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pretending Missouri conductor, and it
was a wholesome deed. To charge
a battery in the excitement of battle
animated by the gaudium certaminis
in company with hundreds or thou
sands of one’s shouting comrades has
ever been accounted a heroic perform
ance, but it is easy beside what was
done by Heywood. Unarmed, watch
ing an opportunity, single handed he
pounced on the robber who had bis
pistol in his hand, knocked him down
and held him till he could be tied.
Certainly Carnegie ought to give him
a medal, and the railroad company
ought to give him a life pension equal
to his salary. Leonidas at Thermopy
lae, the Light brigade at Balaklava,
the Old Guard at Waterloo—none of
these showed more courage than did
Conductor Heywood. All honor to his
name. May his tribe increase. Like
Lord Byron, he awoke one morning to
find himself famous. Conductors who
act as he did are as scarce as poets
who write as Byron wrote. If Hey
wood were of proper age, he ought -to
be sent to West .Point, but as be is
sixty-four that cannot be. If he had
performed his heroic feat within the
realm of Napoleon while that mighty
man was emperor of France, he would
most certainly have been rewarded
with the cross of the Legion of Honor
and given even more substantial re
wards. Even in this prosaic age Hey
wood should not go unrewarded.
•t
A Contrast.
Little Delaware is to be most heart
ily congratulated on having unloaded
Gas Addicks, the greatest incubus that
ever afflicted any American common
wealth. He has kept her in the lime
light—and such a limelight!—for ten
or twelve years, humbled her, dis
graced her, made her name a hiss and
a by-word among the states. Twice
he forced her to have only one Unit
ed States senator for the space of
two years each time, and once for a
period of two years he prevented her
having any United- States senator at
all. That’s Republican Delaware! What
an awful contrast with the Democrat
ic era when Delaware sent to the sen
ate such splendid Americans as the
Saulsburys, the Bayards and Judge
George Gray!
n
Holding On.
What has become of the Platt res
ignation rumors? For months they
came thick and fast, but the aged, not
venerable, Thomas Collier Platt still
sits in the house of the ancients and
gives no sign. It will be remembered
that he once resigned. That was away
back in the dog days of 1881, during
the Garfield-Conkling feud. Most folks
believe that the lordly Roscoe com
pelled Thomas Collier to resign, and
they therefore and thereupon dubbed
him “Me Too Platt.” His friends
that he suggested the idea to Conk
ling—a statement taken cum grano.
That Conkling would have heeded his
advice is altogether improbable when
we reflect upon the known character
istics of the two men. At any rate,
Platt hasn’t resigned any fat posi
tions since Conkling died, and, what’s
most likely, he never will.
*
Perhaps somebody some time some
where has done a more unwise and
inopportune thing than Governor Swet
tenham did when he wrote his rude
and uncalled for letter to Admiral Da
vis. If so, it has escaped the histo
rians of all time. It is the ne plus ul
tra of bad manners. In this era of
good feeling betwixt us and Great
Britain there, is no danger of its pro
ducing international complications, but
nevertheless the British foreign office
did well to promptly disavow it.
It
The world moves, and no mistake.
James Bryce is the only untitled En-
glishman ever accredited to our gov
ernment as the British diplomatic rep
resentative. The entire diplomatic
establishment as now conducted is ar
chaic and should be abolished, but if
it is to be continued, as it no doubt
will be, then we hail James Bryce,
embassador, etc., as the harbinger of a
better day.
CHAMP CLARK.
HUH
STOCK WATERING AND RAILROAD
OPERATIONS.
That railroad capitalization is large
ly built upon water in the United
States, has been demonstrated time
and again. This watered stock may
be illustrated in several ways. For
instance, suppose the grocer in a local
town has a ten thousand dollar stock
of goods, including his building and
equipment and his business is very
prosperous on account of lack of com
petition, and he is making twenty
to twenty-five per cent over and above
expenses each year on his investment.
This big profit invites too much in
quiry and temptation on the part of
persons disposed to be inquisitive. The
grocer organizes a “corporation” and
so manipulates matters that he sells
another fifteen thousand dollars’ worth
of stock, the money which he suc
ceeds in getting, or notes for it, as
“promoter,” and he still retains his
ten thousand dollars’ worth of stock
and perhaps gets some of the new
stock. If the original stock w r as mak
ing an average annual income of twen
ty per cent, the whole new stock of
twenty-five thousand dollars, instead
of the original ten thousand dollars,
would be making 8 per cent, the pro
moter, the holder of the original ten
thousand dollars would have his ten
thousand dollars’ worth of stock, would
have the fifteen thousand dollars paid
in for the new stock, would still be
getting 8 per cent on his ten thousand
dollars and would have fifteen thous
and dollars of loose money for other
purposes.
Not a cent would have been added
to actual assets of the corporation, but
fifteen thousand dollars would be add
ed to the capital stock, and instead
of reducing the price to the patrons
of the store, as ought to be done,
without issuing watered stock, the con
sumer has to pay prices to sustain and
maintain an income on stock that rep
resents nothing at all, except a graft
upon the public.
The case is "much more flagrant
in the case of a railroad corporation.
It is a public service corporation, and
of such large capitalization that new
and competing roads cannot be built
in a hurry. The store in the supposed
case is a strictly private concern and
a small capital could put in a com
peting store in short order. The sup
posed case can be remedied easily,
that of the railroad corporation from
its nature and business enjoys privi
leges and opportunities that the small
er concern does not, and the railroad
can easily confuse the public where
the other could not.
Railroads are permitted to be built
and operated for what is supposed to
be the “public convenience,” for the
better handling of the traffic of the
people—at a reasonable cost. In good
faith the cost of the traffic to the pub
lic, in charges should be based upon
actual Investment —not upon water —
and water frequently many times
more than the actual investment. If
the watering of stock is permitted, it
may be indefinitely multiplied, and if
freight and passenger charges may be
based rightfully on such watered
stock, then the process may be carried
on so as to absorb every dollar of
earnings of the people.
But the watering of stock is not con
fined to railroad companies, it is and
has been common in all other matters,
such as the great oil trust, steel trust,
THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
and other corporations of like chai
acter. We are at a critical period in
the history of the country, which
needs not be alarming, but which calls
for sound statesmanship, and which
will also require that the strong and
certain power of government, govern
ment by nation, state, county and mu
nicipality, be exerted to control and
regulate corporate wealth and prop
erty of every class, keeping it at all
times in subjection to the best inter
ests of the people, while permitting
it at the same time to yield a fair re
turn to the investors.
The stock watering is, in effect, for
gery on an extensive scale. This is
the plain and unavoidable result to the
paying public, and a government or
ganized by the people themselves for
their own protection, surely must have
enough virture in it to correct a plain
and dangerous invasion of the intent
and purpose of all government, the
equal protection of all. —The Searcn
light.
M H H
WILL KEEP UP THE BOYS ON THE
FARM.
By a Farmer.
The subject is one of great mo
ment, for in it lies the solution of
the “labor” the “vagrant negro,” and
the “boys leaving the farm” prob
lems. One of the sages has said
“fools learn by their own experience,
the wise by the experience of others.”
I think the southern farmers would
do well to consider this.
Go into their homes and you will
find all up-to-date household necessa
ries—the sevdng machine, washing
machine, cream separators and other
labor saving inventions. Go to the
saw mills, cotton mills, printing of
fices, etc., and you find every known
device for saving labor and reducing
hired help to the minimum. Go into
the field and you find the old fashioned
Dixie plow; one. plow, one man, one
mule, making one furrow. Plowing
around stumps that have to be “wed”
every year. Turning at the rail fence
which has to be “righted up” everv
year, and distributing manure with
shovels, utilizing both the boys and
hired help.
•While gang plows or disc plows or
harrows with two or three mules and
one man would do more work, do it
better and do it all “just at the right
time,” why plow and weed around
stumps when improved machinery will
rid the farm of them once for all at
a very small cost? Why fix up old
(or new) rail fences when timber is
so valuable and wire so cheap? Whv
spread manure by hand when a spread
er with one man and two horses will
do more and better work than the
same team with a wagon and four
men.
I say up-to-date equipment solves
the “labor” problem because the farm
er needs less “help,” consequently can
pay better wages and secure compe
tent men. I say it solves the “vagrant
negro” problem because the farmer
can be as independent of the negro as
the negro is of the farmer. If that
isn’t a complete solution when the
“vagrant” gets into the toils of the law
it will be. I say it solves the problem
of the boys leaving the farm because
if the farm is run in an up-to-date man
ner the boys can have as much time
for recreation as the city boys. If
the hired help is competent, educated
men, the boys will not dislike their
society. If the farm is relieved of
its drudgery (the majority of which
is unnecessary) the boys will look upon
farming as a scientific study, devote
their evenings to reading and study
and grow up to be competent farm
ers. If the farm was relieved of its
drudgery it would be as near heaven
as any place on earth. And the farm
er would be its king instead of its
slave. This is possible only through
the use of labor saving machinery.—
Union News, Barnesville, Ga.
H M H
MY SEASON O’ THE YEAR.
There’s a time ’at soots my fancy,
Tho’ it may not jast fit yours,
When the house is like a prison,
An’ I long fur out o’ doors.
J ■• '
There is joy to me in winter,
When the stingin’ frosty bite
Sends my blood a hoppin’ jumpin’
An’ makes me feel ’bout rite.
What a joy the fust brite blossoms,
Which, like visions from above,
Are blessings ever welcome
An ’ they tech our hearts with love.
An’ I like the time o’ summer,
When the golden harvests wave,
An’ the house-wren an’ the bobolink
In the meadow brooklets lave.
F ; • |
But the time I love the best
Os all the pleasant year,
Is when the squirrel gathers store,
An’ the autumn leaf is sear.
When the day is sorter dreamy'
An’ the eooin’ of the dove
Fills the mind with restrospeetion,
An’ the heart with mellow love.
itJ' Il ; I i
When the death ’at Mother Nature
Some day will send to all,
On every leaf an’ blossom
Is seen to lightly fall;
mi; ,
When the soul o’ man is quickened
An’ his thots to heaven ascend,
An’ it seems the Past an’ Future
In holy union blend;
When I see the Hand o’ Heaven
On all things far an’ wide,
An’ I feel the life within me
Has reached its ebbin’ tide;
r ; iII ' I I
’Tis then my soul in rapture
To its highest pleasure soars,
An the fields air so invitin’
At I must git out o’ doors.
—J. A. ROSS.
nun
OREGON AFTER HARRIMAN.
Oregon proposes to make the boot
fit both feet. Now it says the rail
roads will have to pay some demur
rage, say ten dollars a day in ease
they fail to furnish when a demand
is made for them. The roads make
you pay for the cars, when not un
loaded promptly, and the shipper
should have some lick at the roads
when they want to ship and have no
cars. It is thought that when Ore
gon’s legislature meets, and this law
is put into effect, that Harriman will
scramble about and squtnder some
money on building cars Eagle,
Dothan, Ala.
< * W
THE HEARST CONTEST.
The new development in Mr.
Hearst’s effort to count the ballots
cast when he ran for Mayor against
Mr. McClellan in 1905, is a motion on
the part of Mr. McClellan’s lawyers
for an order adjudging Attorney
General Jackson in contempt of
court, and punishing him for his vio
lation of the writ of prohibition, ob
tained by the Mtyor. If the Attor
ney General should refuse to with
draw his action, in the name of the
people, this, in a motion, asks for his
imprisonment until he does so. The<
motion will be held in Albany
Saturday. . __ Z
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