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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 Temple Court Building, Atlanta, Ga. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE - $r oo PER YEAR. Advertising Rates Furnished on Application. Enttrtii at Ptitifficr, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, IQO7, at second clan mail matter ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 1907 No Dibine Right in Business. It is soberly claimed by people who ought to have better sense, that money invested in railroad property is entitled to a profit. Plausible assertions carry, sometimes, the force of argument, and we, therefore, find many thoughtless editors, and other public men, weakly admitting that money invested in railroad property has a right to a profit. Will you, my dear reader, please chew on this proposition a little bit before, you gulp it down ? From what source docs money invested in railroad property derive its title to a profit ? From what high and holy fount comes this peculiar claim in behalf of railroad capital? Shall we establish an Order of Nobility in the commercial world? Shall one special kind of investment rule by Right Divine? Consider, for a moment! Five citizens en ter the business world to invest their money. These citizens are equals before the law. Their money is just common money —coin current of the realm. Mr. A. invests in a Book store. Mr. B. in a Barber shop. Mr. C. in a newspaper. Mr. D. in a dry goods, or grocerv store. Does cither one of the citizens claim any special rights over the others? No. Each of them knows that he must hustle for custom, attend to his knitting, economize on expenses, manage prudently, and thus make a profit. Neither of them claims that he is entitled to a profit. Each of them hopes to earn it: believes he can earn it. and, therefore, risks his money. But while this is so, each of these citizens realizes that his own mistakes, the changes in business conditions, the ebb and flow of trade and a hundred other things, may be the cause of his failure to make a profit. But here comes the fifth citizen, Mr. F., with a wad of money which he chooses to in vest in railroading. Nobody compels him to make that investment. He acts of his own free will. With eves open he walks into the market and buvs railroad stock’s and bonds. All right—that’s his privilege. But the mo ment he has made his purchase, he puffs him self up with arrogance, and greedily claims that he is entitled to a net Profit. Why so? What rights have his dollars over those in vested in the Book store, the Barber shop, the Newspaper and the Store? Are not all five of these citizens free and equal? Is not the money of each of them equally sacred in the eyes of the law? The citizen who keeps the Book store docs not demand that the State shall guarantee him a net Profit. That's his lookout. If he doesn’t like the returns on his investment, he quits the business. So with the publisher, the barber and the merchant. But your pampered railroads must be guar anteed a profit! Why so? The State docs not control this business: why, then, should the State answer for rc- THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN suits? If the State should take control of the property, I grant you that the State would be responsible for consequences. But these cor porations resent State interference, defy State laws, ignore Commission orders, violate the Federal statutes, MISUSE their Franchises, lavish their revenues upon unlawful, unneces sary and hurtful expenditures, LEAVING UNDONE A MULTITUDE OF THINGS THAT OUGHT TO BE DONE TO EARN SUCCESS! How then can they demand to be left un taxed, or unbridled in their charges, until they have first made a clear Profit? We say to them: Manage your roads right, and you will earn a net Profit. But even if you don’t, that’s nobody’s affair but yours. You voluntarily bought your stock. You are equally at liberty to sell it. You can quit the railroad business, if you wish. No law compels you to stay in it. If you will get off our Public Roads, the State will get on. Suppose you do lose money—will you be the only one? Thousands of merchants fail every year. Thousands of bankers, miners, lawyers, publishers, barbers, hotel-keepers fail everv year. Why, then, should the rail roads not get caught, once in a while, like the common run of us? THEY MUST TAKE THEIR RISKS LIKE THE REST OF US. Let us set up no Privileged Class in busi ness. Let us have no Aristocracv created bv law. Let us have no absurd and vicious doctrine of Divine Right applied to Dollars put .into Railroads. Away with such dangerous heresies! When the citizen buvs railroad stock, let him understand that he TAKES HIS CHANCES, just as though he were buying shares in a Grocerv Company, a Lumber Company, an Oil Mill, or a State Bank. If any corporation lawver thinks this is not sound logic, let him prance into the columns of the Teffersonian and expose the fallacy. He shall have a fair fight. Come along, my son! M M R Editorial Notes. Some six weeks ago, this paper called at tention to the fact that the States of the Un ion had full power to deal with the railroad corporations. Since that time the procession has been moving right along. State after State has asserted its power against its cor poration bosses, and the result is that the bosses are in a panic. So far, good. M M Less than two years ago the Railroad Pres idents were mocking and defying the Federal Government. The corporation kings liotlv resented rate regulation by Congress. Sam uel Spencer, President of the Southern, de nounced the proposed Roosevelt plan of reg ulation as “Lynch Law,” and spent tens of thousands of dollars of the Southern’s earn ings in lobbying against the measure in Washington. Had Spencer spent the same amount of money in improving the service on his road, he might be alive today. But note the changes wrought by time. The Railroad Presidents are now grovelling at the feet of Mr. Roosevelt, begging for more “Lynch Law.” They plead for Federal Control to save themselves from State attacks. H * Yes, the States can master the corporations, if we can just get honest men elected Gov ernors, and honest men elected to the Legis latures. We can break up everv Trust, if we are united and determined. We can drive out the Standard Oil thieves, the Lumber Trust rob bers. and Wall Street pirates generally. All we need is to go after them in the same spirit that would animate us were there a gang of plunderers in the homes. What we have chiefly to fear is the insid ious arts of the lobbyist, the weakness of the flabby editor, and the dishonesty of those who hold high places. We must watch, as well as pray. H * R The rumor that Mister Colonel Scott, who manages the Georgia Railroad for Wall Street, has supplied each engineer with a tal low candle to be used as an addition to the oil lamp headlight at night, proves to have been unfounded. We didn’t take much stock in the report from the first. H * * President Finley of the Southern Railway System has been down to Atlanta talking sweetly to the Chamber of Commerce. Talk is cheap, and railroad presidents are flooding the country with it just now. Nev ertheless, they continue to pour water into the stocks, and to shed the blood of the pas sengers who patronize their roads. If the said Presidents don’t wake up to the fact that there are other people to be con vinced and placated besides those who con stitute “Chambers of Commerce,” they are go ing to fool themselves badly. * What the masses want, AND MEAN TO HAVE: (1) An honest appraisement of the value of the railroads, and an end put to this gigan tic rascality of stock watering. (2) Safety appliances adopted that will put a stop to railway murders growing out of criminal negligence. (3) Decent accommodations at all passen ger stations. (4) Obedience to State Constitutions, State laws, and Federal Statutes. (5) Reasonable rates and impartial service. (6) The expenditure of a sufficient propor tion of the earnings on the property itself to maintain it in first class condition. This ever lasting squeezing of the whole country for the benefit of a handful of New York million aires must cease. These roads are our roads, and must be run, first of all, with reference to our convenience, our benefit and our safetv. A handful of New York millionaires are now using the railroads of the South and West merely as instruments of robbery. The people of the South and West are going to drive these Wall Street highwaymen off their public roads and are going to devote the roads to their true purpose—the service of the Public. M % In his pleasant speech to the pleased Cham ber of Commerce, President Finley did not say a word about Restitution. Yet he is President of a System whose Wall Street chiefs committed the most high-handed rob bery that the people of the South have known since the days of the Yazoo Fraud. I allude to the gutting and scuttling and sinking of the Central Railroad. No blacker crime, of its kind, was ever per petrated ! Finley’s boss, J. P. Morgan, was the chief criminal. Where is that chief criminal —he that looted the Central Railroad and beggared hundreds of real widows and actual orphans whose lit tle hoards were invested in the stock? Where is he—THE ROBBER? Is he in the Penitentiary, where he belongs? Is he scorned and shunned bv all self-re specting people, as he should be? No, indeed. A few weeks ago he outbid an Emperor for a few choice paintings and at this time he is taking his usual spring jaunt in Europe. Few higher heads are to be seen anywhere than that of J. P. Morgan. Presidents give him special audience, and royalty delights to do him honor. Yet the Wall Street financier, following