Chicago eagle., 1922-11-25
DECLARATION OF PRiN.
CIPLES AND RES0LU-
TIONS ADOPTED BY
THE COOK COUNTY
REAL estate BOARD
CHICAGO.

The Cook County Real Estate
Board is a business organization COM
posed of conservative business and
tax-paying citizens. We believe that
business is as essential to our civil
lization as air is to the life of the
individual, that it is the machinery
of business which supports schools,
churches, government and our So
cial institutions; but that as air may
be poisoned and deadly, so may the
evil methods of evil men corrupt and
debase business, and endanger our
life, our property and menace our
government.
We are alarmed at the, power and
influence of the criminal profiteer.
The American people during the war
were told the profiteer would be shot
He has not been shot, but instead he
is often found as leader in move
ments to suppress the lesser criminals
which by his example he has created
The profiteer at the top is the gun
man at the bottom, while the former
gets away with millions the latter.
following his example, wants to get
away with hundreds in the way best
known to him. Judges and courts, off,
GERS of the law and legislators in
stead of boldly taking cognizance of
the facts and proceeding to put the
profiteers or parent criminals in Jail
and driving them out of the commu-
nifty, have, instead, become the dupes
and instruments of those criminals.
and are leading in the hue and cry
against their criminal offspring so
that the crimes of the parent law
breakers may go unpunished
We apprehend not the slightest
danger in America from violent an
archy or bolshevism, our political in
stitutiOns offer no soil for the growth
of such theories. But we are in grave
fear of the small group in our coun-
try, brazen, impudent, blind and
greedy, who have no God nor flag.
nor country and are now in control of
the money and natural resources of
our country, and who are fast assum-
ing the same relation to our people as
have been maintained toward their
people by the similar privileged and
profiteering groups in Europe who
were responsible for the terrible war
and who are now rapidly manufactur-
ing other wars.
Inherited and accumulated wealth
IN the hands of the few whose minds
and methods are foreign and antago-
niStic to our institutions is Americas
! peril, as it is the only serious men
ace to our individual lives, peace,
happiness and prosperity.
And, whereas, the ownership of our
public utilities in Chicago in private
! hands is synonymous with the corrup-
! ton of our local government and Of
ficials, and the exploitation of our
citizens is an example and incentive
to thuggery, and
| WHEREAS, the Cook County Real
Estate Board and the people of Chi
cago have repeatedly demanded pub
| lie ownership of its traction lines
and other utilities, and
WHEREAS, it has been found that
the City, while possessing the power
of condemnation to acquire our trans
I
this power, unless some plan is de-
vised to provide the funds necessary
if such power is exercised, and
! WHEREAS, it is absolutely neces-
sary that the power of condemnation
be invoked if the City is to purchase
the Surface Lines from the traction
financiers, as according to all evil
| do
mand an exorbitant price for their
| properties, and
| WHEREAS, there has been a per-
sistent and increasing agitation for
! the immediate building of subways
in the downtown section of the City,
and
WHEREAS, subway construction is
| so extremely expensive at the low
est estimate cost, four times as much
per mile as elevated and twenty times
as much as surface lines, and if the
| City undertake the building of the
subway now, with its limited finan-
cial ability, it will leave no resources
with which to purchase the lines and
so get control of the System; nor
will it have sufficient funds to build
more than the mere beginning of a
subway system, and
WHEREAS, if the City should in
vest it's money in a Subway System,
the cost would be so great that the
interest on the debt would seriously
cripple if not completely destroy the
City's chance of purchasing any fur
ther traction properties. and
WHEREAS, there seems to be con-
certed effort in many directions to
block the City from being placed in
a position to exercise condemnatory
powers, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, that the Cook Coun-
ty Real Estate Board reiterate its
| position in favor of municipal own
ership of public utilities, and
RESOLVED, that we condemn the
proposed subway plan now being agi-
tated as insincere and hypocritical;
and
RESOLVED, that, while We have no
political Affiliations or preferences,
we approve the so-called Thompson
Plan of Ownership and operation of
the traction properties with its con-
demnation and trustee-management
features as the most practical plan