The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1914-02-06
in WHAT MANNER HAVE WE
EEEN BENEFITED?

about progressives"-a Ia Rnosevelt
and LaFollette. We decorate our SEN
ators and representatives in congress
with colors as gorgeous as the rain
bow, but-"honest Injun"-in what
infinitesinal way have the producers
and manufacturers of the south been
benefited by legislation in the past
fifteen, twenty or thirty years?
! Is not the discrimination in freight
rates strangling us almost the same
as if a milestone we're tied around our
necks, and we were pitched into the
middle of the sea?
See the determinations in freight
rates that we are laboring under In
this city and in this county, AMI
throughout this great inland empire
of ours, stretching from Cape Sable
to the Perdido river. and covering
territory of seven hundred miles
| Read Lee HowelIs letter. printed
! in another column, and see whs:
farce is the proposed reduction of
iAe express companies freight rates
that have been printed in certain
lnewspa pers, with such q fanfarcnade
OF trumpets!
/ Express companies and railroads,
like our public servants, seem always
rlaying to the galleries, and seem al
ways endeavoring to throw DIST into
' the eyes of the people in order 10
blind them.
| We have had a railroad commission
for-how many years, please' VIII
some producer, some shipper, tell us
of any benefit he has derived from it,
even 10 penny?
! Freight determinations are ranker
today than before it's establishment,
p, ten to one.
] For how many years have we had
an interstate railway commission?
| In what measure of respect has 1t
been beneficial to the shippers?
| Will some one rise up in any por-
ton of this southern country and say
that it has been beneficial to him?
We would like to get glimpse of
him, to see what manner of man he
is.
! See what a Chicago consignee sale
before that high tribunal just the
other day!
! Listen, please. Put your ear close
to the ground, so as not to lose a word
or a sentence.
This man said that he could ship
carload of stuff from Chicago to
Jacksonville for s54.32.
Presto, change.
That if he were to ship the same
car back again, over the same route,
loaded with identically the same stuff.
pound for pound, it would cost the
enormous sum of $236.
Yet, as outrageous as this discrimi
nation is, it is not as discriminatory
as it is after it gets to Jacksonville,
/; and is continued on to any interior
point.
We are tied hand and foot.
Paul may plant and Apollos may
water, hut unless we can have fair
and equitable freight rates, we car
do nothing.
Our efforts are vain. We are talk
ing to the winds. All is vanity and
vexation of spirit.
Why do not our senators and con-
gressmen join hands with all the 9TH
er southern senators and congress
men and march in body before the
interstate commerce tribunal ard de-
mand in thunder tones, as IL they
meant it, that these determinations
must be rectifed?
Unless they heed their demands,
then go before President Wilson, and
demand their removal from office.
If no attention is paid to this de-
mand, then let impeachment procaai-
ings follow.
1t is all right to have the cotton tax
refunded-but it is far cry. 1t is
fifty years, lacking only a few years,
since the imposition of that tax
1t is all right also to have pay for
the manumission of the slaves.
Slaves as property was recognized
! in the constitution, and by the courts
of last resort Their manumission
without compensation to their owners
was in violation of the organic law,
and John Beard has shown quite con- |
| clusively that the fifteenth amend
ment to the constitution was never
regularly nor constitutionally adopt
ed-but that is a far, far cry.
| AS rule, the slave owners and the
lbeneficiaries of the cotton tax have
long since passed to their reward,
and the restoration to their constitu-
fC1k