The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1906-06-16
GOOD MEN IN a BAD WAY.


Quite as startling as the revelations Of
graft In the insurance companies are those
in the highest circles of management Of the
Pennsylvania Railroad. Now, the Pennsyl-
vania Railroad has held reputation for the
wisest and shrewdest management Of all our
railroad companies. It has been the example
to which English students Of internal COM
merce have referred. We recall that when
several years ago the London Times sent q cor
respondent to this country to learn how Amer
lean methods had come to be 30 far In advance
Of the English, be devoted his investigation to
the Pennsylvania Railroad, and showed how
it sent to the scrap-heap its old engines as fast
as 1t could get better.
Equally it has been supposed that this rail-
road had conducted its business with fairness
and honesty. Most reputable men were sup
posed to be those who were its officers. They
were men of credit in Church and State. So
much more is the surprise and pain to dis
cover through the sharp investigation of the
Interstate Commerce Commission shat they
are no better than the very reputable men OF
the insurance companies whose masks have
fallen, and who have been driven out of the
offices which they had used for their personal
emolument and not for the benefit of the COM
panies they controlled
| It is no new lesson, but very painful one,
| to learn that activity in religious work does
not assure conscientious integrity. We will
take one man as an example, by no means the
| only one, but one the most prominent in this
| matter.
Mr.. William A. Patton is the assistant to
| President Cassatt. He admits, and, he says,
without shame, that, without paying cent
| Co. - he au If &90z
stock of coal and coke companies, some OF
| which, as other evidence proves. have received
| exceptional faEoTs from the Rennsylvan1a'
Railroad Company. He says that most OF
| this be acquired through the part he took in
organizing the companies and in some cases
| giving his notes to protect their bonds. But
naturally, there was never any loss; there
| could be none, for they were favored by the
companies in which Mr. Patton and other off.
GERS were not interested. That is. because he
| owned this stock, costing him nothing, be
could make large profit in its dividends; said
dividends depending on the railroad Partially
salary for honest service Of the Pennsyiva
Railroad, and he used his position to fill his
own pockets. This is very wrong before God
and man, taking profits for himself which
would have gone to others II they had not
been, as is shown, shut out from the market.
| Now, who is William A. Patton? He is an
| elder in Presbyterian Church, has been for
| dozen years, and more, superintendent OF its
| Sunday school, and is member high in the
! international councils of the Young Mems
Christian Association. He has been regarded.
aud, we may presume, has regarded himself
| as being model Christian man, an example
to the world Of honest thrift. But was he?
| The easiest way to explain such lapses is to
suppose that We are developing higher ethica!
| sense, and that such men have lived and
| thriven in an earlier competitive age before 1t
| was learned that these practices are wrong
| Just as good religious men were engaged in
| the slave trade hundred or more years ago.
nowadays the brewery is, in England, the ally
| of the Church, so it was in those dark ages
| thought to be quite right to pick up what one
could grab as he walked along the king high
| way. There is certain measure OF truth in
| this contention and excuse for the moral sense
| of the world is all the time growing. We are
beginning to think even war is not an honora-
| BILE business. One of these days we may think
| Of great soldiers as we now think of Garfield.
But this explanation will hardly do for the
| men of the Pennsylvania management and
directorate. They have long known that they
had no right to show discrimination for per-
| sonal profit. 1t is more than dozen years
| ago that this matter came up before the direc
tors. A miner and shipper complained that
he was Disseminated against. His bids for
coal to the company were rejected whatever
| their figures, and he was restricted to one car
load day. He went to an honest man among
the directors, to Mr.. Thaw, of Pittsburg, and
Mr. Thaw was angry. He made it hot for the ne
officers in a meeting of the board, and-will
not Mr.. Cassatt who was present at the time.
| and Mr.. Patton, look up the records, and will
they not find that vote was passed forbid
ding the officers of the road to hold stock in
companies doing business with it? This is
worth bit of investigation.
We take Mr.. Patton as an example. because
be is not alone-many others might be men
toned. They are good men-so good-who
can
'.Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint
With some Of them their cloak Of religion is
themselves Bot we recall that the Devil
quoted the Bible in jerusalem on a steeple,
and good authority tells us that
"a davis not reckoned religious bird
Because he keeps cawing from steeple."
That $307,U00 may be considered only
fraction of the profit of favoritism. The local
assistant of President Cassatt, at Pittsburg, has
just RETIRED said by the papers to be worth
S2O.0O0,0O0. Then Chris Magee overestimated
his wealth several years ago when be intro
| duced him at a dinner as the man who had
| saved twenty-five millions on salary of
$4,000.
In BEHALF of more than 10000 school chill
dren in San Francisco who are deprived of
educational advantages by the burning of the
school houses, the superintendent of public
schools informs the people of the United States
that school reconstruction committee EN-.
powered to receive subscriptions for rebuilding
destroyed school houses has been formed, with
Mayor Schmitz as chairman. The appoint
ment of San Francisco school day in every
state and territory is recommended by the
school construction committee when contri-
buttons may be made by school children
throughout the land.
THE SCRAMBLE over the Maryland Offices
still at the disposal of President Roosevelt con-
tinues with no immediate prospect of SET