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BATES, bonuses, special contracts and
OTHER ARTFUL AND ILLEGAL PRAC
TICES . . . which nothing can elude, avoid,
or destroy but the omnipotence of what we
seek, THE LAW.
• “These corporations further claim the right
to discriminate against places, localities and
persons at their pleasure; to buy shares of
stock and even whole railroads . . and do
any other thihg to the same end of lessening
and destroying competition, and to infringe
upon the equal rights of the people and the
geiietal welfare of the state.
“Matty of these claims have no shadow of
authority to rest upon, and none of them have
the least legal foundation to the extent which
is claimed for them/’
Gen. Toombs points out that these claims
of the railroads have been condemned by the
Supreme Court of Georgia, by the Supreme
Court of the United States, and “expressly
condemned by the people of Georgia in their
organic law, the Constitution of 1877/’
The great lawyer and statesman then says
that it is simply a question of whether the
Legislature will enforce this highest law of
the lard by appropriate legislation.
Up to the present time, the railroads, act
ing through a subsidized press, and a power
ful lobby, and aided by a dormant public
opinion, have been able to continue to appro
priate to themselves, by freight and passenger
tariffs, the portable wealth of the county;
have continued to annihilate competition by
combinations, rebates, discriminations and
other artful practices; have continued to
dodge their just proportion of the public bur
dens; have continued to buy stock in other
railroads and “even WHOLE RAIL
RO ADS,”to the end of DESTROYING
COMPETITION; —and all this they have
done, and are now doing, IN DEFIANCE
AND CONTEMPT OF THE ORGANIC
LAW OF THE LAND, the Constitution of
1877.
Gen. Toombs then gives his opinion as to
what steps should be taken by the State to
correct these evils.
First, he contends that the corporations
should be made to pay taxes upon all their
property, just as natural persons have to do.
In every county where a railroad has land,
depot buildings, etc., the corporation owning
such property should be compelled to pay
state, county and municipal taxes upon it,
just as though the said property were owned
by a private individual.
Second, “The claim of the railroads to en
act and execute their own passenger and
freight tariffs, at their own pleasure, without
legislative control, is still more untenable, il
legal, and disastrous to society, and OUGHT
NOT TO BE ENDURED a single day by a
free people.”
“Tolls and tariffs thus levied are simply
spoliation in its worst form. Such a grant of
power WOULD BE A SHAME UPON THE
GOVERNMENT OF RUSSIA OR TUR
KEY.”
With a profound penetration into the ulti
mate consequences of this exercise of usurped
power, Gen. Toombs says:
“This claim to fix tariffs and pools upon all
the products of labor and land is more valua
ble to these monopolists than the ownership
of the laborer and the land. . . .
“THESE RAILROAD KINGS MUST BE
DEPOSED.”
Coming to the practical question, “What
shall we do about it?” Gen. .Toombs is equally
bold, clear, convincing.
He says:
“Ist. We have the right of Eminent Do
main; the right to take all railroads for pub
lic use WHEN THE PUBLIC INTEREST
DEMANDS IT, by paying just com
pensation.
“2nd. The right of legislative repeal of all
charters created or renewed since Jan. I, 1863.
“3rd. The right to forfeit by judicial judg-
T • i
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
ment all the charters in the state for viola
tion of the same. These corporations move
and live and have their being in daily viola
tions of the constitution and laws of the land,
many of which are legal grounds of forfeiture.
THIS REMEDY OUGHT NOW TO BE
APPLIED.”
Gen. Toombs closes his remarkably strong
letter with an exhortation to the Railroad
companies which it would have been well for
them and the people had they heeded.
Says this gray-haired sage:
“The prosperity of the commonwealth de
mands their enforcement” —(just laws) —“the
Constitution demands it. THE TRUE IN
TERESTS OF THE CORPORATIONS
THEMSELVES DEMAND IT.
“It is a simple demand that all rights be
respected and justice be done. Industry can
not revive under the crushing load of national
taxes, state taxes, county taxes, corporation
taxes, and, worst of all, RAILROAD SPO
LIATIONS, crushing industry and all honest
labor and laborers.
“The cry for redress is going up through
out the Continent.
“It cannot be stayed by the cry of commun
ism to alarm the simple and unwary.
“The monopolists will find that though driv
en back for a time it will be but the reflex of
the advancing tide, gathering strength from
every breaker, until its pathway may be
strewn with the wrecks of society.
“It will then be TOO LATE FOR THE
VOICE OF WISDOM, JUSTICE AND
MODERATION TO BE HEARD, or heed
ed. The battle-cry of Woe to the Van
quished, alone will be heard amid the jarring
elements of discord.”
Truly a prophetic warning. Yet, see the
folly, the insanity, of these railroad kings.
They are today relying upon their old, worn
out tricks, and “artful practices,” when the
ground is trembling under their feet, as the
earthquake approaches.
Nothing is more certain than this: If our
millionaire law-breakers and heartless mo
nopolists keep up their present policy of ex
tortion, defiance to law, contempt of public
opinion, spoliation of producer and consum
er, the next cry that comes from the op
pressed will be fraught with the class-fury of
COMMUNISM!
« R
The "Benjamin Franklin 'Request.
One hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin
gave to the city of Boston the sum of $5,000,
directing that the money should accumulate
for a century and then be applied to the aid
of apprentices. Franklin himself had been
an apprentice; and he appreciated the im
mense benefit to a young man starting out in
life, of help given him then.
But, since Franklin’s day, our industrial
system has undergone such changes that we
no longer have any class of struggling begin
ners who come under the name of apprentices.
The fund which has been accumulating for
100 years is now $400,000. With that amount
invested at 6 per cent, as could readily be
done, there would be a perpetual fund of
$24,000 to lend to young men. The greater
number of young men thus aided would repay
the money, after they got started for them
selves. Thus the Franklin bequest would
grow from generation to generation, a foun
tain of wise benevolence and human helpful
ness, doing a vast amount of good to the end
of time.
Benjamin Franklin so intended when he
gave the original five thousand dollars.
Now. what do you suppose that the idiotic
Miss Nancys and Molly-coddles who had the
control of the matter have decided to do with
that money?
Why, they are going to erect a memorial to
Franklin!
The trustees have already spent SIOO,OOO
in buying one of the ugliest lots on the face
of the earth, as a site for the proposed memo
rial. The balance of the money will be blown
in as soon as architects and contractors can
be selected. Let us hope that these asinine
trustees will at once get in touch with the
contractors who built and furnished that cap
ital building at Harrisburg, Pa., so that the
agony will be over at the earliest possible
moment.
What nobler memorial could have been
erected to a practical man, like Benjamin
Franklin, than a splendid Endowment Fund
of $24,000 per annum, growing gradually from
year to year, and equipping one hundred care
fully selected young men, annually, to go
forth to useful lives? Our Technological
Schools, giving a mechanical and scientific
training to our boys, perhaps most nearly ap
proximate the class that Franklin intended
to aid: therefore, the annual revenue from the'
fund might have been used in that direction
with the best results to posterity, and the
greatest show of respect for Franklin’s
wishes.
Above all things, Franklin was a practical
philosopher. Less than any public man of
his time, did he deal in sentiment. Those
ideas- and those institutions which promised
something in the way of practical results,
substantial benefits, material progress, con
trolled him throughout his long life. Even
when he experimented with the lightning of
heaven, it was for the purpose of harnessing
it to the service of mankind.
In leaving that fund to the city of Boston,
he meant to give a helping hand to young
men who found themselves in the same needy
circumstances which had once put obstacles
in his own way.
To take the accumulated fund and apply it
to a memorial to Franklin himself, is to treat
with contempt the intent and purpose of the
dead, and to deny to the living those bene
fits to which they are justly entitled.
•turn
Harbie and the Fmperor
Our great international joke, Har vie Jor
dan, made the crowned heads of Europe sit
up and take snuff, and wonder how many
more of the same sort we had, anyhow.
Chasing that brilliant and bewildering rain
bow of bringing the cotton grower and the
cotton spinner so close together that while
the grower, clad in jeans, will be putting shek
els into Harvie's left-hand pants pocket, the
spinner, clad in city fabrics, will be jingling
coin into Harvie’s right-hand receptacle,
Brother Jordan toured Great Britain in an
automobile preparatory to requesting the
Austrian baggage man to put him off at Vi
enna.
Harvie had a great time in the Austrian
metropolis. Business was suspended while
he was there, and the stores closed, and the
rivers quit running for ten minutes as a mark
of respect. The Emperor Joseph, of course,
sought an introduction to the distinguished
American who had come so far to bring
grower and spinner together. After Harvie
had finished this task, which was business, he
consented to meet the Emperor, which was
pleasure—thus illustrating in away that
cauglit the eye of all Europe, the manner in
which we Americans observe the motto:
“Business before pleasure.”
When Harvie at length signified his read
iness to meet the Emperor Joseph, that po
tentate showed his delight by unmistakable
signs and genuflections. He was, at first, too
full for words.
Harvie Jordan, on the other hand, was cool
as a dew-begummed cucumber. Harvie never
loses his head. A man who learned how to
farm by acting as hotel clerk in the Kimball
House, as Harvie Jordan did, is not easily
upset. Emperors are nothing to him. As
clerk at the Kimball House, Harvie was some
thing of an Emperor himself. Therefore, he
(Continued on Page 12.)
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