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transportation should be carried into effect,
the Government abolishing national banks and
private ownership of transportation lines, the
rebate W’ould be impossible, discriminations
would cease, equality would prevail, and there
would be no collusion between the national
banks and the railroads by which Trusts are
made invincible.
While the Socialists are claiming that the
only way to escape the evils of the present sys
tem of government is to overturn it, we Jef
fersonians contend that Special Privilege is
responsible for all our woes, and that the abol
ition of Special Privilege would restore the
reign of Equal Rights.
With equality of Opportunity and of Rights
under the law, we would have as perfect a
system of government as is possible in this
world.
•ft It tft
Farmers’ Union All Right.
The reports put in circulation by Harvie
Jordan to the effect that he and Charles S.
Barrett had become allies, and that henceforth
the Farmers’ Union would work in co-opera
tion with Hoadley’s Southern Cotton Associa
tion, turned out to be unfounded, just as we
predicted that they would.
Charles Barrett is an honest man; as to
Harvie Jordan, he is just about as sleek a spy
in the agricultural camp as the Manufactur
ers’ Association could want.
When the President of The Southern Cot
ton Association has to rely upon Joe Hoadley
for a certificate of character, it is high time
for the farmers to catch on to the game.
Jordan is nothing in the world but the tool
of Wall Street cotton gamblers and the Spe
cial Privilege manufacturers.
The Farmers’ Union wants to steer clear of
all entangling alliances. Least of all does it
want a suspicious connection with a mongrel
Association which Harvie Jordan has discred
ited and demoralized.
The Southern Cotton Association, properly
led, might have been a power for good.
Prostituted by Jordan, it is no more than a
side-track movement of the Manufacturers’
Association.
•ft »ft •!
Fditorial Notes.
The Special Privilege Corporations are de
termined not to relax their grip on the U. S.
Senate. They have it in the hollow of their
hands, and they mean to keep it.
Thus, in Mississippi, they are hustling for
John Sharp Williams, their very useful tool.
The Jeffersonian happens to remember three
occasions upon which John Sharp *a* ned the
gratitude of the robber corporations:
1. When he “called time’’ on the debate
on the renewal of the Standard Oil Company’s
shady “lease” of the Indian oil lands —thus
shutting off those Congressmen who wanted
to make speeches against the Standard Oil
grab.
2. When he stood in with the Republicans
of the House to defeat the Hearst Rate bill—
the only effective measure that was pending
at the time, and the only one that the robber
corporations really feared.
3. When he allowed a minority in the
House to sneak the Ship Subsidy bill through
—thus giving to the Harrimans, H’lls, Mor
gans afid Spreckles a donation out of the pub
lic funds for sending their own ships to sea.
John Sharp Williams was the leader of the
Democrats in the House; on the Ship Sub
sidy measure a majority of the House were
with him; yet he so mismanaged the business
that the minority defeated the majority!
The railroads have what they call a “oarty
rate,” which they give to amusement compa
nies of ten, or more, members traveling to
gether.
The Inter-State Commerce Commission
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
could not see a good reason why any group
of ten people, all traveling together from the
same station to the same destination, shouldn’t
look as good to the railroads as an “amuse
ment company.” Therefore, the Commission
has decided that the railroads shall give the
benefit of the reduced “party rate” to the gen
eral public.
Now, let us see whether the corporations
will obey, or will summon the railroad lawyers
to interpose the plea of “confiscatory.”
Why should a minstrel troupe be given a
lower passenger rate than a baseball club, or
a football team, or a picnic party, or a politi
cal, educational or religious delegation? Why
should a party of ten actors on their way to
the theatre, be given a lower rate than ten
mourners on their way to a funeral? There
is no sense in the discrimination. Any party
of ten should mean the same to a transporta
tion company as any other, whether it is com
posed of comedians or mourners, townmen
or countrymen, professionals or amateurs,
pleasure-seekers or business men.
Therefore, the decision of the Commerce
Commission would seem to be unquestionably
right.
•ft
President W. W. Finley, of the Southern
Rail-robber combine, is still being rolled
around to banquets, where he reads his piece
to Chambers of Commerce and Boards of
Trade. Memphis got the last dose. As re
ported in the newspapers, Finley told the ban
queters at Memphis that “this whole question
of capitalization” is the business of the capi
talists who hold the securities, and not of the
general public.
To everybody, excepting the owners of rail
road stocks and bonds. Finley virtually says.
“The question of capitalization is none of your
business”!
This is a polite, up-to-date rendition of the
Vanderbilt doctrine of “the people be
damned.”
Now, if the arrogant, self-sufficient Lawton
—-Lieutenant Lawton, of Savannah—had made
a speech of that supercilious sort, The Jeffer
sonian would have thought it nothing strange.
But we are surprised to find Finley, of the
illegal Southern combine, holding his head so
haughtily high.
•ft
“None of your business how much we over
capitalize our railroads!” Thus in effect, did
Finley break in upon the wine and the wassail
at Memphis.
The champagne must have flown to his
head early in the evening, and Finley must
have extemporized a little.
Such talk is mere madness. It is a dare
to indignant public opinion. Every citizen
who knows anything at all is thoroughly
aware of the fact that railroad securities can
not be unloaded upon the market unless there
is confidence in their capacity to earn divi
dends.
Consequently, issues of new stocks and
bonds are always based upon what is claimed
to be the earning capacity of the roads.
This being so. the self-interest of the manip
ulators of the railroad securities in having the
property so managed as to add value to ar
bitrary issues of new stock, is apparent to all.
To claim the right to set up the plea of
“Confiscatory” because they are not earning
a net income on capitalization, and then to
claim that the public generally has no interest
in the question of capitalization, is a proof of
the brazen effrontery of the inconsistent cor
poration managers who are now robbing the
public in the interest of the Northern million
aires.
Tn other words, Finley and his corporation
lawyers are trying to make good two different
propositions, one of which is the reverse of
the other. Either that, or they are claiming
to be above the law. If it be conceded that
the State can impose no burden on the rail
road which will make it impossible for the
company to earn dividends on its capitaliza
tion, it certainly follows that the State has a
right to know what is the actual, bona fide
capitalization. The Stat?, representing the
public, is vitally interested in the question of
capitalization, for the reason that the corpora
tions claim exemptions based upon capitaliza
tion.
Either this must be admitted, or the corpor
ations must boldly claim to be above all State
control. In that case, they are consistent—
but they will find “Jordan a hard road to
travel.”
•ft
The Southern Express Company charged me
$2.70 for the carriage of a box of oranges,
worth $2, from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to
Thomson, Ga.
Nothing '“confiscatory” in that, you see.
I am sorry that the charges were paid and the
oranges taken out of the express office.
It would have been a sight seeing to
have had the express agent and the depot
agent get together and eat the oranges, while
seated on that eight dollar pile of lumber for
which the railroad company charged me
$57.40 freight, from Thomson to Fort Lauder
dale. Poor, down-trodden corporations ! Mr.
Cleveland says they are having a hard time.
•ft
Jake Schiff, the Wall Street banker who
managed the scoop operations which took the
Union Pacific Railroad away from the receiv
ers of the U. S. Government, has been indulg
ing in oratory. When men like Jake Schiff
“drap” into oratory, the results are generally
interesting.
Jake says he is “filled with admiration for
men like Rockefeller and Morgan.”
Why so, Jake?
Because “their wealth is like a reservoir into
which run little streams from the mountains
which, of themselves, would be of no use to
mankind.”
Little mountain streams running into Rock
efellers and ( Morgans, and thus creating a
great, useful store of water, would be a beau
tiful simile were it not for the fact that when
the mountain streams —the small men of busi
ness—flow into the big pond of Monopoly,
that is the last of the mountain streams.
Ten thousand mountain streams dried up
forever by Rockefeller’s monopoly, is a pro
cess of accumulation not good for the moun
tain streams nor for the people whose wants
were supplied by these independent rivulets.
(Editorials continued on page 12.)
Watson’s
Jeffersonian Magazine
Edited by THOS. E. WATSON
Published Monthly at Atlanta, Ga.
Price, $1.50 Per Year.
This is a high-class monthly, beautifully il
lustrated and printed, carrying Mr. Watson’s
most brilliant editorials and his splendid se
rial, “The Life and Times of Andrew Jack
son.’’ It is filled with the most excellent lit
erary and historical contributions.
The press of the nation pronounces it
“one of the best” of the monthlies. You
should read it.
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