Fitzgerald enterprise., 1907-01-17
RAILROADS AND COUNTRY EDI-
TORS.

ra1lrOad custom, was reCelVeu OJ US ID q
sealed envelope today, and marked leaf torn
rom the magazine, Scrugg's Harpoon. We dc
1ot know who Scruggs is, but his attempt al
the railroad pass system is so typica
that we publish it for that reason, for it is
puerile and without merit.
We do not approve the present arrange
ment between the weekly press and transporta
tion company, but there is.-certainly nothing il
It that is unfair to the press. We say this, il
face of the fact that we paid cash fare on th
Seaboard, yesterday, although we had in ou
pocket, 766 miles of unused mileage, issued t
US last year. We used only 240 miles of mile
age, on the Seaboard, last year, and probabl.
did $25 90 worth of advertising for that road.
A newspaper friend of mine wants to
know what I think of the treatment country
editors receive from the railroads. It we're
hard for me to answer just what think on
this subject. Pm fearful if do my leaden
pencil will soon be molten and the printing
press tightening in such a manner as to
make the storm-god envlous. OF all the
frauds I've observed since puss was kit,
the one.sided deal which the railroads palm
off on the country editor and which Is eager
ly, anxiousy and enthusiastically accepted
by the editor is the most brazen. How the
railroads first worked their hoodoo on the
country publisher will perhaps be one OF
the mysteries of the macrocosm, it's ldentl-
ty being comtemporaneous with the jay who
pelted Billium Patterson.
The railroad submits proposition to the
publisher to do so much advertising tor so
much transportation. That is a PROPOSE
ton born in the fecund brain of the devil
himself. Trade in exchange for advertise
&c Ln t0 hs
er. However the average country publish
er, yes probably ninety-fve of them out OF
every hundred, accept the proposition OF
the railroads. But this is not all of the rail-
road side It issues to the publisher, say
1000 miles of mileage. This mileage. be-
lieve is equal to fifty dollars. The trans
portation company then sends IN about one
hundred and fifty dollars worth of advertise
ing to be run in return for the practically
useless mileage book. Notwithstanding he
runs advertising at the rate of three for one
in favor of the railroad, the mileage is made
non.transferable, and non-uSeable 10 any
other person but the editor, and to that in
dividual only for the current year. Now
this editor, or publisher, usually one and
the same person, uses only i've hundred
miles of this transportation and pays three
prices for it, he must give back to the octo-
pus of the devil, the railroad company, the
any railroad company eyer returning any
cash for the paid.for property that 1t robs
the publisher of? Echo yels out IN great
mouthfuls of damitno, not in a eleventeen
hundred year or so.
This same corporation forbids the editor
to dispose of the transportation that he
has paid for FIVE or six times over, it mat
ters nit whether he has not used a mile oft
himself If he attempts to sell it, after
f0 a
sneak down dark, nasty alley, at dark
unseemly hour like a burglar or highway
man. and see broker. If the broker hand
les it all he usually pays about tenth OF
price for it, as the person who attempts to
use it must ride on it and feel like hunted
criminal. If he is found out he gets bounc-
ed so damned quick he forgets his name and
goes to the devil, so far as the railroad rob-
bers are concerned, | think it is even
criminal offense for a publisher to sell to
another what he has bought and paid for,
paid for four or five times over.
It were very hard to understand how in
the name of the world the flesh and the
devil, the railroads are thus enabled to
brow-beat and side-swipe and hoodoo the
publishers of the weekly papers,
only portion of the press of the state that
dare say anything till some miserable boss
cracks the whip-can be thus treated worse
than any slave or igroramus that ever was
whipped by demoniacal inferior, and raise
no protest. year in and year out. But it's
so. How would you consider it, gentlemen
of the country press, if when you bought
hat or shirt from your local merchant and
paid him all he asked for it, and failing to
wear it out the same year, the merchant
came around and demanded back those
goods; or how would you like it if he prose-
cuted you, and confscated the articles be-
cause YOU had sold them to your printer,
not being able to pay him anything else?
That is exactly parallel with the railroad
deal l cannot account for the present
stains between the railroads and the count