The Spokane press. [volume] (Spokane, Wash.) 1902-1939, 1908-05-16
MUcKRAKERs OR 'wHITEWAsHERs'-w WHICH?

Two three years ago there began to be fashionable
sort of literature called by its chefest exponent muck
rakng" Undertaking produced the literature of expo
If know Of the ways in which have been
robbed in the past the better knowledge to the
muckrakers From the monopolsts who get the public
money by that used to be little understood have had
the light turned on. We may not be quite handsome
used to be, but we know whole lot more. The lit
erature of exposure is the literature of knowledge of
covering, of turning on the bulseye, Of illumination.
Opposed to this literature is that of keeping things
dark, of covering things up, of lodging the issue, of
smoothing things This is the literature Of white
washing The muckrakers have been having things much
their way for year two, but the wtewashers
beginning to crowd them out of magazines possessed
by the muckrakers.
The harvester trust recently cacimined to pure
white in series in Everybody's and the author
is beginning in the Broadway series for the purpose evil
IDENTIFY, of doing like service for the railways 1t shows
the distress of the railways in this Of Theodore the
First and Only from reguative laws from lowering Of
rates. from the oppression Of the interstate
commission.
Onefourth of the bonds of the railways, this article
says are paying interest third of their stock is
paying dividends, and another fourth is paying less
than per cent. Oneth of their and engines are
idle. They in bitter, bitter distress.
Well, what of it? Aren't least fifth of the drays
and express wagons idle too? Does anyone think that
less than onefth Of the plants of the country generally
idle? And what proportion of the workngmen of the
week idle Are the railways not to take the bitter
with the sweet These hard times. Who gave bonds
in the of the American people that the railways
should not the hard times everyone else suffers
This stock Of the railways that has gone low that
eourth Of pays less than per centwhat is it based
upon? In out Of ten it represents rakeo loot
water, blue sky. What moral duty rests the American
people to pay dividends railway stocks that merely
the precipitation of the vapors of frenzied finance!
The whtewashng Of railways is merely occasion
for sending out pitiful wall from these giants of the
financial world for the states and the general government
to let up and not regulate any 1t will not work The
Roosevelt policies will be carried out. Eventually every
dollar of the license to loot represented in the water of
railway stocks and bonds be squeezed of them if
do our duty to ourselves.
The railways will make more money than soon
the times brighten up. They cannot show that the g
cent fare laws have essened their earnings much They
carry passengers now and those that travel pay
stead Of carrying passes The lower freight rates not
really low the former Ones when the fact consider
ed that the railways keep all instead of paying
bates Let the Whitewater show u.s. he wishes enlist
sympathy important railway which under present
conditions could not pay dividends the physical value
of the plant No moral duty rests any people to pay
cent more. And remember these are hard times