The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1922-02-11
THE STATE MUST LIVE

If you will go to the postottice with
package, worth $1,000. to ship by
parcel post and there apply for in
surance you will find that your gov
eminent, as rich as it is, will only
insure that package, OF any package,
for $780,
But if some passing tourists who
use our streets, without charge. should
happen to drive their car into some
hole in our streets, which was careless
Iy left open by some laborer from our
water plant, our little city might be
obliged to pay 100000 damages to
satisfy the judgments recovered by
such tourists in the United States
court.
Any careless act OF some negro en-
ployee of our electric light, Or street,
departments may cost our city prop |
erty owners many thousands of dol !
| lars.
| Is that fair? Is it just? Should the
citizens of any town carry such a
risk? Our states assume no such liza |
bilities, so w should our cities and
towns do Sc, for they are a part Of
our national life.
Yet millions are paid out each year
/ by our cities and towns to satisfy such
claims, every dollar Of which comes,
ultimately, out of our producers; and
half of those millions goes directly
to lawyers, and other parasites, to
swell their pockets and their numbers.
If the state, society, cannot afford
to take more than 500 risk for your
protection in the use Of its mail serv-
ice how can it afford, for no pay
whatever, to insure your automobile
for $4,000, your body for $4,000 and
your life for 100000?
In our highly organized and pro-
gressive state of society you are per-
mitted at small, or no cost, to your
self, to enjoy many blessings, which
the state, society, can only afford to
extend to you with limitations upon
it's liability. The extent of the liza
bility of the public to you for fault,
or miscarriage, in all public utilities
must ultimately fix the exact limits to
. which society, or corporate, action
may go in preserving for you the old,
= and in offering you new, public utili-
ties; for the cost of all such must
soon be cost on production, and there
is positive limit to what the produc-
tive energy of our nation can carry
even for its own, much less for your,
convenience.
Railroads are quite as much a part
:, of our public utilities as is our postal
service; and production must, and
does, pay every dollar they pay out
: for any purpose. Every one of US
must admit that obvious fact, because
o production is the source of all wealth
and if we take away from those who
own the railroads, but who produced
the railroads, then when we spoil, OF
injure, the railroads, our productive
h energy must rebuild them.
@ Any railroad may be obliged to pay
d $4,000 for injury to your automobile
It or $4,000 for injury to your body, OF
II 100000 for causing your death. You
: who get this money, (or what is left
q after you pay lawyers) may also hap.
pen to be a simon pure parasite, OIL
one of the forty million of our citizens
who produce nothing of value during
any of the four seasons of the year.
So some seventy millions of men
women and children in productive pur.
suits thus insure forty millions of us
II who do not produce anything; and the
u parasites, tourists and city dwellers
get most of the benefit of such poll
e cies.
Thousands of such claims against
L our cities and towns are paid every
. year; and with only the blue sky as 6
- limit to the amount of recovery the
y lawyers have a very fine time in this
game of all jack-pots, with no antes
by them in order to sit in it.
10 Of say twenty thousand accident
claims against railroads, which came
up last year, permit me to mention
just one. | get the facts in this case
from the official records of the state
of Mississippi, which are of course
n available to all lawyers. In that case
IS a boy, who was a deaf mute and ar
X inmate of an asylum, was walking
along the track of the Southern rail
road in company with five Of his play
% mates, who were all also deaf mutes
They were walking along the track t.
reach a water hole about mile out
of town. where these unfortunate lit
tie fellows loved to swim on warn
days. The boy first mentioned wa;
It killed by fast train and the railroad
was obliged to pay $4,000 judgment
n. to the boys father. The boys play
q. mates testified. by signs, that they al
saw the on-coming train, and that the!
knew that the whistle was blown sew
eral times, as they saw the escaping
steam; but as they supposed all saw