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The Commoner.
VOLUME 4, NUMBER 30.
-"
A,
ploycs of tho national government.
owerlcss as tho people would un
doubtedly bo to rectify evils imposed
by tho misconduct of an administra
tion supported by sucn an army of
adherents, it appears that in avoiding
one difficulty Mr. Bryan has fallen
into another almost as serious. IIo
proposes that there shall be, for con
tinental America, forty-eight railway
systems, each confined by state or
territorial boundaries. Does ho think
that tho general boards ho proposes
could defeat the consequences of state
jealousies and divergent state inter
ests? Breaking of bulk and transfer of
freight from car to car are costly im
pediments to interstate transportation,
but exceedingly profitable to the com
munities who are thus enabled to im
pose an effective tax upon traffic
that would othcrwiso pass uninter
rupted and toll-less through their lim
its. "VVjould it not seem profitable to
many state legislatures to create condi
tions that would make trans-shipment
at state points necessary? Again in
terstate railways must be constructed
for tho broad purposes of interstate
commcrco and not with the narrow
.view of .state and local interests. How
long would tho Pacific coast have
waited for railway connections with
tho oast if Arizona and Nevada and
New Moxico had been relied upon lor
tho outlay required for the links of
the through line-which lie within their
respective borders? Would Pennsyl
vania have built a line to connect
Pittsburg with lines extending to Bal
timore and divert traffic from Phila
delphia? Would Missouri have con
nected Kansas City with lines leading
to Chicago at the expense of Saint
Louis? Railway Ago.
. Siixto or National Ownership.
Mr.- Bryan's conclusion that public
services should bo owned and man
aged by tho public, places him in lino
with the progressive democrats that
have seen the absurdity of permitting
a public service to bo operated for
private profit with the expectation that
the interests of tho public will be made
paramount to the profits of the .private,
owners, but his opinion that to avoid -centralization
of power the railways
should be owned and managed by the
several states is a detail of method
that ho must soon come to realize is
wholly impracticable.
The whole tendency In railway
management has been and Is toward
consolidation. That tho public has
benefited by tho consolidation of the
small and weak lines into the largo
systems, hardly needs demonstration.
With consolidation has come a vast
improvement in service. Tho traveler
may journey for thousands of miles
over tho same railway company's
tracks without change of cars or de
lays. Tho inconvenience that would
' follow should tho management change
at each state lino is obvious. Before
tho era of centralization, tho tiavelcr
going any great distance was obliged
to change cars every hundred miles or
so, with long waits and great incon
venience. At tho present time rival railway
companies arrange llielr time sched
ules to avoid making connections at
junction points, to tho Inconvenience
of rthe public. If tho railways of
the country should bo placed under the
management of tho general govern
ment, all this conrusion could be
avoided. But to place tho management
of tho railways in tho hands of tho
several states would bo retrogressive
and lead to a species of chaos. The
objections to state ownership and man
agement are vital. Under ownership
by tho general government tho states
could build, own and operate purely
local lines, in tho event there should
be communities needing railway serv
ice that the federal lines did not
reach, but it would be essential that
tho great systems tno tnrough lines
and their connections snould be op
erated by a single management to
avoid confusion.
The fear that public ownership
would vest in the federal govern
ment vast power of a political nature
is not unwarranted. Without a strict
merit law public ownership would per
mit the creation of a powerful politi
cal machine, but it is to be assumed
that when the American people under
take public ownership of the railways
they will provide against the danger of
turning their operation over to the
spoils politicians. There is not the
Slightest reason that the men who now
manage the railways ror their private
owners should not manage them for
the public.
Why such fear of centralization of
power? The power now exists. Would
it not be better to have it placed in tho
possession of the representatives of
the people than to remain in tho
keeping of the Rockefellers, Goulds
and Morgans? The railway postal
service, which at one time was given
over to the spoils politicians, has
been entirely divorced from politics.
Instead of providing for a strict mer
it law, would it not have been the
height of folly for the general gov
ernment to have abdicated its pow
er and turned the postal service over
to tho several states to avoid cen
tralization of power? Milwaukee
Wis., Daily News.
Not Hungry
when you should be means disordered
nerves, which, will lead to nervous
prostration. Dr. Miles' Nervine is
guaranteed to benefit you or money
refunded. Book on nerves sent free.
- UKMxu MJtDioifc Co.. Elltbart. Iod.
A Voice From Tho Past.
We made the point last week that,
no matter what Mr. Bryan may have
been in the past, he had by his declar
ation in favor of state ownership of
railroads and federal ownership of
telegraph lines, ceased to be a demo
crat. There were not many corpora
tions in Jefferson's day, but there
were some. At that time it was also
proposed, that the government should
control them more directly, and so a
bill was once sent to the senate from
tho house providing ror the federal
incorporation of a certain copper min
ing company. It is interesting to re
call that the mines were known as
"Roosevelt's copper mines," and that
they were in New Jersey. Concern
ing the plan to incorporate tho con
cern by giving it a federal charter,
Mr. Jefferson, who was then president,
wrote in 1808 to T. J. Randolph thus:
"The senate received yesterday a
bill from the representatives incor
porating a company for Roosevelt's
copper mines In Jersey. This is under
the sweeping clause of the constitu
tion, and supported by the following
pedigree of necessities: Congresses
are authorided to defend the country;
ships aro necessary for that defense;
copper is necessary for ships; mines
aro necessary to produce copper; com
panies aro necessary to work mines
and 'this is the house that Jack
built.'"
Of course, Mr. Bryan ooes not pro
pose that the federal government shall
incorporate a telegraph company
what he demands is that it shall buy
out the companies already in posses
sion, or build lines, and that In either
case it shall be the owner. But in
this case, as well as In the case re
ferred to by Jefferson, there would be
centralization of an extraordinary
2 V, We. aro not areulng against
Mr. Bryan's proposition, but Biniply
pointing out its extremely un-demo-cratlc
and un-Jelfersoman cnaractor. .
The same thing is true of his scheme
for state ownership of railroads. That
Is also a very foolish proposition. The
Lake Shore road, for instance, which
is now owned by one company, and
is operated as a unit, would, under
the Bryan plan, be owned by the states
of 'New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, In
diana and Illinois, and because of this
divided ownership, its operation as a
unit would be practically impossible.
New York could not compel an engi
neer hired by it to run his train be
yond its own boundary, and Pennsyl
vania would be under no obligation to
permit such engineer to do so. If he
did travel beyond the New York line,
which state would pay him the one
hiring him, or the one in whose ter
ritory he made his run? If the states
owned the railroads, they -would also
own their rolling stock, and the earn
ings of that rolling stock in other
states would have to be accounted for
to the owning state. If through in
terstate commerce were to be main
tained at all, we should have such a
complicated system of accounts among
tho various states as the world has
never seen. The only possible alter
native to private ownership is federal
ownership or control. In the nature
of things, the states could not deal
with the subject.
But considering it from its political
point of view, its un-democratic char-,
acter must be apparent to all who
know anything of democratic princi
ple. Think of the power that our gov
ernments, state and national, would
have if they controlled both the rail
roads and the telegraph. In Indiana
We should have thousand of new of
ficeholdersengineers, firemen, brake
men, conductors, section men, clerks,
managers and superintendents. Such a
political machine could and would
be built up as the world has never
seen. "The cost of administering btir
local governments wouia ue increased
many fold. We should lose all the
taxes that we now get rrom the rail
road and telegraph companies. There
would be discrimination in fares and
freights to political favorites, and one
shudders to think of the proportions
that the pass evil would assume.
The moment the democratic party
should adopt such a policy, it would
cease to .be democratic. It may con
tinue to exist as an organization, may
even show great vigor and vitality,
but it will not be the democratic
party which the nation has known
for more than a century. Here is
democracy as defined by Thomas Jef
ferson in his first inaugural:
"Still one thing more, fellow-citizens,
a wis,e and frugal government
which shall restrain men from injur
ing one another, shall leave them free
to regulate their own pursuit of in
dustry and . improvement and shall
not take from the mouth the bread
it has earned. This is the sum of
good government; and this is neces
sary to close the circle of our felic
ities." And as if almost foreseeing the time
when men should run to the govern
ment for protection against abuses and
for the cure? of undoubted evils. Mr.
Jefferson wrote thus to ar friend:
"It has been said that our govern
ments, both federal and particular
want energy; that it is difficult to re
strain both individuals and states
from committing wrong. This is true
and it is an inconvenience. On the
other hand, that energy wmch abso
lute governments derive from an
armed forco, which is tho effect of
the bayonet constantly held at .-tho
breast of every citizen, and which re
sembles very much the stillness of
the grave, must be admitted also to
have its inconveniences. We weigh
the two together and like best to sub
w toFthGJormer- Compare the num
ber of wrongs committed with im
punity by citizens among us wik
thoso committed by the sovereigns n
other countries, and the last wUl i
found most numerous, most oppress!
on the mind, and most degrading I?
the dignity of man." aegradlnS of
We should bo careful lest we allow
present abuses to drive us to the ox
tremity of changing tne nature or our
government even for the sake of the
better coping with tnem. We may
here, as in so. many other cases, safelv
appeal to the wisdom of the fathers
if Jofferson- was a democrat Bryan is
www. i.uuiunujjuiis, ina., isews.
Sto.t 'Ownership of Railroads.
Mr. Bryan has come out in favor of
government ownership of railroads
This is not surprising in a politician
whose tendencies have always been
in the direction of socialism. Mr
Bryan says tnat he has hitherto re
fused to take a position on this sub
ject for two reasons; one was that
as a candidate of his party in two
campaigns, lie did not think it was
right for him to take a stand on a
subject on which the party had not de
clared itself; and the other was that v
until recently he had himself not given
the subject much study.
Now that Mr. Bryan is free from
the responsibilities of party leader
ship and has given the subject of the
government ownership of railroads
study, what is the result of his in
vestigation? He is not in favor of gov
ernment ownership, due or ownership
by state governments, not by the fed
eral government. He fears the con
centration of private control of tho
railroads which has gone on through
the process of consolidation after con
solidation, but he also fears the re
sults of the concentration of govern
ment control that would result from
ownership of the railroads by the
United States. In oraer to get rid of
tho evil of control ,of4tjhe. railroads of
the country concentrated "In a few pri
vate individuals, he would have the
railroads owned by the people, and
in order to get rid of the danger of
the railroads concentrated in tho fed
eral government, he would have thorn
owned by the separate Btates.
It would appear to us that Mr. Bry
an's study on this subject has been
to little purpose. It is possible that
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