Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1906-12-10


the many. we must still consider the
immense power of combined wealth,
especially for evil.
Gladstone thrilled the people of
!. Great Britain in his last successful
campaign by saying, Let us put our
trust not in titles nor In squires nor in
peers nor in acres, but in the honesty
and intelligence of the nation The
same sentiment should throb as a five
coal in the minds of our prhlic men.
No Danger of COnfscatiOn.
There is no danger of the confisca-
ton of private property in this coun-
try any more than in England. But
the acquisition of private property by
the dishonest use of public franchises
and the aid of cunning statutes is a
very different thing. 1t is more than a
menace to our republican Institutions;
| ii is fraught with their destruction if
| suffered to continue. The moral odium
of it would in the end debase us all.
! and no base people can in the nature
/ of things remain free, self governing
people.
| 1T has been difficult to get some peo-
| pie TO understand that our railroads
are not private roads, but our public
| highways. just as much so as our roads
which run alongside of them.
Mr. Bryan recently suggested that
| the government should take over the
| railroads and run them. He based this
| on the assertion that Il railroad Is a
monopoly and that there should be no
private monopoles. His conclusion Is
sound. but | do not see that his pre-
mise is. although there is nothing nov
ell or startling in his suggestion of gov
eminent ownership and operation when
three-fifths of the railroads of the
world are owned and operated by gov
eminent.
ANY favoritism in railroad rates
is absolutely unlawful and always was.
The only new laws we needed on
that head was TO enable us to put in
prison railroad officials who should be
| found guilty of such favoritism.
'Inasmuch as we now have such
| laws the prosecution of the corporation
itself. a mere name which has no phys
ical body to be put in prison instead of
the guilty officials. is not having n good
effect on the public mind, to say the
least.
1T is the guilty railroad official, how.
ever high and even though he may
have arisen to a high place in the coun-
ellis or government of the nation or
If he be only the locS station agent in
village or the loneliest place, who
should be prosecuted
This favoritism in freight rates is
the greatest crime of our day and gen.
GRAFTON.
ITO allow one man or set Of men to
have their freight carried over the pub
lie highways at a rate so much lower
than that which their rivals I'm bust
ness are charged as to enable them to
undersell such rivals and even drive
them out of business is so heartlesS
and so damnable that we shall be look
ed back upon by our descendants and
by the future historian as a generation
lost to moral sense for having suffered
such condition to exist so long.
Just think of the public highways
of a nation. open by law for all on
equal terms, being used by the per-
sons in control of them for such a
purpose! 1t is shocking!
1T has done more wrong and worked
more evil than all of the ordinary
crimes for which we imprison men ev-
cry day. 1t has caused a deep seated
conviction in the community that we
do not convict our big criminals here
as they do in England.
Origin of Term ''Trusts."
"A trust is Il partnership or combina-
ton of competing corporations. BY |
such partnership or combination com
petition is destroyed. This is the |
meaning of the word in the public |
mind as applied to aggregatiOns of |
commercial capital. Such combina- |
tons were at first made by means of |
trustees. and that is how they came to |
be called trusts"
Judge Gaynor told how after the |
Standard Oil and sugar trusts had |
been dissolved by suits in New York |
and Ohio "some master mind, lawyer
or layman conceived the notion of a
corporation being formed with power
to acquire and hold the share certif-
Gates of other corporations, of any
number of other corporations without
limit" and concluded:
IF there be blame we are ourselves
to blame, for we elected representa-
tives to our legislatures to pass these
statutes. And the incredible thing is
that all the while both the voters and
their legislative representatives were
crying out loudly against the trusts.
Was such a spectacle ever before seen
in the world?
Buckle points out that the CONNER
cial reforms of the first half of the
nineteenth century in Europe consisted
in repeating the laws which had been
passed to regulate and aid commerce
and which were all sources of mischief
instead of good. Is this history to re-
peat itself with us in the twentieth
century,"
A Certain Advantage.
90 A woman can nINravS GET the hotter