Arizona republican., 1919-08-08
The People Must Be Shown

If those who favor the tri partite control the railroads could make showing that they could them more economically and efficiently than they have been run under private ownership and manage ment or if they could present reasonable theory that the roads could be conducted and that thereby the cost of living could by that much be reduced their proposition would be entertained
 But they have even attempted to make such showing. Nothing has offered to indicate even slightly how rates could be reduced under tri partite control; how single penny could be saved. We led suspect that the high of living been linked with this proposition only because it is the foremoct problem before the world and the pro- ponents believe that the country is willing to in any experiment however wild that might lead though blindly to it's solution.
 But the people must be shown and if they can shown they will be behind the raih pad brotherhoods in their demand for this disposition the railroads. few years ago such proposition would have en- countered other objections. The foremost of them 7 would have been "vested rights" then there would have been private property interests and the right of to do with his belongings pleased long he made unlawful of it.
 We have heard much of vested rights in late years and will hear still less of them as the years roll along. The time will come when there will be no vested right, large small, that will be in imical to the public interest. The instant that any right privilege shall become inimcal it will cease exist
 We may pursue this line farther We have come far in this direction the of the road is not in sight Persons yet in middle age can remember when the vested rights argument supposed to settle the question of prohibition. simply pre- posterous to propose wipe the millions repre- sented in the breweres, the dstilleries saloon palaces and their sumptuous fixtures. Where are they now?
 We may easily conceive a condition of the world not of in this century, but some time when the skillfu and intensive cultivation of the soil shall be necessary and if that time should come the soil no doubt would be put to it's best if by the then owner, by another owner. The individual must always yield to the public
 If the private owners of the railroads ever shall be unable to handle their property skifully and as economically as the people the roads will become the property of the people If the government in the last two years had given proof even hope that could improve upon the private of the roads the people would be a unit in favor of public ownership control. The government on the con- trary has furnished only evidence of it's complete failure in railroad management and the people are tired of the experiment unwilling to engage in radical one
 There is in the country and in congress another element of opposition tri partite pan It con- ssts' if not wholly in great of the hopelessly old. reactionary, corporation public bed damned ee- ment and in a smaller part of those who still cherish the superstition vested rights but that is a com parativey small crowd and now for the first time it finds itself the side of the people It need not resort it's ammunition and arguments with which it was wont to repel popular encroachment upon the vested interests It finds argument and ammunition provided for it.
 The controversy, though one in whose outcome the whole people interested one between capital and that part of labor represented brotherhoods and such organizations of railway workers as are not yet in the brotherhoods They private in- terests. each as much the other and neither is giving consideration to the public interest The pub lie can look to neither as its champion It can only takeNnto the probability the victory of the one will only incidentally better serve the public than the victory of the other