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PAGE TWO
j 'Public Opinion Throughout the Union
A NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE
LEAGUE.
The announcement from Indepen
dence Leage headquarters that the
organization is to be made national
is good news for all who believe in
actual rather than pretended reform.
The enthusiasm with which the ad
vent of the League has been hailed
in other states proves that it is a
welcome and permanent movement
for the betterment of American poli
tics.
The American people have wearied
of being herded into parties. They
are tired of following-politicians who
aie in politics for hire and for the
profit of corrupt corporations. The
tendency toward independent vot
ing, which has been manifested in
recent elections, is still growing. That
is the people’s only hope. It was
the spirit of independence that made
this nation, and it is the spirit of
independence that must preserve it.
The causes that made the League
a power in this city and state are
general throughout the country. The
people have come to feel a profound
district of both old parties. The dis
closures of the trust contributions
to the last Republican national cam
paign fund are only equalled by the
fact that the Democratic National
Executive Committee is made up of
men for the most part notorious for
corporation associations. Party gov
ernment is responsible for present
conditions. It can hardly be expected
to remove its own handiwork.
The League, out of power, has
shown itself more potent for reform
than the parties in power. That is
because it is sincere, and the people
know it is sincere. Simply 'being in
earnest is a force worth reckoning.
The American people are becoming
in earnest in dealing with party
treachery and corporation rule. It
is for that reason they are welcom
ing, and will continue to welcome, a
national Independence League.—
N. Y. American.
THE CASE OF MR. HARRIMAN.
The definite announcement that the
federal government will at once be
gin proceedings against E. 11. Har
riman, to compel him to answer cer
tain questions he refused to answer
when the Interstate Commerce Com
mission was inquiring into the Al
ton matter, seems to indicate that
the authorities have grown a bit
W'eary of the contempt wealthy men
are inclined to show the law and iis
officers. It is about time the author
ities were moving against men of this
type, and they should press the issue
to the limit in order to break up a
practice which tends more and moie
to increase popular disrespect f<ti
the law.
Rich men who publicly defy the
authorities, who refuse to do what
the law commands, and who deliber
ately attempt to strangle and defeat
official inquiry into wrongful acts,
are a menace to society. Not only
do such men weaken and impair the
respect the people ought to have for
the government and its agencies;
they also increase and inflame pop
ular prejudice against men of wealth,
strengthen class hatred, and other
wise harm the body politic.
Os such men as these, examples
should be made. As a rule, efforts’
at concealment suggest wrongdoing.
Corporations that have acted in all
respects within the limits of the la-w
have no reason to fear the fullest
possible inquiry into their business
methods. On the other hand, when
they seek to evade legal processes, to
dodge public inquiry, defy officers
of the law, and to cover up and con
ceal the nature and character of their
business, these facts alone justify a
strong suspicion of wrongdoing.
In all such cases the government
should exhaust every possible power
to bring these men to book. The na
tion’s worst enemies are men of
wealth who persistently defy the law,
ignore its mandates and outrage its
decrees. The last vestige of the na
tion’s power, if needed in the work,
should be used to crush them. —Se-
attle Post-Intelligencer.
AN INGENIOUS DEVICE.
That was rather an ingenious de
vice of the Adams Express Company
to conceal its enormous increase of
dividends.
Os course, it is not quite effective,
but it is a refreshing departure from
the old, threadbare device of water
ing stock. Nominally this company
pays an annual dividend of eight per
cent on its capital stock of $12,000,-
000, and points with proud confidence
to this modest dividend as a conclu
sive reason for not reducing its ex
orbitant rates. <
Some nine or ten years ago the
company found itself embaiiTassed
with a surplus —some $12,000,000
more than it knew just what to do
with—and inasmuch as an additional
dividend of 100 per cent might cause
comment and lead to suggestions of
lowering rates, or even give impetus
to the movement to establish a par
cels post, it was desirable in some
way to veil the transaction. Instead
theiefore of distributing the $12,-
000,009 outright, it was placed in
trust to secure a similar amount of
four per cent bonds, which bonds
were distributed among the stock
holders.
In effect this was even better for
the stockholders than would have
been a distribution of the money it
self. The bonds were secured by
their face value in cash or its equiv
alent, and in addition to that, their
interest was paid out of the income
of the company. Substantially it
amounted to a four per cent increase
of dividends, only it did n d look
like it on the surface. In order to
conceal its great profits an enormous
surplus was given the appearance of
a bonded liability, and a fixed charge
on the company’s income.
But this added burden was not
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
enough to keep down the growing
surplus, and recently the company
was confronted with the necessity
of disposing of another surplus, this
time of $24,000,000, or 200 per cent
of the capital stock.
Congress having defined express
companies as common carriers and
brought them under the jurisdiction
of the Interstate Commerce Commis
sion, it would have been even more
impolitic than formerly to distribute
an extra dividend of 200 per cent in
addition to its regular eight per cent
nominal, twelve per cent actual, div
idend; nor was it judicious to try
to cover the increase by watering
the stock. And so its former expe
dient was again adopted. The $24,-
000,000 was put in trust to secure
another issue of four per cent bonds,
this time amounting to $24,000,000.
Thus it appears on the surface
that the company is burdened with
a bonded liability of $36,000,000, or
three times the amount of its capi
tal stock. As a matter of fact these
bonds represent no money borrowed
by the company for corporate pur
poses, but profits actually earned—
or collected from shippers—during
the last ten years, put, as we have
said, in trust and distributed as div
idends to the stockholders.
In fact, therefore, the stockholders
of this company receive eight per
cent on their capital stock of $12,-
000,000, and four per cent on their
dividend bonds of throe times as
much, or $36,000,000, the amount of
the surplus profits in ten years. This
is the same thing as, or much better
than, twenty per cent dividend on
the capital stock of $12,000,000, but
it is cleverly concealed.
It may possibly have the desired
effect of preventing any very urgent
demand for a reduction in rates, or
at least furnish an excuse for resist
ing any reduction on the ground that
it will take away the company’s abil
ity to pay its fixed charges, i. e., the
above-described fixed bonded “in
debtedness” of $36,000,000, and a
fair profit (eight per cent) on its
capital stock of $12,000,000, and
hence, would amount to confiscation.
It remains to be seen whether this
clever device will “hold water” be
fore the Interstate Commerce Com
mission and the courts. —Richmond
eJournal.
TEXAS NEGROES A HARD LOT.
A late press dispatch gives an ac
count of the wounding of an innocent
bystander by an ugly negro with a
gun in his hand. The “innocent by
stander” was another negro whose
hurt was accidental. From observa
tion of what little colored population
there is in Dublin we are inclined to
believe that the teim “innocent by
stander,” can never be properly ap
plied to one of them. The aggrega
tion here in Dublin lacks everything
of being innocent. For any purpose
the whole bunch, is not worth the
dynamite it would take to blow them
off the face of the earth. They won’t
work when they can, they can’t keep
their hands off of anything of value
that is not chained down and they
have no idea of what a moral prin
ciple is. If the class of “niggers”
in the towns in Texas where they
are numerous are anything like as
worthless as the few we have in Dub
lin, we sympathize with the town. —
Dublin, Texas, Progress.
‘‘UNWHIPPED MOBS” IN AMER
ICAN history;
“An unwhipped mob,” says Gen.
Funston, describing the citizens of
San Francisco. An apt term, al
though not in just the sense meant
by the officer who gained his title
leading “unwhipped mobs” of
American volunteers.
American mobs have away of be
ing unwhipped and of remaining that
way indefinitely. ’ The unwhipped
Boston mob which dumped British
tea into the water, the unwhipped
mob which brought the Lone Star in
to the constellation, the unwhipped
mobs which precipitated the freeing
of the slave, are examples enough to
show that General Funston's term
fits better than he knew.
There Is an undertone of sadness,
however, in the general’s words. It
is as if the Czar should see an un
whipped mob from his palace tow
ers and straightway remedy the de
fect by calling out his whip-wield
ing Cossacks and knout-swinging po
lice. Would General Funston suggest
his willingness to try his hand at
whipping an American mob?—N. Y.
American.
A BLOODY WAR.
What a bloody war that between
Russia and Japan was! Short, sharp,
decisive and, to a degree, sanguinary.
“The worship in honor of the souls
of the soldiers and sailors of Japan
who fell in the war with Russia, cel
ebrated at Tokio on May 1, disclosed
the fact that the total loss on record
was 84,848 killed and died of
wounds. This is about 85 per cent
of the battle losses of the federal
army during our great Civil War.”
And yet our war lasted four years.
In the outcome Russia cut a sorry
figure in the Russo-Japanese war, but
the above figures show that she did
execution while it was on.—Charlotte
Observer.
WHISKERS.
The fellows who grow whiskers to
hide the absence of ties haven’t any
thing on the railroads, which grow
weeds for the same purpose.—Spar
tanburg Journal.
WAITING FOR REFORM.
Nix—There’s an island out in the
Pacific Ocean where crime, poisons,
drunkenness, • and courts are un
known.
Dix—Civilization is a long time
reaching that island.—St. Joseph
(Mo.) News-Press.