'he will go
further and give his views on certain
forms of the public ownership of the
utilities. with especial reference to
railroads, both interstate and within
states. 1t is also quite likely that with
the support of the original Bryan party
wing and the aid of such eastern con-
servatives as Alvah A. Clark, OF New
Jersey, he will come out boldly for a
constitutional amendment that Will
make an income tax one of the certain
ties of the next half dozen years. Ii
Mr.. Bryan enters upon the money
question it is quite likely that he will
repeat his assertions of the recent
years that conditions have eliminated
money as an issue. These conclusions
are the results of several conversations
with Mr.. Bryan in London. at which
time / saw him nearly every day in a
fortnight.
zone of the many striking impress
sions that have come to Mr.. Bryan on
this tour has to do with the ownership
of the great public utilities by the
state, with especial reference to the
railroads. Mr.. Bryan has been in Eu-
rope on other occasions. He has been
careful to examine the conditions sur
rounding the government management
of larger arteries of travel.
TN one very important particular he
would apply the theory differently to
the United States. His plan would ad-
NIT of the ownership of certain trunh
lines by the general government in c.
der that the famously efficient thru
service should not in any way suffer
impairment, but he would insist that
the local lines in every state be owned
by the separate states, thus preserving
& 3lbOIG GllSCludily lie ldSd VI StclC 1H~
dividuality, which in Mr.. Bryan's opin-
ion would in time be wiped out if all
lines passed into federal control. The
enormous patronage that would be the
result of such railroad management
In America would, of course, tend to
intrench the party in power and would
In time accomplish what Mr.. Bryan
fears and would contend against, the
abolition of state boundaries.
"Over here it is interesting to note
the almost absence of confusion in
passing from one government to an
other. This fact is presented to me in
the argument which no doubt will be
speedily Forthcoming that the great
confusion would result if passengers
were moved, let us say, from Kansas
City, Mo-, to Springfield, ILL.,, on lines
owned by the states of Missouri and
Illinois. Surely these two states are
in every way more closely related than
Holland and Germany or, better yet,
Germany and France or Germany and
Switzerland. Yet only the other night,
having occasion to come down to
Cologne in Germany from Amsterdam
in Holland, did not leave my seat in
very comfortable train from one city
to the other save for the purpose of
declaring my baggage before the Gus
toms officials at Emmerich.
sThere is never "a night that the
famous and magnificent orient express
does not cross some European border,
one direction or the other, and there
is a fast train from Paris to the south
west that crosses national borders
without the slightest hitch.
Considers General Aspect.
eff one may pass the Franco-Ger-
man oundary in the night without "a
hitch on lines owned by the two gov
ernments there can be no fear of con-
fusion among passengers, cars or
crews when train owned by Indiana
passes across the Ohio river to tracks
owned by the great state of Kentucky.
1t is no part of Mr.. Bryan's intention
at this time to take up the ftrivialities
Of public ownership. So far as I have
been able to observe, Mr.. Bryan is con-
sidering the subject in it's broadest as
pect, developing at the same time an
entirely new and very democratic feat
ure-that of individual state owner
shin,