The Elk Mountain pilot., 1921-05-26
allow soY Incurred the boss.


local stockholders began to get to-
gether and swap stock and sell it. In
very shert time the control of the
whole string of local plants was in
the hands of a hundred men. To-day
it's in the hands of less than twenty,
with John Marshall at the head of
them. Citizens Storage & Warehouse
is now consolidated property, and
John Marshall, Henckel and control
majority of its stock. How does
that strike your?
ut strikes me that the people most
deeply interested have been exceeding
ly foolish to sell their birthright. But
that is strictly their own business, and
not mine or the railroad companys."
"Wait," Hatch snarled. Its GO
ing to be both yours and the railroad
company's business, before you are
through with it. Marrow, here. rep
resents Marshall, and / represent
Henckel and myself. What are you
going to do about those ground leases?'
Nothing at all, except to insist upon
the condition under which they were
granted by the railroad company"
Meaning that you are going to try
to hold us to the fixed percentage
charge for handling, packing, loading,
and transferringT'
Meaning just that If you raise the
proportional market-price charge on
the producers and merchants, the
leases will terminate"
II thought that was about where
you'd land. Now listen: we're It
Marshall and Henckel and land
what we say, goes as it lies. We are
going to use the present G. s. & W.
plants and equipment, charging our
own storage and handling percentages,
based on anything we see fit. If you
pull that ground-lease business on us
and try to drive US out, We'll fight you
all the way up to the Supreme court
If you beat us there, well merely
move over to the other side of your
tracks to our old Red Tower houses
at the old stand"
The boss sat back in his chair, and
1 could tell by the set of his jaw that
he was refusing to be panic-stricken.
"You are taking altogether too much
for granted. aren't your" he put in
mildly. you are assuming that the
courts will eventually nullify the terms
of the ground-leases, or, If they do
not, that the railroad company will
do nothing to save its patrons from
falling into this new graft trap"
Hatch snapped his fingers. "Now
you are coming to the milk in the
MI hA
exactly what we're assuming. You
are going to let go. once for all, Nor
cross. You are not going to fight US
In the courts, and neither are you 60
Ing to .arass us out of existence with
short cars, over-charges, and the thou
sand and one petty prosecutions that
you railroad buccaneers make use of
to line your own pockets!"
"But II we refuse to lie down and
let you walk over us and our patrons
what thenT" the boss inquired.
That brought the explosion. Hatch's
eyes blazed and he smacked fist into
palm.
'Then we'll knife you, and we'll do
1t to velvet f1nishl After so long
a time, we've got you where you can't
s1oe-Step, N0rcrOSS."
The boss refused to be panic
stricken; or, anyhow, he looked that
way.
I'VE have heard that kind of talk
many times in the past" he said 1.-THE
way to make 1t effective is to produce
the goods"
That's just what we're here to dol"
snapped the Red Tower president vim
dictively. you, and the Big Fellows
in New York, want lot of the state
railroad laws repealed or amended.
If you can't get that string united,
you can't gamble any more with your
stock. Well and good. You came
here six months ago and set out to
manufacture public sentiment in favor
of the railroad. You ran UP your
'public-be-pIeased flag and beat the
-tom-tom and blew the hewgag until
you got lot of dolts and chuckle-
heads and easy marks to believe that
you really meant it."
"Well, 60 on"
with all this humbug and hula
balloo you still couldn't be quite GER
tain that you had made your point;
that your measures would carry
through the incoming legislature.
After the primaries you counted noses
among the candidates and found it
was going to be tight squeak--a
id tight squeak. Then you did what
you railroad people always do; you
slipped out quietly and bought few
men-just to be on the safe side"
So 1t was sprung at last. Hatch
was accusing us of the one thing that
we hadn't done; that the boss knew
we hadn't done.
I'm afraid you'll have to try again,
Mr.. HATCH he said, with sour little
smile. Then he added: anybody can
make charges, you know"
Hatch jumped to his feet and he
was almost foaming at the mouth.