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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.) PAGE NINE