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12 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.