Newspaper Page Text
demand that all other classes be taxed for its
benefit i
Right now the agricultural classes are the
principal sufferers from. our unjust and op
pressive. practice of granting Special Privil
eges to favored industries. The hundreds of
manufactured articles which,the farmer is
necessarily compelled to buy cost him twice
as much as they should, because of the fact
that Special Privilege created a (’monopoly
and the monopoly gave birth to the Trust.
Systematically and unmercifully, the agri
cultural classes are plundered by the pam
pered few who enjoy the Special Privilege
of governmental protection.
It can not relieve the situation to add an
other horse leech to those which are already
sucking the life-blood out of the unprotected
many.
The South can not escape the ruinous con
sequences of class law. exploitation by getting
“protection” on rice and Sea Island cotton.
Let us not condone the crime of robbing
the many to enrich the few by accepting a
pitiful share in the spoils.
Let us stand for the principle of Equal
rights for all and special privileges for none.
When the Farmers’ Alliance met at Ocala,
Florida, in 1889, it declared for the sound and
just doctrine that “no industry should be
built up at the expense of another.”
A special price can not be given in the
American market to the growers of Sea Is
land cotton without compelling the American
consumer, to pay that special price.
Therefore, the long and the short of Mr.
Lamar’s proposition is that all of us are to be
compelled by law to pay a higher price for
Sea Island cotton and for the goods made
therefrom, in order that the few who raise
that grade of cotton may enjoy the higher
prices thus obtained.
Class legislation of this sort is exactly the
enemy which the agricultural industries
should fight to the death.
What the farmers should demand is not
a partnership in the looting of the many by
the few, but a doing away with those Special
Privileges which enable the favored few to
appropriate to themselves the wealth pro
duced by the unprivileged many.
It is short-sighted statesmanship which
would commit the cotton growers to a Pro
tective System which always has taken and
always will take from the agricultural classes
ten thousand times more than it gives.
R R R
Editorial Notes.
One of the bedizened diplomats who repre
sents a South American state at Washington
volunteers the information that the Ship Sub
sidy steal should have gone through. Said
diplomat thinks it a pity that Great Britain
should be allowed to beat us in getting South
American trade. This being so, the said
diplomat’s duty is clear: let him persuade the
Ship Subsidy gang to change the law so as
to give the American citizen the same right
which the Englishman enjoys, to-wit, That
of buying ships where they can be bought
cheapest. That’s a simple plan, a practical
plan, a just plan which hurts nobody and
which would immediately put the American
flag back upon the ocean.
Another way to put the American flag back
upon the seas, and thus fill the soul of Bob
Lowry and other Bankers’ Association mo
guls with bliss, is equally simple, viz., put
ship-building materials upon the Free List.
Would that hurt anybody? Not a soul.
Then why not do it?
Because a gang of thieves want to raid the
United States Treasury in the interest of
transportation companies.
That is all. -
Put that into your pipe and smoke it, Bob
Lowry—you who were busy handing out
THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
your little red booklets in favor of the Ship
Subsidy!
. ■
Those railroad Presidents who are threat
ening the people and defying the laws of the
land are playing with edged tools.
They would be well advised if they drew
in their horns.
Times have changed since Commodore
Vanderbilt could safely indulge the arrogant
temper which so many railroad presidents
have considered to be one of the qualifies ons
for the office.
“The public be damned!” is a phrase that
struck deep in the American consciousness
and memory.
In the end, that insolent defiance of the
people is going to cost the Vanderbilt family,
and similar groups, very dearly, indeed.
History presents no marvel greater than
that of the patience with which the masses
of tlie American people have submitted to the
corporation yoke, to corporation frauds, to
corporation insults, and to corporation crimes
which range from petty larceny to annual
murders of thousands of people.
Thank God for the belief that the public
has at last grown weary of being “damned”
and is rousing itself for a fight.
Three hundred million dollars is the
amount of water recently poured into railroad
stocks. To that extent the corporation rob
bers have added to fictitious and fraudulent
capitalization. To that extent has your bur
den been dishonestly increased, for you are
to be taxed, in freight and passenger rates,
until that additional stock earns a dividend.
Should Congress or the State Legislature
impose a burden upon the railroads which
will make it impossible to earn dividends up
on that fraudulent stock, the corporation law
yers will claim that such act of Congress or
of the Legislature is “confiscatory”; and
they will hunt around until they find a
“Judge” who will so decide.
According to corporation logic, no tax, re
duction in rates, or other public burden can
be lawfully put upon the artificial person (the
corporation) until it has first earned a reason
able net profit.
Corporations lawyers so claim.
tion “judges” so decide.
The difference between the lawyer who
makes this claim and the judge who sustains
it, is slight. The one is on the bench, and
the other isn’t; but both of them belong to
the corporation.
“Confiscatory!” cries the corporation law
yer.
“Confiscatory!” echoes the corporation
judge. Away goes the act of Congress, or
of the Legislature. The law can not touch
the corporation until it has first pocketed a
net profit.
I wonder how far that maggot will multi
ply in the brains of rotten lawyers and judges
before the scorching sunlight kills it!
A fouler, falser principle than that involved
in this confiscatory dodge was never an
nounced. Where was that monstrosity ger
minated ?
From what sewer of mental prostitution
came that loathsome reptile?
How long can such an abortion of the night
live in the fierce white light of day?
How long will it be before some honest, ca
pable judge holds up that preposterous con
tention to the gaze of ridicule, scorn, con
tempt, and makes it the shame of its corpora
tion sponsors?
The state has no more to do with guaran
teeing the net profits of a railroad than with
guaranteeing the net profits of a saw mill
company.
As well might a furniture factory say: “We
are not making any profit out of the business,
and if you put that tax on us it will be confis
catory !”
As well might the merchant and farmer
plead that they are not earning net profits,
and that, therefore, the taxes laid upon them
are confiscatory.
Why should there be one law for artificial
persons and a different law for natural per
sons?
Why put the railroad in so much better po
sition than any one else? Must the national
and state authorities overhaul everybody’s
books, to learn whether there is a net profit,
before making laws which affect that busi
ness?
R
A railroad company comes into court and
pleads that the act of the Legislature reduc
ing passenger fares to two cents per mile is
“confiscatory.”
That is, the two-cent rate takes the profit
out of the business.
Suppose it does—WHOSE FAULT IS IT?
Perhaps the road is badly managed, and
should employ a better manager. The state
has nothing to do with the general manage
ment of the road.
Perhaps the road-bed has been allowed to
run down and there have been many wrecks,
causing loss of limb and of life to passengers,
and the piling up of a huge account for law
yers’ fees, other expenses of litigation, and lia
bilities to persons injured. The railroad was
to blame for that, not the state.
Perhaps the salaries paid to the stock
gambling Presidents in New York were too
high, while the wages of engineers, conduct
ors, telegraph operators, etc., were too low:
and thus cheap labor operated the trains and
great disasters resulted.
The state had nothing to do with that, or
should not be held responsible.
Perhaps too much money was spent on
lobbyists, editors, legislative and judicial cor
ruption, campaign contributions, etc. —should
the state be made responsible for that?
In other words, the failure of a railroad
company to earn a profit on any given pas
senger rate, or freight rate, depends upon a
thousand and one things with which the state
has nothing to do. To say that the state
shall not interfere until the corporation has
first made a profit is to put the state—EVEN
WHEN HONESTLY DEALT WlTH—in
the position of Insurer to the Corporation.
Can such a proposition be otherwise than
absurd ?
The state is not permitted to manage the
corporation, but must guarantee a net profit
—else it can not lower the rates! NON
SENSE.
The Steel Trust is one of the “Infant In
dustries" which our laws “protect” from for
eign competition to such an extent that it
sells goods abroad 40 per cent cheaper than at
home.
Thus the foreign farmers who compete with
ours are enabled to procure plantation imple
ments of all kinds much cheaper than dur
home farmers get them.
The Steel Trust “Infant” cleaned up a clear
profit of $156,000,000 last year—a greater
sum than was earned by all the ten or twelve
million workers who labor upon our five mil
lion farms.
One would suppose that this “Infant,” at
least, was happy, and was crooning melo
diously in its nurse’s arms.
But it is not.
Protected “Infants” never get enough. The
Steel Trust is so disgruntled at getting only
two big battle ships to build that it threatens
to shut down its armor-plate mills unless the
Government will give it more.
What shall we do about it, Hobson?
(Continued on Page 12.)
9