The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1914-06-08

they might support in happiness?
And can we start, or can We get
anywhere when we do start. until We
have put into a harmonious working
system our means of transportation
and distribution?
Mr. Franklin X. Lane, secretary of
the interior, said in May, 1914:
Whoever owns the railways OF
country determines very largely the
future Of that country" The Ger
man, Bismarck. said, years earlier:
Either the government will own the
railroads or the railroads will own
the government In Germany it has
passed into a proVerb that whoever
owns and operates a country's trans
portation owns the country. This
has been in brief the underlying
philosophy OF state ownership in
Germany
/ have seen in recent book, Gov
eminent Ownership OF Railroads, by
Mr.. Anthony Van Wagenen, OF Iowa,
this remarkable warning and proph-
ecy by the Frenchman Lamartine,
written as long ago as 1898:
What will be our condition when,
according to your imprudent system,
you have constituted into an unified
interest with industrial and financial
corunra+ionc tho ippumorah Ia c-t oolx
holders of the five or six billions of
securities the organization Of your
railroads will place in the hands of
these companies? You, the partisans
Of the liberty and the enfranchise-
ment of the masses; you, who have
overthrow feudalism and its tools,
its rights of the past and its bound
aries; you, who are about to allow
the railroads to fetter the people and
divide up the country among new
feudality, moneyed aristocracy!
Never government, never nation,
has constituted outside OF itself a
more oppressive money power,
more menacing and eneroaching pc
Etical power, than you are going to
create in delivering up your soil,
your administration, and five or six
billions of securities to your private
railroad companies. / prophesy with
certainty that if you do this they will
be masters of your government be-
fore ten years"
The late Mr.. Justice Harlan said:
Great and rapidly increasing corpo-
rate wealth is the supreme peril of
the United States Of the total of
one hundred and forty billion dollars
of wealth of all kinds in this coun-
try, ninety-six billions have been
capitalized by the corporations. On
this the public is now paying inter
est and dividends thru the use of
commodities that are necessities of
life, including transportation taxes
levied by the railways in the shape
Of freight and passenger rates. The
capitalization of railways, including
stock and bond issues, approximates
D.
Has the time not arrived when we
should heed the warning of Justice
Harlan? And where could we so
profiJably begin as on the most vital
of all phases of corporate capital
control? The transportation tax col
lected by the railways during the
year ending June 80, 1913, was
SO, III 900, 900. The total revenue
receipts of all kinds by the United
States government for the year end
ing June 80, 1912, was less than one
billion. The total revenue receipts
of all kinds by all the states, all the
counties, and all the towns with a
population of more than eight thou
sand people, were about eleven hun
dred millions. The national, state,
county and municipal governments
together collected one billion less
than the single transportation tax
taken by the railways.
Can the People Operate Railways?
Two years ago Cleveland and Pow
ell, in their book on Railroad FL
nance, said: Within a century it is
probable that the people of the Unit
ed States had invested no less than
twelve billion dollars in the improve
meEt o. the country roads and turn