The Guthrie daily leader. [volume] (Guthrie, Okla.) 1893-1996, 1910-10-21
WHO ARE
BEHIND
NJ NEAL
HOW THE RAILROADS
HAVE BILKED OKLAHOMA
IN THE PAST

The fact that Joe McNeal, Republic
an nominee for governor, has been
nominated BY corporations during all
his business career has contributed
more TO the chagrin of the state Re
publican committee than any other
thing IN this campaign II the rank
and file of the Republican party be-
lieYed as DOES MoNeal, that the rail-
roads ought to have right OF way in
Oklahoma. the candidate would get a
solid Repnbi lean backing. But the
rank and file Of The Republican party
believes with Governor Stubbs Of kan
sas that railroads are not entitled to
trespassing rights.
McNeal says he would be fair to
corporations. Before statehood the
Republican party which dominated
Oklahoma and doled out the millions
Of salaries to federal office holders,
was fair to corporations and the report
Of Attorney General Cromwell, one
OF those Republican office-hoders.
shows that the Republican party per-
mitted the railroads to rob the peo-
pie OF s54,00OGoO
Dumped IN Useless stock.
Fairness Republican fairness 70
the railroads before statehood per.
mitted the roads TO dump into Okla
homa al Of their useless rolling stock
worn out unpainted, dilapidaled pas
senger and freight cars that an en-
liehtened and choosing peope of an
other section Of the country would NOT
stand for; permitted road beds that
were little worked and over which
trains dared not run over ten or fif-
teen miles an hnar. waiting rooms,
cold. dirty and dingy IN which whites
and blacks mingled freely ana waited
for trains that never ran on time
freight rates that caused the people
of Western Oklahoma TO pay 80 ton
for coal shipped from McAlester that
sold in Kansas City for 81 per ton;
combinations of railroads and coal
companies in restraint of trade that
permitted the fixing OF prices of coal
to the consumer and the rates at
which II would be hauled TO the whole.
saler and the retailer Disseminated
In favor OF certain communities and
the fixing Of unjust freight schedules
on live stock, farm products and all
commodities: three cent passenger
fare-in fact absolute control of the
situation where millions and millions
Of dollars were flowing into the cot
fers of the great railroad trnst.
No people under the sun ia civil
ized community were ever .efore so
uniusty treated as we're The Imeri-
can citizens that inhabited the ter
ricries that comprise the new state.
Yet everything tina. McNeal has done
for the railroads and everything that
he promises to do for them tends to
restore to them the un-American Ilb.
critics they enjoyed before statehood.
Bleeding. weary duwn-trodden Repub-
lican Kansas Is trying to extricate
itself from Republican fairness to rail-
roads.
sHicNeal is branded as being too cow
arlly to become progressive. His
party in the nation IS leaving It's beat
en- paths as such men as Stubbs. Cum
Minis, LaFOlletie and Beveridge are
not afraid TO say what they think
about railroad domination and corpor-
alton reform. Practically every Re
publican nominee for governor in the
United States, except McNeal. stands
for reform-the sort of reform that
will take the nation from the blight
ing grasp Of unholy corporations. But
McNeal stands for nothing but what
he terms anti-Haskellism. Democratic
extravaganza and Democratic misman
agement.