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. Give it to ’em—the lunatics! RUN ’EM
OUT! WE RUN OUR ROADS TO MAKE
MONEY.
n
Listen to this Lieutenant Lawton:
“No Apologies to Offer.
“Referring to the frequency with which the
railroads go into federal courts, Colonel Law
ton said he had no apologies to offer. He rid
iculed and criticised the wave of popular senti
ment against the railroads, saying any candi
date can ride into office by fighting vested
rights. He characterized Mr. Alexander’s ef
fort as a stump speech, and intimated that
some of his statements were as inaccurate as
the statement in Watson’s Jeffersonian that
the Central railroad cost $7,000,000 and is cap
italized at $50,000,000.”
We don’t know when we have read any
thing that so impressed us with the fact that
the Beneficiaries of Special Privilege always
go mad byway of prelude to their own de
struction.
To adopt this insolent, defiant, bear-baiting
tone, at this time, is the sheerest madness—
AND IT WILL PAY ITS PENALTY!
So far as we can recall, we have never had
a word to say about Lawton —Colonel Lawton.
Not even when he so arrogantly dismissed
Hon. E. K. Overstreet, of Screven county,
from a local attorneyship of the Central Ral
road because the said Overstreet, as a member
of the Georgia Legislature, had exercised his
rights as a man, in voting for measures which
the corporations opposed.
So far as we remember we did not take the
trouble to denounce that contemptibly small
piece of prejudice, intolerance and tyranny,
although it well merited denunciation.
But now that Lawton—Colonel Lawton—•
has seen fit to drag Mr. Watson’s name into
his truculent talk before the Railroad Commis
sion, and to treat as utterly false a statement
made by The Jeffersonian, Lawton—Colonel
Lawton—shall have just as much attention as
he demands.
The Central of Georgia Railroad was origi
nally capitalized at $7,500,000, and has been
monkeyed with until its entire stocks, bonds,
etc., amount to about $55,000,000!
General A. R. Lawton was for many years
the General Counsel of the Central Railroad.
While holding that position, he caused himself
to be named as a member of the Constitutional
Convention of 1877. The corporations knew
what Gen. Robert Toombs proposed to do in
that Convention. They knew that he meant
to create a Railway Commission, and to make
it impossible for competing lines to combine
and throttle competition.
Consequently, the corporations succeeded in
sending some of their best men to the Conven
tion.
One of these was Gen. A. R. Lawton.
During a debate, while the Convention was
in session, Gen. Tocmbs arraigned the Cen
tral Railroad for repeated violations of its
charter. Gen. Lawtort in that de
bate. One of the statemehts made by
Toombs, and not denied by Lawton, was that
“the original capitalization of ‘the Central
Railroad was $7,500,000, of which one-half was
water.”
Gen. Lawton was actively defending the
Central from Gen. Toombs’ attack, and he
challenged whatever he could of Toombs’
statements, but THIS STATEMENT
ABOUT THE ORIGINAL CAPITALIZA
TION WAS NOT CHALLENGED AT
ALL.
Does the younger Lawton know more about
it than the elder Lawton did?
Would Toombs have made such a statement
unless he knew he could prove it?
As to subsequent monkeyings with the se
curities of the Central, all the world knows
how the Pat Calhoun crowd burdened it with
a $16,000,000 debt, how it was put through a
process of sale and reorganization, and how
WATSON’S '
its paper capitalization has been increased to
about $55,000,000.
Poor old Central! It has the same pitiful,
scant, ramshackle outfit of passenger accom
modations that it had when Mr. Watson left
Mercer University in 1874 to go down to
Screven county to teach school.
Not an up-to-date passenger waiting room
is to be found now any more than it was then.
The Jeffersonian offers this advice to Major
Hanson and his Lieutenant Lawton:
Deal with the situation that confronts you
in a spirit of fairness to your own people, and
not altogether as bigoted partisans of the rich
Yankees to whom you have sold your services.
Do not expect the people of the South to be
satisfied with a system which plunders them,
in violation of law, for the further enrichment
of a gang of rascally New York millionaires.
Have some regard for your own flesh and
blood, for your own kith and kin—and do not
arrogate to yourselves the privilege of de
nouncing as demagogues THOSE SOUTH
ERN MEN WHO STAND UP FOR THE
SOUTH AGAINST THE CHARTERED
ROBBERS OF THE NORTH!
H
Dribe the Highlvaymen off the Public
Road.
Slowly, but surely, the vast inert public is
waking up to the fact that IT NEED NOT al
low New York Highwaymen to ‘‘hold up” the
people who travel THEIR OWN PUBLIC
ROADS.
Slowly, but surely, public opinion is crys
tallizing on the proposition that THE HIGH
WAYMEN MUST BE DRIVEN OFF THE
PUBLIC ROADS.
By Highwaymen, The Jeffersonian means
those Wall Street rascals whose only thought
in the operation of the Railways is Dividends,
Dividends, DIVIDENDS.
These lawless bloodsuckers care nothing for
the lives and limbs, the health and comfort, of
the passengers. They care nothing for the
convenience and the prosperity of shippers.
If the corporation can squeeze every blessed
human being that dais with it—employes,
shippers, passengers and all—and clear a net
profit of 33 per cent as The Coast Line Rail
road did a few years ago —what must be done
about it?
Shall rates be reduced, and employes and
patrons given a share in that marvelous pros
perity?
No, indeed.
The thing to do is to issue more stock, di
vide it around among the Wall Streeters, and
then go to squeezing everybody again, to earn
fat dividends upon this enlarged capitaliza
tion.
That’s exactly what the Atlantic Coast Line
Railroad did: and ONE OF THE FEEDERS
OF THIS EARNER OF 33 PER CENT
DIVIDENDS IS OUR GEORGIA RAIL
ROAD, which the Coast Line has scooped, in
violation of the Constitution of the State of
Georgia.
The Jeffersonian is making a fight against
this ruthless greed of the New York thieves
who are using our railroads to rob the South.
The Jeffersonian means to keep up the fight
until these wrongs are righted.
Why should Wall Street rascals be allowed
to set aside the Constitution of our state?
What right has a crew of New York pirates
to say that our Constitution is wrong and
should be set aside?
That’s for the people to say. The voters of
Georgia adopted the Constitution: they can
repeal it or amend it: BUT WHY SHOULD
WE SUBMIT TO HAVING IT SET ASIDE
BY FOREIGN CORPORATIONS?
Let us never rest until we clear our Public
Roads of the Highwaymen.
Let us take our railroads back into our own
hands.
Our land, our cash donations, our grants of
privileges and exemptions, our gifWMMI
chises MADE TjIESE IRON HIGHWAYS
What we gave, we can take away.
Our liberality has been abused, our confi
dence betrayed, our rights trampled upon, our
remonstrances scornfully ignored.
LET US DRIVE THESE HIGHWAY
ROBBERS OFF OUR PUBLIC ROADS.
H « R
Editorial Notes.
President McCrea, of the Pennsylvania
Railroad, filed, with Governor Stuart, an elab
orate protest showing in the most conclusive
manner that the 2-cent passenger rate would
be “Confiscatory.”
Ihe Governor of Pennsylvania, being no
corporation's parrot, went right ahead and
signed Mie bill, thus making the 2-cent rate
effective.
Railroad “showings” are at a low ebb when
they are laughed at even in Pennsylvania.
*
In Bookkeeping, it all depends upon “the
system." And there are many different “sys
tems." It is a mighty poor corporation that
docs not keep its books by a “system” which
will show in emergencies almost anything the
corporation wants to show.
1 he widespread knowledge of these methods
of Bookkeeping partly explains why Railroad
"showings” nowadays get themselves laughed
at —even in Pennsylvania.
n
Whether any formal conspiracy exists or
not, there can be no doubt that the Wall
Street robbers “have it in” for Roosevelt.
The sooner such a war begins the better.
In the very nature of things, the people will
have to fight the corporations to a finish. It
is a question as to who shall rule. If artifi
cial persons are to become our Governing
( lass —let us know it and be done with it.
it. If NATURAL PERSONS are to domi
nate —let us get ready for the battle.-
1 he issue is on us, and we must either fight,
OR GIVE UP.
In one of the first numbers of the New
York "Watson's Magazine,” I appealed to Mr.
Roosevelt to espouse the cause of the Com
mon People against the Trusts which were
plundering the unprivileged. The prediction
was made that if the President would adopt
this course, boldly challenging the arrogance,
the greed and the lawlessness of the monster
corporations, the people would rally to him,
in mass, regardless of party, AS THEY HAD
RALLIED TO NO LEADER SINCE THE
DAYS OF ANDREW JACKSON!
Well, Roosevelt has challenged the right of
the Privileged Few to plunder this continent,
and the people are rallying to him, regardless
of party, with an enthusiasm that will main
tain an exact ratio to the vigor of his blows.
President Finley, of the Southern Railroad,
is still being shoved around by Lawyer Thom,
Boss Morgan, and among ’em; and wherever
Finley is taken off the cars and rolled into a
small assemblage of folks made up of the
Chamber-of-Commerce variety of humanity,
he makes what he considers a speech.
Poor Finley ! He is going to get killed. No
man can make a practice of riding on the
Southern Railroad without going the way Sam
Spencer went. In his latest “speech” (Green
ville), Finley admitted that the railroads were
overcapitalized. BUT NOT MUCH!
In other words, the chambermaid’s baby is
a little bit of a thing that ought not to cause
such a tremendous row.
•t
Frank Stroud, the bright and indefatigable
editor of the livest weekly paper in North Car
olina (The Hornet) will never again copy wit
ticisms from The Washington Post without
giving due credit.
(Continued on Page 12.)