Newspaper Page Text
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ROOSEVELT TO FIGHT OVER CAP
ITALIZATION.
(Continued from page 1.)
convenience of the public.”
The effect of the regulation of rates
by such a valuation would be not on
ly to stop the earning of undue divi
dends, but also to prevent the charg
ing of betterments and new construc
tion to maintenance and operating ex
penses, and covering what should
rightfully come from new capital by
earnings from excessive rates. It
would also squeeze out a large part
of the water that has been injected
into railroad capitalization.—The New
York Times.
* * *
DRINKING BLOOD.
So subtly do many trusts operate,
and so successfully do they, in many
instances, conceal the rapacity of their
operations, that their victims remain
in comparative ignorance of being the
victims of systematic plunder and out
rage, until the season is over, and
then the despoiled are too busy hust
ling to undertake to get restitution.
Now that the summer is over, for
example, the people of New York will
raise no kick now, no matter how glar
ingly the oppressive greed of the Ice
Trust may be exposed. While the facts
adduced in the case against the Amer
ican ice company—the inhumanity to
man, even to babes —practiced by the
trust, is a revelation of shocking atroc
ity, yet now that ice is no longer a
daily necessity to be purchased from
the trust at its own price; now that
the people are enjoying a few months
respite, they don’t bother about what
is “done past.” People in the country,
who have never lived in a densely
populated city, do not fully realize
that in the city ice is not a luxury, but
a prime necessity, in many ways.
According to the People, the trust
first reduced the ice fields, available
for New York’s summer supply to one
third that of the year previous. The
next step was to raise prices higher
and still higher—three, four, five hun
dred per cent. On top of that, the trust
watered its stock —not by drops or cup
fuls, or pailfuls—but by whole hogs
headfuls.
The assets claimed by the trust
amount to $46,325,488. Os this amount
only $12,964,882 was tangible. In other
words, $33,360,606 was water—or near
ly three times as much water as wine!
Nor was this all. The trust declared
9 per cent dividend on its inflated
or watered assets; the dividends actu
ally raked in, considering the much
smaller real assets, were nearer to 33
per cent, or $4,169,293 of plunder —
plunder? Nay, blood!
In order that the trust owners should
enjoy the summer, and be ready for
the rigors of the winter, the poor had
to bleed. But not the poor adults
merely, the poor babes especially. Ad
dressing a “mothers’ meeting’ a few
weeks ago at an uptown public school,
one of those well-fed female lecturers
to workingmen’s wives upon their
“derelictions” stated that 24,500 little
ones had died in the city the previous
year. How many of these were parch
ed to death for the want of ice that
has become a necessary of life!
It is no figure of speech. The capi
talist class is a vampire class. Thirst
ing for the wealth that labor produces,
the capitalist class also thirsts for the
blood of the working class —and drains
it. It is not sparkling wine, it is the
blood of children that the Ice Trust
magnates are quaffing. —Southern Mer
cury.
* * *
The party that needs all force of
fear, prejudice and cowardice they
can arouse in the voter to assist in
maintaining a majority, has not a
good cause. —Sou. Critic.
SEE THE POINT?
The terrible railroad wreck near
Washington, D. C., recently in which
half a hundred persons were killed,
was of the same kind as that near
Lynchburg a few days previous, in
which President Sam Spencer and
others were killed. Both were rear
end collisions, a heavy train running
Into another which was standing still
on the track ahead of it, and plow
ing its way through the shattering
timbers and twisting iron. They were
clearly in the class of avoidable ac
cidents —more than that, they were
accidents impossible except under
gross and criminal negligence on the
part of some one.
Our country has become THE
country of railway accidents. We
have more disasters on the rail than
all the rest of the world combined.
This horrible tragedy is being play
ed so continuously that it has become
the subject for jest, and our railroad
horrors have made us the butt of
ridicule among the nations. It is hor
rible, and it is humiliating. The time
has come when this condition should
be changed.
Railroad wrecks are of two kinds,
the preventable and the unpreventa
ble. The line of demarkation between
them may not be exactly located, and
of some accidents it may be impossi
ble to determine on which side of
the line they should be placed. Nev
ertheless, there is such a line, and
in many accidents, and in nearly all
the terribly fatal accidents, there is
no difficulty in finding that they be
long to the preventable kind, and
are due to the criminal carelessness
of some person, without which it
could not have happened. When a
train runs into an open switch, left
open by one whose duty it was to
have closed it, the resulting accident
is clearly a preventable one, and
many if not all the horrible accidents
of the year have resulted from just
such cases.
♦ * •
It cannot be expected that human
care and foresight will ever reach
such a stage of perfection that no
rairoad wrecks will occur. When it
is remembered that a break in one
single bolt may cause an accident,
and that the strain of a body weigh
ing hundreds of tons and moving at
a speed of nearly a mile a minute
is something fearful, it causes won
der to think that human ingenuity
and human foresight should be so
great as to make such feats possible
at all, and still more, comparatively
safe. The accidents, as a rule, which
result from what may be classed as
unpreventable causes are the trivial
ones. If we prevent the preventable
accidents, or those which can be
clearly charged to a cause that should
not be allowed to exist, these fearful
conditions of daily railroad horrors
would be ended.
• • •
How can this be done?
This question can be answered if
we trace up the cause of the prevent
able accidents This is the private
ownership of railroads.
You don’t believe it. Then just con
sider:
Under private ownership railroads
are operated for profit to the own
ers. This is perfectly natural, and is
not wrong in principle. The object
of the owners in acquiring railroad
stock is to make dividends. Os course
they will not incur any expense that
can be avoided. They make every
thing last as long as possible. They
make employes work as long as pos
sible. They will make out with as few
engines and cars as possible. If in
the pursuance of this policy they
should leave a rotting tie, a weaken
ing piece of timber in a brlge, a
rusting bolt Just a little too long, a
catastrophe happens. If the cheap em-
THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
ploye falls just a little short of hav
ing the required skill, or the over
worked man is overcome by just a
little fatigue at the critical moment,
or an unfit engine or car is pressed
into service beyond its strength in
an emergency, the accident follows
as a natural sequence. Railroads
should be operated for the public •
good, and this can never be expect
ed until the element of private gain
is eliminated. Some necessary safe
guards would not pay in dollars and
cents. It would be -wrong to expect
a private owner to supply them. The
government alone, operating the rail
roads for the public good, could do
that. Hence it is that in those coun
tries where the governments own the
railroads there are fewer railroad
wrecks.
* * *
But there is more than good road
bed and ample engines and rolling
stock of the proper kind, which would
tend to prevent the preventable ac
cidents. Under our present system
of private ownership, when an acci
dent, say a rear end collision, is caus
ed by the criminal negligence of some
man, indignation is roused against
the company and is given vent prin
cipally in heavy damage suits, which
juries are always ready and eager to
decide against the defendant corpor
ation. The culprit in the case receives
punished, and usually is posed as a
but minor consideration, is never
semi-martyr who has worked beyond
his capacity or beyond his skill to
save expense to the railroad. A man
who, knowing that human lives are
entrusted to his care, neglects his du
ty and causes a fatal wreck, should
be punished as a criminal; but this
can never be done until private own
ership is changed to public owner
ship, which can properly reward all
service without regard to cost.
The first case on which the writer
served as juryman was a case against
a railroad for the killing of an en
gineer, who lost his life by running
into a switch left open by the section
boss in passing his handcar into this
siding. Clearly in this case the rail
road company was not at fault, yet
under the instructions of the judge
a verdict was returned against the
defendant company—and no action
of any sort was taken against the
man whose criminal negligence was
responsible for this homicide. If the
government operated the railroads,
employed only competent men for ev
ery position, and properly punished
all acts of criminal carelessness which
led to disaster, all preventable acci
dents would be prevented, and our
railroads would cease to be the horri
ble man-killers they are now.
And not until the element of pri
vate gain is eliminated from our rail
road business will this condition be
reached. —Augusta, Ga., Tribune.
* * *
TOM E. WATSON
To Speak at Ruston, La., on February
Bth.
Arrangements have beeen made for
Thomas E. Watson, of Georgia, and
C. S. Barrett, National President of
the Farmers 1 Union, to speak at Rus
ton, La., on February Sth. Brethren,
do not miss this opportunity to hear
two of the South’s greatest men. It
may he years before you have a
chance to hear those great men again.
Wo will arrange for reduced rates
over all the railroads. So now, boys,
we want at least 4,000 people at this
meeting, and we are sure that num
ber will be present. The speaking
will be nt the Chautauqua grounds if
the weather is good, and if it should
'be bad weather it will he held at the
courthouse. So. come on and bring
the familv to hear these great men.—
Banner, Wingfield, La.
Davison
and
Fargo
COTTON FACTORS
AUGUSTA, GA.
LARGEST AND FINEST WARE
HOUSE IN THE CITY. PROMPT
AND CAREFUL ATTENTION
TO ALL BUSINESS.
Afet___ . ”
I!
Jap
L C. SMITH
Visible Typewriter
Writing' in Sight
Is in Line of Progress
See Our 1907 Models •
H. M. ASHE CO.
Ground Floor Y. M. C. A. Building
ATLANTA, - GEORGIA
Bell Phone 1541 8 1896
Standard Phone 296
We have SB,OOO worth of
our competitors’ standard
machines which we will
sell at less than half price.
REAL ESTATE.
Those desiring to move to South
Georgia, the most prosperous section
of the state; can secure bargains in
city property, farm lands, saw mill or
turpentine sites, oy writing to
C. C. TYLER,
Box 272. Moultrie, Ga.
IDLEWILD PROLIFIC COTTON has
captured the south. Two bales per
acre sure. Seed limited. Price cheap.
Selling fast. Home grown, guaran
teed garden and flower seeds, cheap.
Sole owners of Siberian Lettuce,
grows outdoors all winter. Planted
now brings 10c per head. Pkg. seed
10c. Write us. IDLEWILD FLORAL
GARDENS, College Park, Ga.