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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