Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1918-11-22

from the South on the job of appras.
ing railroads north Of Mason and DIX
| ons line, Was it legislative seniority
rule that made the internal revenue de-
partment, collecting kitchin's taxes,
practice petty larceny against the tax
! paying public north of Mason and Dix.
on's line?
Sectional, Punitive Government
Congress did give up the 81 per
cent north of Mason and Dixon's line
to the IS per cent in the Solid South
yes. But so did President Wilson
1t was not one rich province that had
been conquered for political spolia-
ton. 1t was more than thirty
provinces fabulously rich, containing
more than 81 per cent of the popula-
ton, that had been conquered BY the
13 per cent, and, whether in the
legislative or in the administrative
oligarchy, they all went to it,
And such a spectacle Of partisan,
sectional, punitive government was
never before seen in the history Of
this republic, when in it's depart
ments, bureaus and offices swarmed
like flies the children and favorites of
that oligarchy, unframed but vain
glorious, incompetent but impudent,
scatterbrained but vengeful.
Vast business enterprises must
have their affairs directed for them
by nincompoops who, outside Of their
new political jobs. never knew
enough to earn a living.
Working the Political GuiIIotine
A railroad executive got from some
Washington understrapper an arbi-
trary order impossible of execution,
and because he hesitated to carry it
out off went his head. A manufac-
turer or a merchant was commanded
by some sectional pinhead to do
something preposterous, and before
he could discuss the matter the shut
ters We're put up on his business
newspaper publisher was told to
file reams and reams of reports with
a petty bureau despot in Washing
ton. He dutifully sent the reports,
and then. because the bureau was too
incompetent or too Indifferent to read
the reports, but was wild to exercise
a briefly held autocratic power. it
threatened to cut off the publishers
paper supply for not sending the re-
ports, which had been going to
Washington steadily en- the bureaus
own envelopes.
The affairs Of the American peo-
pie We're maladministercd. Their
simplest rights were wantonly
young or old, individuals were
nagged, insulted and threatened by
petty ofhceholders who were not
merely drunk. but crazy, with the
brief autocracy which all the United
States Government assumed, while
the Solid South was in the saddle
and riding down everybody and
everything north of Mason and DIX
on's line.
Lost Work Of Unification
For two generations the best
brains and the highest purpose of the
North had been devoted to the
problem of wiping out Mason and
Dxon's line. Graduating sectional
ism, unifying all the States into one
nation. BY the time Mckinley be-
came President the line was begin
ming to vanish. Roosevelt nearly
blotted it out. Taft Gid nothing to
restore IT. Grover Cleveland was a
Democratic President for eight
years. and Grover Cleveland never
halted this work.
But, under Mr.. Wilson and his
Solid South Congress. Solid South
departments, Solid South bureaus,
Solid South offices. big and little;
Solid South items of thousands of
clnrls and ent