12
THE ALLIANCE -INDEPENDENT.
MOLE SAM AND PAOIFIO E0AD3.
That the government, away back in
tho sixties when we had plenty of
money and everybody was prosperous,
made loans to assist in building tbe
Pacific railroads and took mortgages
to secure the re-payment of these loans,
is a pretty well known fact. But just
how and to what extent the govern
ment did this is not bo well understood
People who haven't looked into this
matter particularly suppose that tho
government loaned th3 corporations
money which was to be rcpird wiih
interest. It is perfectly natural for a
Nebraska man to suppose that when ho
gets a loan and gives a mortgage, he
will be expected to pay the interest.
But such persons should learn, if they
have not already learned, that a simple
American citizen, who works for a liv
ing, and has a body to be clothed, ard
a stomach to bo fed, is a very different
affair from a body corporate in the eye
of this free government of ours.
For instance it is all right for tho
government to furnish money to bank
ing corporations at a tax of one per
cent, or to loan it to them without in
terest; but for the government to loan
money to the farmers at two per cent
on real estate security is a wild non
sensical scheme, and "unconstitu
tional" to boot. Also when the govern
ment gives a railroad corporation a few
million acres on condition that it fulfill
certain condition8, it generally has no
trouble in holding all the land no mat
ter whether the conditions are fulfilled
or not. But when the government
gives a patriotic old soldier a quarter
section, he's got to attend strictly to
business, and fill all the requirements
or he'll Ice his claim.
But about this loan to the Pacific
roads: It wasn't a loan of money, but
of bonds, and it is the government and
not the corporations that has to pay
tho interest. Tho government simply
issued its bonds payable in thirty years
drawing six per cent interest, and
turned them over to the corporations.
These bonds constitute a debt which
''we, tbe people," arc bound to pay
both principal and interest.
The corporations simply took these
bonds and sold them for money which
was used in building the roads. Of
course there was an understanding
that the corporations should reimburso
the government for the interest it has
to pay on those bonds, and also furnish
money to pay the principal at the end
of the thirty years.
In order to secure compliance with
these conditions, the government took
a mortgage on the roads, a first mort
gage. The bill providing for these
things became a law July 1st, 1862.
Just two years from that time, con
gress in a fit of extremo liberality
lifted up that mortgage and allowed
private capital to slip another mortgage
under it exactly the same size. Ever
since then that government mortgage
has weathered the blasts and storms
like the outside bark on a rough old
tree, while that private mortgage has
lain snug and close to the surface of the
trunk where the sap circulates frcely-
A few days ago the secretary of the
treasury at Washington issued a circu
lar showing the status of that little ac
count between Undo Sam and the
Pacific road?. Leaving out details it
is as follows:
Princ'pil outstanding $04,623,512
Interest paid by Uncle Sam.. 94,118,790
Interest due (no5 yet paid). .. 323,117
Total interest 94,411,907
That's Uncle Sam's side of the ac
count. Now let's look at tho side of
tho corporations:
Interest repaid by traniporta-
tlon services $24,615,288
Interest repaid in cash 1,103,619
Total $24 717,907
Interest not vet repaid 68,400,882
How fortunate that the government
arranged to have the roads work out
part of the interest by carrying mails,
etc. Otherwise that paltry million
would be all the government has got
back in tho way of interest.
You see the roads have been poor and
hard run and the government has been
generous and lenient. When the roads
came up at tho end of the year, looking
all run down at the heel, and complain
ing about hard times, Uncle Sam would
say: "Oh, well, don't worry. Just go
ahead and do the best you can. I'll
wait on you." Then they iixed up a sort
of "nickel in the slot" arrangement by
which the roads were to set aside five
par cent of the'r net earnings to be ap
plied to the repayment of this interest.
But it seems that under this arrange
ment they have only set aside a little
over a million dollars! Their net earn-
jings are exceedingly small you see.
And no wnder: Firs, they've got to
look after those inside bonds and pay
the interest right up to the scratch.
Then they've got to pay the president
and direc ors, and managers, and em
ployees. And there are the attorneys.
They musn't bo left out. There's a
whole army of them, from John M
Thurston, with his $12,000 a year salary,
down to the rural pettifogger who is
satisfied with an annual pass. Then it
i costs lots of money to look after poli
tics, especially in Nebraska. There are
so many cranky grangers you know,
who are always wanting to get after
the railroads. It costs money to de
feat their wild schemes. There's a
whole raft of heelers that must be
boodled, and a lot of newspapers that
m i st be subsidized. Why only a few
years ago John M. Thurston himself
had to pay Hoi den $300 in cash for his
services in knocking out a candidate
f or supreme judge. Then Thomas L.
Kimball had to pay him $1,200 in cash
for his "services as a newspaper man
and otherwise in the election of a
United States senator" A. S. Paddock,
and $442 more for betraying and de
feating his friend Judge Hamer. And
then when General Van Wyck comes
up as a candidate, the same boodlr
must be hired to villify him, and create
dissension in the new party. Oh, it
costs money to run a Pacific road!
But it does seem to us that the sleek,
well-fed, rich fellows who run the cor
porations, and the others who are run
by the corporations, should stop ridi
culing the farmers, for being poor and
in debt. It seems to us that if the aver
age homesteader on a Nebraska claim
had got a loan from the government
for thirty years at six per cent interest,
he could have done better than the
corporations have done. He certainly
could have paid acd worked out more
than one-fourth the interest!
But let us be patient and generous.
Let us not forget that "the railroads
made this country what it is," and that
the men who have given their best
years to the development and manage
ment of these roads are poor. There's
Leland Stanford, president of the Cen
tral Pacific. He has only made a hun
dred million or so, and he's given
twenty million of that to the building
of a schoo'-house in California. Then
there's Jay Gould, and Vanderbilt and
Sidney Dillon, and a lot of other fel
low?, v T ?y only have from one to two
hund v million apiece. While on the
other hand the farmers for whose bene
fit the roads were built and the country,
developed are prosperous. They have
fine farms, covered with waving graii.
and "lortgages unmistakable "evi
dences of prosperity."
Under such conditions who would be
so small as to "kick" on paying the in
terest on those sixty-four million of
Pacific railroad bonds, or so mean as to
propose to foreclose that second mort
THE F0E0E BILL.
As an unnecessary and unjustifiable
appeal to sectional prejudice, the efforts
of democratic leaders to make the
'force bill" a leading issue in tho pres
ent campaign, and particularly in the
south, has no parallel in our history
save the waving of the bloody shirt by
means of which the republican party
kept itself in power for twenty years
after itshould have been defeated and
retired.
Never again can a democrat consis
tently hold up his hands in holy horror
and cry out against the efforts of re
publicans to keep alivo sectional preju
dice. But while republicans succeeded
almost beyond belief in keeping voters
In line by waving the "bloody shirt,"
the democrats are failing miserably in a
similar effort with the force bill. There
are several reasons for this:
First, the democrats are lacking in that
quality popularly known as ''gall" with
which republicans are so amply sup
plied. Hence they can not successfully
force a psudo-issue into the campaign.
Second, tho force hill has lost all its
terrors for the very men it was intend
ed to affect. The democrats are not
contending against their old-time
enemies in the south but against a new
force in politics born of democratic mis
rule in the south as it is of republican
misrule in the north. The members of
the new party throughout the south feel
that they sorely need something to
correct the very evils to remedy which
the republicans proposed the federal
election law. As the republicans have
been deprived of a "frse ballot and a
fair count" in the past, so are the popu
lists being treated to-day. They are
now being driven to take advantage of
the laws already in force providing for
supervisors of elections.
Hence the cry "force bill" as a cam
paign bogy has failed. What is more,
it is reacting against the party that
uses it. The insincerity and trifling
demogoguery of the cry is becoming
more and more apparent to all intelli
gent reformers throughout the south.
The outrages perpetrated on General
Weaver in Georgir. have knocked the
last particle of force out of the "force
bill" cry. It is dend, and the more tho
democratic leaders parade its corpse,
the more they will bring ridicule and
contempt upon themselves.
n mm in tit m t n n
MB' 1!
T I
If Col. Hathaway and Joe Burns will
write a book entitled "How to Success
fully Steal School Land From the State
and Rob the People" we are sure it will
meet with ready sale and be highly
appreciated.
The State Journal's lying proclivities
can be used to their full capacity and
to good advantage in explaining Col
Hathaway's connection with the rob
bers and thieves who have run the in
sane asylum under republican rule.
Our "Songs of the People" Have Created
For Themselves a Nation-Wide
Demand Which Enables
Us Now to Reduce
the Price.
Subscribe for tbe Alliance Inde
PENDENT.
We have all along contemplated reducing:
the price of our songs just as soon as we pes
sibly could do so, and we are exceedingly
glad to announce that prices will be way
down from this time forward. The first cost
of sheet music is heavy, and we have been
forced to sell hitherto at nearly ordinary
prices. We shall now sell our new, popular,
splendid, unequalled songs at rates within the
Chairman Taubeneck says: "Your songs
ate the very best that havo been prepared v
for our people , Hope you will do all in you 13.
fower to push the work. It is badly needed
n every state."
The Arena says: "The songs Just issued
for the Industrial millions will, If we mistake
not, add tens of thousands of votes to the
ranks of the people's party."
President Loucks, of the National Farmers1
Alliance, says: "They are admirably adapted
for campaign songs.'1
The Journal of tbe Knights of Labor says:
"They should be in the hands of all lovers of
liberty."
The New Forum sas: "The sentiment of
these songs is grand."
Ihese words of unsolicited praise indicate
the enthusiastic reception they are meeting
with everywhere.
Do you want songs that will bring down the
house? We have two that are regular swivel
guns, loaded with fun and thunder, and each
worth more in making votes than a hundred
dry orators. Tbeyar: "We Have the TarifT
Yet," and "The Taxpayers Sett.e the Bills."
"Get Off the Earth." Is equally popular.
Mrs. Mary Baird Finch, our Nebraska poet,
says: "If I cuuid write anything as good as
'Get Off the Earth,' 1 sheuld consider my
name and fame permanently established."
"The Workers' Battle Hymn of Freedom,"
is tbe new Marseila!se hymn set to the won
derously thrilling French air. Nothing could
be more moving and Inspiring.
"Sons of America" is a new tune like the
Marseillaise, and we believe equally stirring ,
and line.
'The Alarm Beat," is our trumpet call to...
action. It is ene of our best quartette cam
paign songs and arouses much enthusiasm.
"The Flag of Liberty" is the patriotic song
of the people's party. It will quickeit the
pulBes of all who love their country and hate
oppression. The Farm Field and Stockman
selected it from all our list to present to their
readers this week.
"God Save the People" is another song
that will live long. It touches a popular
chord.
You are hearing a gocd deal about "An
Honest Dollar." We have a song on that
subject (ready next week) which can't be
beat. Send for it at once.
' Truth's Approaching Triumph" is a song
of the "tho-isaud years." the reign of right
eousness for which we are fighting. It is a
beautiful, inspiring oompoBitiov, refreshing
as a song of tbe angels to those who have be
come weary waiting.
Tne Weakest Must Go to the Wall" gets id
some tremendous blows against the mony
land and transportation monopolists."
' Lossc s and Lies" phows up where profl 8
come from and how obtained. It is red hot.
"The MilUnuiura Army" is Mrs. Lease's
favorite and she has reason to think it our
best.
Snar lark a tn tall thAmnrlt of thn nt h at a
NOW NOTICE: Any one of these sorfg
heretofore sold at 3 cents now can be had for
20 cents. Three songs, your choice, frr 60
cents. Seven songs for $1.00. The entlro
series, sixteen ia number, for f 1.50. , e
Order at once and get ready for the great
est, grandest, most enthusiastic campaign tne
country has known.
Tne following is a list or tne songs:
The Workers' Battle Hymn of Freedom.
Right Shall Reign.
The Weakest Must Go to the Wall.
The Taxpayers settle the Bills. i
Sons of America.
Get off the Earth.
The Flag of Liberty.
The Coal Baron's Song.
Truth's Approaching Triumph,
God Save the People.
We have the Tariff Yet.
The Alarm Beat.
The Millennium Army.
That "Honest Dollar.,,r
Losses and Lies.
Tourists Trips.
Round triDS to to the Paeifie Coast. 1
Short trips to the Mountain Resort
01 uoioraao , j
The Great Sal t Lake. 7 ; i
Yellowstone National Park the most
wonderful spot on this continent.
Puget Sound, the Mediterranean o?"
the Pacific coast. .
And all reached via the Union Pcifi4
System. For detailed information qs
J. T. Mastin, C. T. A., 1044 O St.,
E. B. Slosson. Gen. Aert..
Lincoln, Ne
