The morning journal-courier., 1908-09-30

farmer in Iitehneld county, during the bitter Warner Mclean republican fac ton fight of several years ago, was called to his door in tho early and dark hours of summer morning by a traveller in buggy who had missed his road and was recognized as Fyler miles from home seeking a political hencn, man for secret counsel. The story may or may not be true, but is Illustrative By such methods Fyler has become full boss without quite entering the full limelIght of hoss-shlp,
 Result of Machine Hnle.
 The results of the rule of so power ful and dlctatorial a machine In Con neoticut have not been--as in Penn sylvana,-so much direct graft and raids on the state treasury as har- vests In the lobby strikes on corpora tons, special Legislation. reform meas- ures defeated. the lowered morale and vitality of the legislature and the press and. above all. administrative laxity. The most fragrant casa of the latter has been the stock watering of the trolleye of the state. which the railroad commission. of which Fyler. as stated, has for eight years been member, has ignored and screened, There are about 76s miles of trolley railway in the state which the latest official fg- ures available show are capitalized per mile at sl0b,5bs in stock, bonds, and floating debt In Massachusetts, where an efficient railroad commission though with fewer legal powers than that of Connectlcut---ha sharply checked trolley stock watering. the same capitalization ia but ss5,624 per mile, though tho capitalization pre- sumptively includes the costly elevated l lines and subways of Boston. The Con necticut trolleys arc thus. by the Massachusetts standard, overcapitaliz- ed at about s5o,00O per mile or about s3s 300.000 on tho whole Connecticut system Of 16s miles or about s0 per cent, of their reported cost of construc- ton nnd equipment in the last availa- ble report ds06) of the Connecticut commission.
 The New York. New Haven and | Hartford Railroad company has been recently forced by competition, actual or threatened, to acquire almost the whole Connecticut system and, In fact, l if not in form, guarantee dividends and interest tho trolleys substantially earn Estimating tho return on the watered capitalization nt only per cent. tho public, man, woman, or child, Is thus taxed annually in trolley fares Sl ,5s2.o00 a year These aauatics have lasted since tsa2. and in not word of tho annual reports of the railroad com mission have they heen exposed or lcondemned The stock watering reach cd its climax with tho sudden injection nf sih.nN0.000 of water eight years ago into the Connecticut Railway and Lighting corporation. then the largest trolley company in the state. The next railroad commission report not only did not crIticise the fact. but masked it II is true that sneak sentence in a charter amendment had authorized that wnterad stock issue
 Rut a word from 2 railroad commia- sioner would have checked lf: there was nothing to justify tho acceptance of the company's annual return to the commission ln which tho construction and equipment was sworn un to meet the sl5.Ooonon. and. at least the com. mission had tho power of uttersnce. IT. tho report nnnD of the commission
 which thus screened the corporation
 the name of Rose FyIsr Is signed alonf with his two colleagues