The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1907-02-01

ton
Agitation has been in the air for
twelvemonth or so. From lawsuits in
the courts against violators of the
statutes, this agitation, urged on by
yellow writer's in the magazines and
newspapers and by silver tongued or.
ators on the platforms, has come to
such a grave extremity that the presi-
dent has come to believe IL his duty
to call a halt, and he has stepped forth
In an authorized interview asserting
to the public that this unrest and un.
whole some clamOr must cease If the
countrys prosperity Is to continue.
So seriously does the president con
slider this matter that he has been
tempted to even seud a special mos
sage to congress bearing upon the
point
There has been ncessant complaint
during the past few months against
the railroads because of the car short
age Fuel famine in North Dakota
has added to the lramatic phase of
the incident and the yellow newspa-
pers have lost no whit of the dramatic
in studding their sheets with headlines
depicting the suffering of the North
Dakotans and the cruelty of the North
way magnates who had the nerve to
sit at home beside a warm firesde.
TO keep up with some of the journals
would have made one believe that the
railroad men actually took delight In
keeping coal from the frozen north.
Hands were clapped at that as far
as it went. The interstate commerce
commission emphasized the various
points that its prosecution brought
out. A little later a series of disas-
trous wrecks, resulting in the death
of hundreds, came upon the country,
enough against somebody-but which
failed to get at the root of things
Railroads were painted as deliberate
murderers, who laughed as they dab
bled in the blood of their passengers.
And all of the time justly enough,
too, there was a cry for more cars to
more engines to draw the trains, bet
| ter built cars to withstand the shocks
of collisions, shorter hours for work
men that the public safety might be
better guarded, more expensive block
signal service that we might run less
chance of wrecks, higher wages for
the employees and-lower rates of both
freight and passenger transportation.
| The latter demand exists in many
western state legislatures today.
The whole country joined in de-
handing better railroads and better
/ service and more equipment. Then
came James ]. Hill to point out that
to supply this nation with rails and
trains enough to adequately handle the
! traffic, there must be spent $5,50000O,-
! 600 within the next five years-or ST.
! 10O,OOO,00O each year. This must be
cash, Italians who build railroads
work only for cash and cash must pay
/ for equipment and right of way.
| There must be built in the next five
years $4,000 miles of main track and
third more for terminals, ETC. max
ing $4,000 altogether, or $4,000 each
year.
But where is the cash coming from
! That stupendous amount represents
thirty to forty percent of the whole
cost of the civil war and several times
tho entire bonded Indebtedness of the
United States.
! A few men can not raise that sum.
1t must be borrowed and borrowed
from Europe. But Europe is not in
vesting in a project which is the tar
! get for incessant agitation and destruc-
tive clamor of the whole country.
And so, realizing the need of this
money and the peril of bombastic agi-
tation that has spread through the
land, the president has authorized a
4 SIdlSlllChl IilhI hS 10 a VI
roads and railroad building; that he is
a friend of corporations and combina.
lions of corporations, realizing they
are a necessity of the times and he
wants it understood that his prosecu
ton of lawbreakers is not to be inter
preted as antagonism to railroads OF
other corporations.
This statement and this attitude
mark the beginning of the swinging
back of the pendulum from drastic ag
itation to a more wholesome conserva
tism.
EQUALITY, NOT CHEAPNESS."
The Outlook, one of the weekly mog
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