Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1914-09-25
It was manifesty wrong-doine, If not 1 crime,

1t was manifestly wrong-doing If not crime
to load car, whose carrying capacity was rated by
the railroad at a certain humber of pounds to a
weight exceeding the weight limit fixed by the
railroad fifty per cent as the writer recalls was
sometimes the case.
1t was exposing trains, and the crews operating
them, to the dangers of break downs, and the loss
OF money, of limbs or lives incident thereto.
Not only that it was dishonest means resort
ed to by some dealers to secure an advantage over
competitors who did not approve or practice such
methods, by which they were enabled to underse
the more honest dealers.
In other words. it resulted in dishonest COMPETE
ton between Dealers
1t was the source of big loss in revenues to the
railroad in those early years after the close of the
civil war, when. by reason of the destruction of
its property and its other losses incident to the war;
it was badly crippled, and surely needed every
dollar it possible could earn to keep it going and
out of the hands of the bond holders.
And yet, no man aspiring Ito public Office was
ever heard upon the hustngs to denounce the dis
honest practices and wrong doing perpetrated upon
the railroads.
Nor do we hear anything of the kind now adays
but we ought to-
On the contrary, it was then, much as it is now.
And now, it has come to pass that there are
men IN mississippi who, in going before the people
asking for nomination at the polls in a primary
election, realize that it has become so popular in
this State to abuse corporations in general and
railroad corporations particularly that they devote
their best efforts at forensic eloquence to the form
ulation of plausible appeals to ignorance concern
ing corporate wealth and conditions; to plausible
misstatements of facts and Misrepresentation of
the plans and purposes of railway owners and
managers; to the dissemination of arguments which
are nothing more than inventions of schrewd and
constituencies intellect, endowed with talent for
happiness in speech; to using all their powers of
persuasion to so poison the public mind that they
may use the alleged dement's of corporations as
stepping stones for the attainment of their own
selfish schemes.
To that end, they indulge in abuse and vituper-
alton without stint, and resort to every device
known to the unhallowed art of the demagogue and
when, by their disreputabe and contemplate meth
ods they excite the disapproval of large proper
ton of the decent and intelligent portion of the
community, who favor fairer and juster methods
If campaigning, they then falsely claim that the
opposition to them is composed of men in the en-
oloy, or under the influence and control of the in
,erests''-the corporations are opposed to
hem because they, and they alone are the vrtuous,
valorous and valiant champions OF the people
against the aggressions and expressions of the
interests"
Their appeals are made to the worst passions
IF their audiences, and they, unfortunately. are
too often persuasive because these socalled cham
pfons of the people, these self-styled foes of
crooks and grafters," shun joint debates as the
devil does holy water, because when they have the
audience to themselves they can lay dQwDhtbGr
own premises premises which are not fbasgd on
truth or facts but on misrepresentation Of truth,
misstatement of facts, and lies out of the whole
cloth-and when their premises are permitted to
go uncontradcted, and uncorrected, their conclu-
sions are plausible persuasive and irresistible.
And thus they falsely make it appear that the
all banded together, conspirng to
rob and ruin the people by strangling competition;
by efforts to secure monopolies; and all of which
railway managers seek if these blatant demago-
CUES are to be believed, for the sole purpose of en-
rching the corporations they (the managers) serve
at the expense of the public, and that they do so
seek, without reference to the public veal and
without care for the conditions and the suffering
they create.
To he