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8 THE Weekly Jeffersonian A Newspaper Devoted to the Advocacy of the Jeffersonian Theory of Government. PUBLISHED BY THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON Editors and Proprietors Austell Building, Atlanta, Ga. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE - . $r oo PER TEAR. Advertising Rates Furnished on Application. Entered at Pnttoflicr, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, IQO7, at second clan mail matter ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1907 The Georgia Legislature. We bad a great battle for Reform in Geor gia last year, and the people won a glorious victory. In June, the new Governor, Hon. Hoke Smith, will be inaugurated, and the new Legis lature begin its session. That Governor Hoke Smith will exert ev ery energy he possesses to redeem the cam paign pledges of Candidate Hoke Smith, there isn’t the shadow of a doubt. He is in dead earnest, and means to do things. I hit he can not do a great deal, unless he is supported by the Legislature. To this support he is entitled for the reason that the members of that body could not have been elected had they not been understood to be committed to the Georgia Democratic Platform adopted at Macon. After the publication of that Platform, ev ery’ nominee who remained in the race and was voted into the Legislature is conclusively presumed to have ratified the action of the Macon Convention. Therefore, the next Legislature of Georgia stands pledged in honor to support Governor Hoke Smith in his efforts “to make good.” It is but fair to assume that the individual members of the next Legislature are honora ble men and will faithfully discharge theii duty to the people. Assuming this to be so, nrcat things are going to be done —things which will injure no legitimate business or profit but which will bring manifold blessings of the most prac ticable kind, to the people at large. (i) We want a two-cent passenger rate; and if the Commission has not in the mean time given it to us, the Legislature should. (_’) We want decent accommodations for passengers at way-stations. We want waiting rooms lit up at night, and heated when the weather is cold. We want toilets for men and women, blacks and whites—always nec essary, and more so now than ever in this era of delayed trains. (3) The delaying of a local train out of Atlanta. Augusta. Savannah, etc., for three, four, five and six hours in order that a through train shall make connection should be prohib ited. It is not fair that every traveler in Georgia should be inconvenienced and injured to serve the convenience of a comparative handful of through passengers. (4) The Attorney General —a capable, hon est and fearless official—should be authorized and directed to institute legal proceedings to break up the fraudulent, law-dodging devices THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. by which our Constitution has been trampled under foot by the two Wall Street robber combines—the Southern Railway and the Lou isville and Nashville Railroad. It can be done. The Lease of the Georgia Railroad to the Coast Line and the L. & N. can be annulled. The sham arrangement between the Central and the Southern can be smashed. Let us restore that competition between the various lines which our Constitution declared should never be killed. But it has been killed. Let the Legislature sound the trump of resurrection by directing Attorney General Hart as aforesaid. Not only can he break up the existing law dodging combination which throttles competi tion but he can forfeit the charter both of the Central and the Georgia Railroads for mis use of the franchise. (5) We should compel our state lines to adopt the automatic block system and to abol ish the grade-crossing. (6) It should be made a misdemeanor for a train or any part thereof to back on the track in any town, village or city without a flagman going before it to warn off the track any per son who might be hit by the cars backing. (7) No additional issue of stock and bonds should be valid without the consent, previously obtained, of the Railway Commission and the Governor. (8) The Railway Commission should be given power to compel the Railroads to spend a sufficient amount of their earnings upon the property itself to keep it in first-class condi tion. (9) It should be made a felony for any rail road to refuse cars to independent shippers when they are supplying cars, in the same ter ritory, to a T rust. The manner-in which the Central Railroad, acting in the interest of the Cotton Seed Oil Trust, refused to supply cars, in Augusta, to the independent buyers, the Daniels Bros., is a case in point. The facts in that case are of record- A more high-handed outrage was never committed by a Corpora tion —not even by the Standard Oil Company. The Charter of the Central can be forfeited because of that Misuse of the Franchise. (10) We should have power vested in the Governor and the two houses to clear the capitol building of the swarms of Lobbyists that gather therein to pester and mislead, de ceive or debauch the members of the Legisla ture. The Lobbyist should be excluded. His p”r pose always is to defeat the will of the people. His employer is always some corporation tlur wants to kill good legislation or to secure some favor which it ought not to have. None of these reforms go a step beyond what is reasonable and just. If the Legislature proves true to the people —as I assume that it will—every one of the moderate changes necessary to the safety of the traveling public can be speedily brought about. Ami if the Southern Railway and its L. & N. ally shall send its Hamp McWhorter Bri gade into the halls to defeat the will of the people, 1 hope that the Georgia Legislature will do what the Legislature of Pennsylvania did two weeks ago—j’eer and deride those hire lings of the corporations. For God’s sake! let us have one Legislature in Georgia that can not be McWhortered, Tom Feldered, Harry Fishered, J. T. Hanson ed—or MORGANIZED! •t H * The States Can Defy Wall Street It has been the constant practice of the railway corporations to make light of the pow er of the states. Every time the state has tried to shield its citizens from railway mistreat ment, the corporation has invoked the princi ple of Interstate Commerce and demanded the protection of the Federal Courts. But did it never occur to them that in the long run the,deadly animosity they were thus arousing in the states would some day have its inning? Did it never occur to them that every Char ter they held was granted bv the state and could be annulled by the state? Did it never occur to them that the noto riously systematic way in which they were Misusing their Franchises gave the state the absolute legal right to forfeit the charter? It would seem not. So contemptuous of state rights have been modern railway methods that this danger point appears to have been overlooked en tirely. In fact, the separate states have the Wall Street combinations at their mercy, if the peo ple will elect Governors and legislators who can be trusted to do their duty. There isn't a state in this Union that can not put Wall Street out of control of its rail roads if the people determine to have it done. No Wall Street combine can resist the unit ed people of any state. What the people need is to rouse themselvs to action. We can break the Wall Street despotism if we try. •t How could any of the Railroads that gave rebates to Standard Oil and thus built up that huge monopoly defend itself when arraigned for Misuse of Franchises? What plea could it make? Even at Common Law, such a flagrant breach of duty on the part of the Common Carrier would have worked a forfeiture of Charter. ’ Under our Statute law, there can be no doubt whatsoever that discriminations syste matically granted a favored person to the ruin of the person discriminated against, is precise ly that Misuse of Franchise which the law for bids. Where is the Railroad whose charter cannot be forfeited for Misuser of Franchise? In one way or another, all of them have mis used their powers. IT IS IN THE POWER OF THE STATES TO FORFEIT THESE CHAR TERS AND TO TAKE POSSESSION OF THE ROADS. Just compensation must be paid-for all the railroad’s property, excepting the Franchise. That, h aving been forfeited by wilful and continued Misuse, need not be paid for at all. The road-bed, depot buildings, etc., would be comparatively worthless without the Fran chise; therefore, the state could either pur-