Banks County journal. (Homer, Ga.) 1897-current, February 05, 1914, Image 2

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SOUTHERN RAILWAY BELONGS TO SOUTH CAY* PRESIDENT HARRISON OF SOUTHERN IN FIRST PUBLIC ADDRESS. cY rlmains in south •nt of Southern Analyzes t c ation of Company lo People Served. ioku, Tenn. —Speaking at the ■net of the Chattanooga ommorce, Mr. Fairfax < new president of the ay company, made ona.dared his first pub > . since hla election to Mr. W. W. Finley and: Railway System In •'v'es of railroad on ore and employee)* " "4 Iwß Fairfax Harrison, President Southern Railway perform public services, In return for which more than one hundred millions of annual revenue Is collected. These are lilk figures and. In a country In which there has always been a pride in big things, in which every commun ity has been wont to boast of that which It has which is the biggest, such a big thing as tho Southern Hallway System should be, and I believe Is. a source of pride to the South, but 'exactly In proportion as it Is big also in Its public service and faithful in its public, trust. The administration of such a vast machine, affecting, as it does, the comfort and well being of the people of a large territory, is, Uterofore, ltßelf a large public service. The time has passed when it might be exploited for merely private and selfish ends. The lawyers used to tell us that a railroad was a quasi publlc institution, but today, happily, it might better be described as a quasi private institution. It is private still in the opportunity it presents for the exercise of individual initiative and competitive service, but in practically every other sense It is now recognised that it is public. It 1b a matter of sincere regret to every railroad manager that railroad securities are not more generally held, directly and Immediately, in the com munities which the railroads serve. The lack of such holding deprives him of a powerful and sympathetic ally in the relation of public opinion to his problems. The time was when the rail road stocks were owned immediately at home, and by the people who were most Influential In shaping public opin ion, but today, while railroad stocks arc generally held by the same kind of people —by those who, through the ex ercise of prudence, industry aud cour age have laid by a competence, and by the women and children for whom they worked -such investors now do not as a class reside in the territories in which they have made their invest ments. The explanation of this phe nomenon —so well known to us all, but still a phenomenon -is part of the financial history of the United States, but the fact has given rise to a feel ing among many of those who use the railroads daily and come into immedi ate contact with their managements, that the railroads belong to some mys tarious, remote and foreign power, to trreeponsible potentates, who bear. In popular imagination, the generic name of “Wall Street.” We read in maga ainos and newspapers of the romantic lives attributed to a few Individuals who are supposed to "control" the dest In lea of whole communities by pos session and exploitation of the Instru ments upon which such communi ties depend for their necessary trans portation, who “fix" rates and arbi trarily determine conditions of serv lee, and so "tax” the people they ought to serve, withdrawing money earned la the sweat of the brow from the com munltlee where It la earned, to be dissi pated at a distance In extravagant fol lies. Such a vision is not the result iof pure Imagination—lt has had un fortunately Its foundation of Justifica tion In a few conspicuous Instances which leap to the lips of everyone who discusses our present-day Industrial problems; but every Intelligent man knows that It Is no longer, If It ever was, the rule. In considering such lamentable Indi vidual cases, the public, when forming Its potent Judgment on the present sit uation of the railway Industry, must Recognize them as the unhappy excep tions they are. To him who Insists that the railroads should be Judged by their black sheep, It Is fair In answer ,to Invite attention to many exemplars of high-minded Integrity In the ad ministration of railroad property. We in the South can cite shining examples of such rectitude. I may be forgiven a proud reference to my late chief, William W'ilson Finley, whose oppor tunities were not less than those of any of the flagrant individuals to whom allusion has been made, but who after years of devotion to a public duty and the practice of a large private charity, left an estate the amount of which, as announced In the public press, Is at once a certificate of can did character and an Illustration of Just administration. One who knew them can add to the same roll of honor two more executives of railroads in the South who have recently gone to the grave—Thomas M. Emerson and John W. Thomas, Jr. Despite the holding of railroad stock outside of the territories the railroads serve, and despite the aberrations from Integrity In the administration of some particular railroads, I believe that I am not claiming too much when 1 as sert that BUch has been the develop ment of the recognition In recent years of the public nature and responsibility of the administration of the railroads, and such have been the practical con sequences of that recognition, that to day In every essential a railroad be longs to the communities It serves. In this aspect and in a very real sense the Southern Railroad belongs to the people of the South. It Is not only their highway to market, but Its fiscal operations are part of the Ufa of the communities along its lines. At some risk of trespass upon your attention, 1 venture to support this claim with a brief argument from sta tlstlcs. They record a condition which is astonishing and I confess astonish ed me when 1 saw how far they go ■along the lines of a tendency which 1 knew to obtain. Of the one hundred and three millions of annual revenue collected last year by the railways In cluded In the Southern Railway Sys tem, there was Immediately paid oat again along Its lines at least seventy six millions, an amount not far short of the total collections from the peo ple of the South: for approximately twenty-two millions of the total rove nues were collected from people out side of the Southeastern States —a fact not often taken Into considers tlon, the explanation of which Is that an appreciable port of the passenger traffic of the system constats of the transportation of residents of other localities traveling In the South, and, furthermore, that to a large extent freight charges on Southern products shipped to other localities are paid hv the consignees. What then becomes of these great revenues collected In the South? Are they hurried away to some cavern In AVall streetT No. The fact is that all the moneys collected in the South are deposited In Southern banks which are drawn upon from time to time only as funds are needed for proper fiscal purposes. The funds of the sys tem thus become an important factor In strengthening the banks of the ter ritory and so are at all times at the service of the Southern people. I have said that these funds are withdrawn from Southern banks from time to time only as needed for proper fiscal purposes, but even In that opera tion, to a large extent, the moneys col lected for transportation service on our lines are not withdrawn at all from the Southern communities In which they are collected. This can be dem onstrated by an analysis of Southern Railway expenditures for the last fis cal year. Such analysis shows that, of every dollar disbursed, 41.71 cents went to the payment of wages, sub stantially all of which are paid along the line of the road, and so remain In Southern banks, a disbursement which, for the Southern Railway prop er, averages about two million dol lars a month. The purchase of ma terials and supplies used 23.30 cents, and. under our policy of buying as far as practicable from Southern people, 19.12 cents of this was expended in the South and only 4.18 cents in other localities. Miscellaneous operating ex penses required 6.09 cents, all spent in the South. Taxes, all paid In the South, required 3.65 cents. Interest, rentals and other miscellaneous pay ments accounted for 20.83 cents, and the holders of the company's prefer red stock received 4.42 cents. It ts un fortunately impracticable to determine the proportion of interest and divi dends paid to Southern owners of Southern railway securities. I wish it was all paid to Southern people; but, leaving these entirely out of ac count, it is seen that at least 70.57 cents out of every dollar expended by the Southern Railway remains in or is brought Into the South. It mar be add ed that these figures do not take ac count of expenditure* for additions and betterments amounting last year to three millions and a half and In ten years to twenty-seven millions of which the major part, expended on roadway and structure*, was practical ly ail paid out along the line of the road. We may then take it as es tabllshed that what the Southern peo- iANHS/CCUNTY JOURNAL, BOWER GA., FEBRUARY 5, 1914 pie pay the fontherii Rail,*.-;- Mr.es for transportation remains u part of the working capital of the Southern peo p’e; but ;i is interesting to pursue the thought a step further to a reali zation of what these disbursements by the Southern Railway in the South mean In the life and growth of the Southern people. Of the total of soy enty-slx millions paid out along the Southern Railway line- last year ap proxlmately forty-three million dollar went to the army of 09,000 employee and thus, on the conventional basis of five to a family, directly supported about 295,000 Southern people, or about six and one-half times the pop ulation of Chattanooga at the date of the last census. 1 have spoken of our preferred stockholders, but the real preferred stockholders of the Southern Rail way System, in the matter of priority of claim, are the political govern ments of the States, counties, and cities along Its lines. Their claim upon railroad revenues comes ahead even of that of employees, and they took $3,743,794.39 In the last fiscal year. It is hard to grasp the signifi cance of figures as large as till- ; what our tax payments really mean to the communities along mu lilies can he better understood by an Illus trative analysis of our payments on account of school taxes and road and bridge taxes In the southern states In 1912, our school taxes In the-, states amounted to something over SBOO,OOO, or an average of twenty eight hundred dollars for, each youn ty traversed by our lines. At the av erage annual compensation of school teachers in the Southern States a* reported by the l ulled States Bureau of Education, this would more than pay for ten teachers In each county It represents $2.64 out of eveiy $1 <i of si In id taxes paid In these States and amounts to fifteen dollars tor each school building In the States traversed by our lines. Every dollar paid to the Southern Railway for transportation charges thus includ s a substantial contribution to the maintenance of the system of public education In the South. Payments by the Southern Railway Bystem In the same year of taxes fit rectly assessed for public roads and bridges amounted to $447,966.63, or an average of $1,571.81 for each coun ty along our lines Every dollar paid to the Southern Railway for transpor tation charges thus Includes also a substantial contribution to the main tenance of the public highways of the South and Is an Indirect but none Un less real public support of the pro gressive movement for good and bet ter roads. I have referred to the liupractlca billiy of determining the amounts of Interest and dividends paid to hold ers of securities living along the line of the road. We know , however, that a large percentage of our population have a very real though indirect per sonal interest In these securities even though they may never have seen a railroad bond or stock certificate. There are few families in the South who do not hold an Insurance policy of some sort; either an assurance on life or against the risk of file The invested funds of the great Insurance companies are, therefore, matter of vital concern to the Southern people, and in large measure, are their own assets hold In trust for their benefit We find that.the chief insurance com putties report their holding of securi ties of the Southern Hallway System. Inc.tiding terminal bonds on which the Southern is a joint guarantor, aggre gating more than eighty million dol lars. In that great fund, the integri ty of which depends upon the con tinued solvency of the Southern Hall way lines, the Southern people have a vital proprietory Interest, an inter est which, as they realize It, should be to them a constant spur to protect themslves by maintaining, as they can and will, the basis of Southern Hallway credit. I assert with confidence that the facts to which 1 have called your at tention are full warrant for the claim that in a very real sense the South ern Railway belongs to the people of the South; so much so that its annual reports might more properly be ad dressed "To the People of the South' to advise you of the results of the management of your property, for today, it belongs more to you than it does to the stockholders More than this, its management is and always has been devoted to the interests of the South. Its officers are mostly Southern-born men and those who were not born In the South have been here long enough to become identified with our interests, our pe culiarities. our responsibilities, our prejudices, and our aspirations as a people; they tall; the same language as the people of the South. I look forward to the time when there may be more Southern men sitting on our Board of Directors, where I know that they will be welcome. As an organization then, the South ern Railway, with full appreciation of. and acquiescence in. the present tendency of public sentiment as to what a railway is and should be. stands pledged to the Southern peo ple, and is proud to declare itself one of their own institutions. As such it invites the Southern people to help it to become more and more their efficient servant and at the same time the object of their pride and af fection. They need have no fear of its future if it has their confidence. I trust you will permit me to take this occasion to say finally a word of a personal nature; I believe In the South and our Southern people with all my heart and soul. I have given most of the years of my manhood to an earnest, though subordinate, part in an effort to realize a high pur pose of promoting the regeneration, through industry, of the prosperity of this our beloved motherland. 1 have not known in my own experi ence the horrors elUier of the military conflict which left our people prostrate, or of the dreary years of political disability and atrophied am bition which followed that great war between the States, in one of the chief theater. 1 of which we are to night, but 1 know the bitterness of these things In the tradition of my Immediate family, and 1 have learned from my parents that there can he no higher aspiration than to he a part In the realization of the ideals of our Southern people. Facing the future, I have then dedicated my life to that duty and to identification with the Southern people. Many others have done arid are doing this and 1 ain proud to he of the company which has accomplished, through co-opera tion and sustained effort, so much in the last quarter of a century. I am humbly grateful for the wel come the South has given me to my new opportunity for Its service. It has been such a welcome as you have given me tonight, cordial and with every evidence of good will. My hope is to justify this to those who allow me their confidence, who are willing to believe that tf we some times fall It will not he through lack of good intention or desire to do our duty as we conceive it. 1 have no sense of personal elation in the reali zation today of an ambition cherished ever since I entered the service of the Southern Railway Company 17 years ago, 1 feel most a sobering sense of a heavy responsibility, but 1 do not fear the event. 1 have served under two great men, Samuel Spencer, and Wil liam Wilson Finley, both men of action, eager to accomplish, conscious al ways of the imperious summons of today, and of the warning of Eccle siastes: •'Whatsoever thy hand find eth to do, do It with thy might." I have known that before ail they were patriotic men, faithful to the South, and with their example and their Ideals before me my hope now is so to carry on their work as to gain the kind of public esteem they earned and to aid in building for the future, as tiiey built, not only the Southern Railway, hut the South Itself In this high endeavor, I am one of you, my fellow countrymen, who are simi larly engaged, and | appeal to you as co-workers for aid and co-opera tion. How's This ? We offer One Hun dred Dollars Reward for any case of Catarrh that cannot be cured by Hall's Catarrh Cure. F. J. Cheney & Cos., Toledo, O. Toledo, (). We, tip' undersigned, h:i\ <• known F. .1 l Tenet lor the last 15 years, I and believe him perfectlv honorable in all business trim-actions ami financially able to curry out any 1 obligations made by Ins linn. X atioxai. 11 \ m, oi < bn m r,laT.. Ilall.s t'litarrh I'm,* is taken internally, acting directly up,in the blood and mucous surfaces of the system. Testimonials sent free. Price 75 cents per 1 Kittle. Sold by all I*i iiggist Takellall’s Family Fills for con stipation. \ J Chicago t. wr. i.ct’is tuM -f.: errv omaka\ .jdK&Sja&Sr i|j / * T ‘ """ m Jr ' ' OKLAHOMA CITY /| I jyUnplS fcßjggggaChM^M m OR - BLOOS' BfIHEATOASE j^SE \{f\/ * tSOt. HOME OFFICE BRANCH OFFICE ferMSP (\\\/ a ATLANTA MONT&OMERjr IHg The POT’ROE OF AMMONIA is the tnest vital consideration in the selection of fertilizers. Being the most expensive clone nt of plant food.it should be pvT*' y -)Fs bought in such form that it will neith >• art in the soil nor lie dormant be > ' r4T13 1 cause of its slow process of nitrificat : j ■ The MORRIS BRANDS are n tv. i'.h the world’s best nitrogen bear \ ing materials, ad have proven th t sur-oriority in crop production over other fer nßvjflfeft! tilizers by scores of tests. This claim is substantiated bv the testimony of farm- IjKajSSifl j ers who used them last year by the side of others, and whose letters appear in our |LjSy nWgt current Yi ir Book. Call on your dealer, or write us for a copy. , T'nis is the guarantee we attach to every bag of guano we ship. Can you get V 'yV'TA.,, a similar WRITTEN GUARANTEE on any oh " g on the n. trket? fijßßff OUR GUARANTEE “TO THE PURCHASER OF THIS GUANO: We gm-rantes the Aaanaia vSBjaW y>\A in this guano to be 100 per cent PURE ANIMAL MATTEH, derived solely /SsAgrJi® and entirely trom the IiGKEST GRADES OF PACKING HOUSE BLOOD AND ANIMAL TANKAGE, made and selected lor ns by our pireut ( organization, Norris & Crmp3ay. It is the FIRST CHOICE from sis oE the 7* j ki?\ J|| largest paebin' -‘ants in the world. MORRIS I'ERTTLIEER CO.. Atlsnta.Gn." i CALL FOR THEM AT YOUR NEAREST DEALER’S. FOR SALE BY l \sly& L W. A. Shore & Cos. Baldwin. G-a. J Winte & Cos., Maysville, Ga- /^kr- Banks County Bank INSURES DEPOSITS ■MUbAOhSili .a .1 k .-6—.- - Pays Interest on Time D o sits and Extends to its depositing end bor rowing custom ers all the bu 1. c commodations and faciut 3 any well regulated bank v h tion affords. Call rpon us when y... i > o borrow and remember a? 1 t i have surplus mone. . Banks County HOMER, G Ij. X. TT’KK, Pres. K. T. TH<>' ■ m ■ ' O. WALTON, Cash Acknowledge receipt of all dip,, i- -c Interest Paid on Savings Acc >u 100 Kit CENT, N\l 1. 1 Modern Met hues These days the average farmer ha i vantages of his town ueiglmoi il h -c.r ii-<- The fanner can (h> his a 1 g'■ \ take adv antage of tn xlerii n* i>l, 1 - * ■• , satisfactory aud the thing tod->. y are banking that way. They mail u- •• ii c at once credit their account and mail a duplhal <c -i slip. We carry Burglar Insurance on tne money Also Fire insurance on our building. The Bank of Gi/lsville G-illsville. G-a. GROVES L. GRIFFIN, Cashier. Jouannet’s Frost Proof Cabbage Plants ®Are known as the best to be had anywhere by thousand, of experienced buyers, and are offered to you at prices LOWER than you pay for common, inferior plants. WILL HAVE ALL VARIETIES. Plants tied in bunches of 25. PRICES: 75 cents for 500 lots; SI.OO per 1000; 5000 and over 85 cents per 1000. JOI’ANMTS EARLY GIANT ARCENTEIIL ASPARAGUS ROOTS, one year and two year old, $4 per 1000, $1 per 100. COUNT AND SATISFACTION GUARANTEED Low rates by Southern Express Cos, Cash with order, please. For a profitable crop send your orders early to ALFRED JOLAWET, r,ox 156 wt. pleasant, s. c.