The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1907-06-18
CASSANDRA.

Mr.. ]. J. Hills state Of mind must
be something dreadful. For the last
| few weeks he has done nothing but
utter The most gloomy predictions. Ca
'amity oozes from his lips as the toads
and frogs fell from the mouth of the
wicked daughter in a fairy story. He
ha: become nothing less than Cas-
sandra. or perhaps better, Jeremiah.
He is a prophet of woe, a herald of
j misery. His latest threnody purports
! as follows:
The business of the country has out
grown the carrying capacity of the
raih Dads; the roads cannot extend
their accommodations because they
have lost their credit; but the demand
Of the public for transportation will.
of course, be insistent; hence the
government must come to the aid of
the roads by lending them its credit.
The next step will be government
ownership, to be followed soon by the
downfall of republican institutions. Is
not this terrible to think of? Why have
the roads lost their credit? How does
anybody lose his credit? DR.. Johnson
said that nobody could write man
down except himself. One may like
wise say of railroad that if it loses
its credit it may thank itself. Loss of
redit is the logical result of the Is
sue of fictitious stock When people
End out that railroad securities rep
resent nothing but the airy hopes of
Spectators, they naturally decline to
tuv them. The genuine property of
| l. Il,
ever was, and, if it is not already more
than covered by bonds and mortgages,
money can still be raised on it the
same as on a house, or a farm. 1t is
only the inflated promises of promo
ters that have lost their power to
evoke cash from the pockets of inves-
tors.
The railroads cannot extend their
facilities for lack of credit. Well and
good. What were our great transport
tauon geniuses like Mr.. Hill doing
while they had credit? They must
have noticed that business was grow
ing while their roads were standing
still or deteriOrating. Why did not
they use their credit to enlarge their
facilities while they had plenty of it?
What were they doing with this mag
nificent credit. which has now burst
like the bubble it was? They used it
for trading stock, to gamble with in
Wall street, to engineer combinations
contrary to the law of the land. What
were you doing during the summer?'
asked the ant. Il sang" replied the
graSShOpper. well" said the ant,
NOW you may dance"
The country is very much inclined
to tell Mr.. Hill and his compeers to go
and dance themselves out of the
trouble they have gotten into. 1t
would do so only that the transporta-
| ton problem is really pressing,
says the Oregonian, and must be
solved in some way. Ultimate
| ly the solution will be reached
by the development of our internal
! waterways, which have been shame
fully neglected.; mainly through rail-
| road influence; but this will take a
long time. Something must be done
| Immediately. One of the magnates
| has said that more than a billion DOL
| lars ought to be spent at once on the
| roads It speaks beautifully for the
executive ability of our railroad barons
that they neglected the duty to i'm
prove their lines until the prospec-
tive expense has reached this magni-
tude. Where is the money to come
from?
Perhaps the government may be
compelled to take the matter in hand.
But in that contingency, one may pre-
dict that the business will be man
aged somewhat differently from the
scandalous old Union Pacific deals,
where the magnates got everything
and the public nothing If the nation
al credit is ever again loaned to the
railroads, or any of them, it will be,
as other loans are made, upon good
government will foreclose upon his
property. But this would not necessa-
rily lead to government ownership. Mr..
Hill forgets that there is an open
market where railroads can be sold
like other property, and if the govern
ment is watched closely enough it
can sell to as good advantage as any
other holder. But even if by that
time the people should have come to
think best for the nation to retain the
!roads. what would follow? Why should
the ownership of a railroad destroy
our institutions any more than the
ownership Of a park or battleshir
or pOStoffice? The solicitude Of Mr.
Hill and his compeers for the per-
petuity of republican government is
very touching, but their anxious fore
bodings seem a little superfluous