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The Commoner.
VOLUME 7, NUMBBE tX
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The Commoner. CALAMITY! AND FROM NEW YORK
ISSUED WEEKLY.
WII.MAM J. IMIVAN CllAlil.ia W. JIHTAN
Kill tor nnd Proprietor. 1'ubllHlior.
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AddicfB nil comnuinleatloim to
THE COMMONER, Lincoln, Nob.
Doubtless that recent Wall street "panic" was
merely a test.
Maxim tfio gunmaker Is predicting a war with
Japan. Overstocked 7
The question confronting Secretary Cortolyou
is not a hypothetical one.
, Speaking oC "brain storms," watt until
Easter bonnet bills come in.
the
The Philadelphia North American wants to
know if there is a leather trust. Shoer!
Those Boors in the Transvaal have won with
ballots the battle they lost with bullets.
The railroads are bound to lose money by tlio
2-cent faro law if they spend a whole lot lighting it.
Perhaps tlio railroads would bo better able to
save themselves if they would behave themselves.
Kentucky is preparing another "home-coming
.week," but ex-Governor Taylor takes no interest.
It must have amused "Uncle Joe" Cannon to
hear the Porto Uicans talking about self-government.
President Roosevelt scorns determined to equip
Wall street with proper terminal and tankage facilities.
Mr. Rockefeller says lie loves ills country. Of
course; where a man's treasure is there his heart
is also.
The Honduras forces were defeated in battle
recently. Ho managed to retreat In good order
however. '
Frank Rockefeller recently lost a suit in which
ho was plaintiff. Ah, so tlio family can lose some
thing, oh?
Why do the railroad presidents so unanimously
prefer federal regulation if state regulation is so
ineffective?
i, fi!!l0a1,,r?,!?s nro now b0lng r "simple jus
tice. What they need, but are not nskins for n
exact justice. ' '
The railroads arc now vastly concerned about
their tie supply, the forest being rapidly destroyed.
u "luusm ul umi sooner. Water
rapidly rots wood.
Senator Forakor has been meeting the expenses
tilt4 RrOWllSVllln innllll'V mil of 1,K. . i.i.
tint this may be a cheaper way to. got the colored
p.va..o .uu .im: ouuui uiim. any tried before.
The cdltoriril page of the Now York Press, re
publican, sounds these days very like an 189i
democratic document. Indeed, it would be difil
cult to llnd In the history of the 1890 campaign a
denunciation by democrats so severe as that which
appeared in the leading editorial printed in the
New York Press, republican, of March 14, 1007.
That editorial is entitled, "What Is Due the Rail
way JJigh Financiers is Not the Martyr's Crown
but Jail."
Extracts from that editorial follow:
Years ago tills paper predicted the very things
that are now coming to pass, and repeatedly,
through the wild debauch of tlio railway manipu
lators, wo have warned them that tliey were has
tening the day of reckoning. The whole trouble
with their schemes, as we have often pointed out,
is not that the public lias started what they are
pleased to call a prairie fire. It is that they have
simply been carrying on green goods swindles on a
colossal scale.
They have boon taking the railroads out of the
hands of engineers and railway men and giving
Iheni over to corporation lawyers and stock mar
ket gamblers. Instead of managing them to haul
great; traffic and to take care of the future trans
portation needs of the country, they have used
them to control the ticker tape quotations and to
perform speculative miracles. They have stripped
the properties to make a fraudulent show of earn
ings so that they might double dividends over
night after they had "gone long of stocks" and,
selling the next day on the rise, put tens and hun
dreds of millions of gambling profits into their
private pockets. They have seized roads that
were legitimately capitalized, multiplied their
stocks and bonds several times, issued the bogus
securities to themselves or their syndicates at a
low price and then unloaded them on the public
"fit the top." They have piled up earnings into a
huge surplus which ought to have been used for
buying locomotives, cars and fails to handle the
growing traffic, but which they have lent to them
selves to buy other stocks low and sell them high,
stuffing their wallets with the proceeds.
These manipulators of the railways of the
country have taken a hundred million dollars of
shares of one road, added them to one hundred
million dollars of shares of another anil called
them, by the mere process of merging, worth Ave
hundred millions. They have issued securities to
themselves insuring their possession of the actual
worth of the properties and printed counterfeit
securities representing the water they have poured
into the merger. This stuff they have palmed off
on tlio public as the original and increased value
of tlio roads and gathered in fabulous fortunes by
the operation.
And because tlio railroads were being handled,
by the lawyers and stock market gamblers to make
a saturnalia of speculation; because it was of
That alleged Brownsville confession created a
momentary flutter in a senatorial household in
southern Ohio.
The chief trouble about those stories concern
ing tlio failure of municipal ownership is that
they are not true.
Tlio United States supreme court lias decided
that a state has a right to protect the national flag.
Tlio tlag needs something of that kind, now that
tlio constitution has deserted it.
The Chicago Tribune is printing interviews
with railroad magnates concerning "what the rail
roads want." Goodness gracious, is there any
thing they haven't already got?
Walter Wolman says tlio chief difficulty about
a balloon journey to the pole lies in the loss of
buoyancy resulting from leakage of gas. Walter
is an authority on gas leakages.
Now that Wall street has recovered because of
tlio remedy furnished by Mr. Cortelyou, the mag
nates can take a little time to pick out the trust
which lie will be asked to manage.
"Bryan elucidates!" shouts tlio Milwaukee Sen
tinel. Yes, it is very difficult to explain even a
plain economical proposition so it can be under
stood by some republican editors.,
Just the minutp that Ir. Cortelyou rushed to
the aid of Wall street ho became a great financier.
Wall street can make 'em in a minute after a
president makes 'em secretaries of the treasury.
more importance to them to take from fifty to one
hundred points of profit on margined accounts
in the Stock Exchange than to convey the traffic
of tlio country in hand and to provide for that in
prospect, the railroads themselves have been going
to the dogs. For lack of proper equipment, track
inspection, labor, etc., they have "been murdering
passengers and blocking freight to a degree unap
proached anywhere else in the world and never
before paralleled even in the United States. Wo
knpw of a case of a railroad paying 8 per cent
dividends (declared to mark up the price of the
stock so tli at the gamblers could unload at tre
mendous profits) which had a lever break in a
switchtower and tlio Avhole system was tied up
because there was not an extra lever ready to bo
put in. To make a bookkeeping showing which
would induce the public to take the stock at more
than 200, the road was not buying necessary sup
plies like ties, rails, spikes, levers and switches!
It is doing this tiling at this very minute. If a loc
omotive breaks down, there is no other available
to take its place; the train must bo abandoned!
The high financiers and stock market gamblers
have played their game to the limit. They have
made their tens and hundreds of millions. But
the public has learned what is the matter why
there aren't cars enough, why the trains don't run
on time, why perishable goods are not delivered
at their destination until they are rotten nnd use
less, why the mortality from collisions, derail
ments and other causes climbs to record a terrible
slaughter of the public. And so in all the states
the citizens are rising to compel the railroads to
be operated for the people of the United States,
not for the stock market gamblers. And the rail
roads will be so operated, the cries o;f "panic"
by the Harrimans and Hills and Goulds and
Sticknoys to the contrary notwithstanding.
There will be no destruction of the prosperity
of the nation. The "prairie fire" will burn up
nothing but superfluous paper the counterfeit se
curities of the high financiers. Fictitious values
will fall. The water may stay in the stocks, but
nobody will be paying the cbunterfeiters a hun
dred cents for what isn't worth a copper. The
crops will grow. The mills and factories will turn
out their products. The wage-earners will make
their livings. The gigantic wealth of the country
the real wealth will be here every dollar of it
Only the railway green-goods business will lan
guish. And perhaps it is not too much to hope that
before the public finishes the work that will close
the high finance era of swindle, some of the great
' men who are shrieking about the perversity of u
plucked and outraged people will be where they
belong not in the presidencies and chairman
ships of boards of directors of falsely capitalized
public highways converted into monopolies, buf lu
jail.
If we do get lost in the sun's photosphere,
which is 150,000 miles long by 30,000 miles wide,
we need not remain lost very long. We can rally
when we hear Wall street yelling for help.
The attention of President Roosevelt is respect
fully called to the fact that the steel trust has not
yet been busted, and the tariff which protects
the steel trust has not yet been reduced.
General Palmer is giving tilings to Colorado
again. And the beauty of General Palmer's gifts
is that he did not first rob the people of them and
then return them in the name of philanthropy.
The American heiress who was recently di
vorced from her "noble" husband claims that her
lawyers charged her too much. Strange Her
friends over here thought it was cheap at any
The Louisville Street Railway company has
won a great moral victory. Its employes struck
for better wages and conditions and the company
arbitrated and gave the employes better wagea
and conditions. b 3
When Wall street is prosperous the magnates
think it is very wrong for the government to "in
terfere with business enterprise." When Will
street nears financial rocks it can call for heln
louder than anybody. eip
The Sioux City Journal sp'eaks about "the blow
Secretary Ivuox struck for corporation regulation
in the Northern Securities case." And So mS
ftnv'S"!?04 iT8? ,nust hva laughed vglee
fully if .they read the Journal paragraph. .
.i
X
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