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They are the light-houses which now
guide our craft over the sea of indus
trial progression.
While you are striving to make that
extra blade of grass, be sure you are
thinking about how to get a price for
the extra blade.
The mind and the heart and body
all need to be well fed. We should
be careful what goes into our hearts
and minds as well as into our stom
achs.
In order to tear down the old struc
ture, the old system of marketing, we
must build a new one. We are build
ing a new one which is to be a just
and equitable one.
Whenever a warehouse has been
built and patronized, the work is pro
gressing nicely. Eleven-cent cotton
has killed the Doubting Thomases.
Pay no attention to any hue and
cry and gabble about supply and de
mand. There are no such words in
the Farmers’ Union dictionary.
That mortgage will remain on the
premises a few years longer, where
all the work stock is poor and poorly
cared for. Some way such stock
breed mortgages.
Again we wish to say that no one
can be the free, independent Ameri
can citizen he should be and give a
mortgage on his crop from year to
year. The mortgage means financial
death. It is a terrible, awful thing.
This crop of cotton is going to be
a very large one, no doubt. Better get
ready to handle it. By agitation our
temporary success has been wonder
ful. Let’s now get down to business.
We must now make it a permanent
success. That extra blade must be
taken care of.
Our industrial prosperity will not
be brought about and maintained by
political parties, but by industrial co
operation. We must build a new sys
tem, a just and equitable system.
This system will come when we have
that perfect understanding.
Texas is to have a cotton school
again this year. It is to be hoped
that all the states will have a cotton
school, or ■will patronize the Texas
school. We do not know just yet
who will teach this school or in what
city in Texas it will be taught. It
will be taught by competent men,
however, and should be attended by
many hundreds. There are but a very
few cotton producers who can prop
erly grade the cotton they produce.
For all these many years we have
been content to take our cotton to
market and sell it to the highest bid
der and on the other fellow’s grading.
No, we have not been content. We
knew that something was wrong but,
until recently, it never occurred to us
that the fault was all our own. Well,
the fault is all our own, and has al
ways been. If we let the other fellow
attend to our business, he will get the
profits which should be ours.
OUR TIMBER SUPPLY.
(The Joliet News.)
Secretary Wilson, of the agricultural
department, has issued a circular re
lating to the timber supply, truly
somewhat sensational. The United
States is using up the timber supply
three or four times as fast as it
grows, and the increase in destruc
tion is larger than the Increase In
population. His advice is to follow
Germany, and profit by the 150 years
of experience. Thus Roosevelt grabs
the timber lands as rapidly as con
gress will permit. One-fifth of the
forest lands are again in the posses
sion of the government. Except for
your pooh poohlng Uncle Joe Wilson
would now have possession of the
smoky mountains and the Blue Ridge.
“PAYING THE FREIGHT.”
(Philadelphia North American.)
The proposed increase by 10 per
cent of the cost of transporting cer
tain freights over the trunk-line rail
roads is a matter that deeply concerns
the general public. It must, therefore,
be discussed frankly and fairly, not
as a mere matter between the rail
roads and the stockholders and the
shippers, but as a matter of large
general concern.
The report is that the railroads
which have made an agreement to
advance tolls upon heavy commodities
like coal and ore and stone and iron
are the following: The Pennsylvania
Railroad Company, the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad Company, the Reading,
New Jersey Central, New York Cen
tral, Erie, Lackawanna, Lehigh Val
ley, Chesapeake and Ohio and Norfolk
and Western.
The officers of these great corpora
tions got together, as we understand
it, and made a hard-and-fast agreement
that there should be united action for
the increase of rates on a certain day.
and that all the companies would be
faithful to the schedules thus ar
ranged.
May we not venture to inquire if
this is not, in truth, such a combina
tion in restraint of trade as is par
ticularly forbidden by Federal law?
These companies, under usual condi
tions, are in one degree or another
competitors. Is or is not the public
entitled to the free and unobstructed
play of the competitive forces here
provided? If it be an offense, as be
yond question it is, for manufacturers
of a commodity to combine to destroy
competition and to force prices up
ward, can it be an inoffensive act
upon the part of a group of railroad
corporations?
Is it not, indeed, peculiarly the obli
gation of the railroad not to engage
in such conspiracy? An individual
manufacturer, operating without a
charter, surely owes less to the com
munity than a corporation created by
law and clothed with tremendous au
thority.
The right of one railroad company
to put up its prices "within reasonable
limits can hardly be disputed; but
there would appear-to be abundant
reason for contesting the right of a
bunch of railroads, controlling the
transportation business in all the New
England and Middle States, to combine
for the purpose of imposing heavier
taxes upon the people. The Federal
authorities will probably have an im
pulse to look into this matter.
It is self-evident that this taxation
will be borne directly by manufactur
ers and other persons who conduct
large industrial operations. The no
tion appears to be that the people at
large will consider that these capital
ists are well able to bear the new
burdens, and that the poor man and
the fairly well-to-do man need not feel
that the taxation is aimed at them.
But, of course, sooner or later the
members of the community generally
will pay every dollar of this proposed
10 per cent advance.
The first impulse of the man at the
bottom —the consumer —will be to re
sent this proposed imposition. Prices
of all kinds have been rising and put
ting a heavy strain upon incomes that
enlarge slowly, if at all, and now here
is another plan for pushing prices still
further upward. Can it be defended?
The railroad manager has this ex
cuse for raising rates, that rising
prices, including larger wage-pay
ments, seriously affect heavy pur
chasers, like his company. If the rail
road must pay more for nearly every
thing, good business considerations
might be invoked to justify its action
in demanding more for certain of its
services. So far, there may not be
WATSON'S WEEKLY" JEFFERSONIAN.
much reason for complaint for separ
ate, individual rate increase by each
railroad company.
But, in truth, the real thing that is
the matter with the railroads is that
they have adopted wrong policies with
respect to much of their traffic, and
these policies have had the tacit, if not
the open and specific, approval of the
community. The men who must now
pay this new bill of expense must do
so because they have long permitted
public service corporations to do
wrong.
For example: a very large portion,
if not, indeed, the greater portion, of
the coal and iron, and ore and stone,
and such coarse and heavy materials
as are now to be taxed more heavily
in transportation, might have been
carried by water if the canals had
been retained and extended instead of
being exterminated or turned over to
the railroads and thrown .out of use.
Let the reader try to conceive what
the function of the Schuylkill canal
might be in this time of stress upon
the railroads if it were in good order
and free to all comers, as it once was!
If we had been wise, that, and all
the other canals in the state, could
now be pressed into service; and we
should have had still other interior
canals and free waterways from the
Chesapeake to the Delaware, and from
the Delaware to New York harbor.
But the people permitted their rep
resentatives to help the railroads to
clutch our own canals and to take pos
session of the Delaware and Raritan
canal, and now the heavy and less
profitable freights are overwhelming
the railroads.
On the other hand, the men inside
the railroad companies have obtained
interest in the express companies,
which carry the most profitable kinds
of freight. This the railroads carry,
as the servants of the express com
panies, at rates which must be low
considering the vast profits made oy
the stockholders of the express com
panies.
Thus the stuff which pays least for
transportation has been taken from
the waterways and put upon the rail
roads, and the stuff which pays most
has been turned over to the railroad
officers’ private express companies.
The railroad stockholder, like the gen
eral public, is a loser at both ends.
Why should not the railroads, who
must do all the business at any rate,
not thrust the express companies aside
and take the whole of the profits?
W T hy should railroad officials, who are
stockholders in the express companies,
be permitted to skim the cream from
the small package transportation and
to give to the railroad stockholder the
worst and least profitable part of the
business?
A car from Phildelphia to Pittsburg,
loaded with small packages, at pres
ent express rates, would earn more
money for the railroad company than
an entire coal train. There would be
small need for advancing rates if the
railroad retained all the profits on this
kind of traffic. It would retain them
were the railroads operated with the
sole purpose to serve the public and
the stockholders and were graft inside
the companies wholly eliminated.
The reason why the American peo
ple are not permitted to have a par
cels post, as every nation in Europe
has, is that the express companies re
fuse to permit it. Their representa
tives (stockholders, probably,) sit in
congress to obstruct and to defeat this
great public convenience.
Were the express companies driven
from the field, and a parcels post es
tablished, the United States govern
ment would pay the railroad hand
somely for carrying the smallest pack
ages. There would still be an abund
ant traffic for the railroads in carry-
ing packages too large for the post
office. Uncountable tons of such ma
terial are now confided to the care of
the express companies.
Let it be clearly understood that the
expansion of railroad business can by
no means have reached its limit. Ten
years hence there will be more coal
to carry and much more small freight.
If the railroads are now choked with
coarse and heavy material, what will
be the conditions then? Are tolls to
be still further advanced? If the para
site express companies are picking up
vast unfair profits now’, w’hat will be
the dimensions of their gains then?
We can only guess at the future con
ditions; but we may be sure, first, that
the commerce of the nation will be
obstructed and, second, that the plain
people will pay all the bills.
They are to suffer the penalties for
the indifference with which they have
permitted important public waterways
to be destroyed and railroads to play
any fast-and-loose game that pleased
them. The squeeze is beginning to be
felt in this advance of freight rates.
There will be more trouble and more
pain after awhile as we go along, un
less, indeed, public sentiment shall in
sist on canal restoration and on sup
pression of the express company graft.
CONFUSION ABOUT THE WATSONS
Member of Third House From Eden
County Thinks Tom Watson is to
Blame for Obstructing County Di
vision.
(The Tallahassee Morning Sun.)
Here is a reproduction of a talk on
the porch of the Leon recently by
members of the Third House from
Pinellas, Palm Beach, Eden, Seminole,
Atlantic and Dade counties:
Seminole —Say, Dade, where was
your representative last night?
Dade —He was in town, but he is
onto his job. All this fuss don’t
amount to anything. Wait till he eats
’em up on the floor of the house,
where they can’t worry him.
Eden —What I can’t figure out is,
why as smart a man as he is should
leave Congress to'run for the Florida
legislature.
Seminole —He ain’t never been in
Congress—that’s another Watson.
Eden —He has, too. This is the
same man that said: “Where am I
at?” and he has a winter home at
Lauderdale and a summer home in
Kissimee, and a summer home at
Tidewater, Va., and a fall house at
Thomson, Ga., and a hardware store
at Miami, and a magazine in Atlanta.
I guess I know.
Dade —You got ’em mixed. There’s
two of ’em —Tom and John.
Atlantic —Well, it must be Tom that
represents Dade, for John is from
Hillsboro. Hillsboro has three repre
sentatives, you know.
Pinellas —Is that so? I thought that
fellow was just meddling in our af
fairs, and yet I thought it funny that
a man would stay up two nights fight
ing another man’s fight.
Seminole —Say, Palm Beach, who’s
your representative?
Palm Beach —Representative? H
Seminole —You needn’t be so short
about it. I wanted to know.
Palm Beach —We’s orphans—just a
senator —that’s all. But he’s enough.
Atlantic —Don’t you fool yourself.
You’ll have an ex-senator soon to deal
with —the one with the Indian name.
Eden—Darned if it don’t look to me
like Watson had the cards stacked,
and you fellers cut ’em.
Seminole —That Indian name brings
it all back Let’s hit the bottle?
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