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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (April 12, 1907)
X V" APRIL 12, 1007 .The Commoner. 9 c Pdfdgraphic Punches Rockefeller has a perfect contempt for Abe Rucf Who isindieted upon only G5 counts. Kansas City Post. Ilnrrinian says he is not understood. Of course he isn't. He is a block system allNto himself. Atlanta Constitution. Pittsburg is now the sixth city in the United States and the first in some particulars not neces sary to mention. Atlanta Journal. Mr. Rockefeller is going to leave his money be hind him when he dies. He has recently made a will to such effect. Memphis News. The improved nonsmashable Pullman, equipped with an anti-tipping porter, would be little short of ideal. Philadelphia Public Ledger. An eminent -writer says that "genius needs good, healthy exercise. Send all those alllicted that way to the Panama -canal. Clinton Republican. London seems disposed to give the "suffra gettes" all the advantage in public sentiment that martyrdom usually carries. Washington Star. It wipes away all the mistiness of divorce court records to read that an Oregon couple are about to celebrate their sixtieth anniversary. Portland Oregonian. Those people who fear that by the ending of war the earth will become overpopulatqd, need not be alarmed.. The railroads are yet with us. New York American. 'The railroad men are talking too much," -says Mr. Hill. But if they stop talking they may -have to go to running their roads from sheer ennui. : New York World. Federal control for railroads is all right, ac cording to. John. LY Rockefeller, but when it cdines to the Standard Oil company, that's another story. Louisville Post. James J. Hill may be a pessimist and all that, but it must not be forgotten that he has always refrained from using his middle name in full. Los Angeles Times. The president of the Omaha Coal Trust .is to go to jail, for six months. The matter comes at just the right time to afford a horriblcexample for the Ice trust. Sioux City Journal. The government statisticians have figured :t out that the wealth of the country is $107,000,000, 000. This includes what Harriman got out of the Alton deal. Minneapolis Journal. ' Most of the troubles in South and Central America seem to arise out of our ministers under taking to run their offices as collection agencies for individuals. St. Louis Globe-Democrat. British consols have been touching the lowest prices reached in more than forty years. Is th'.s also to be attributed to two-cent rate legislation out in Nebraska? Springfield Republican. According to Dr. Flint, there Is no such thing as a brainstorm. Unquestionably there are many persons who haven't brains enough to work up more than a drizzle. Kansas City Journal. -It would be grimly humorous if San Domingo should now refuse to'ratify the treaty which Pres ident Roosevelt and the United States senate have been wrestling over for so many years. Chicago Evening Post. Possibly Stuyvesant Fish referred to the prac tice of using railroad funds to swell trust com pany statements when he said the railroads had done some things provocative of bad language. Detroit "News. Invited to attend the cereomnies when the Pennsylvania capltol building was accepted, President Roosevelt said not one word as to the scandals that went with the structure; his friends explained that he could not interfere in a matter so distinctly a local one, nor, as a guest, affront the grafters who were his hosts to whom his pres ence served as both mask and shield. But he is aued orders to the California legislature and as the guest at Harvard he saw no discourtesy in attack ing the administration of President Klidt and dis crediting the accepted policies of the university! Why tills difference except Hint the grafters still disposed of the votes of a great state? Florida Times-Union. - .J The president says he only desires that the rer publicans .nominate as his. successor an "all-around straight-up kind of mail." This-deslgnfilion is too vague. It is suggestive of both Taft and Fair banks. Houston Post. The Louisville Courier-Journal notes an Eng lish journalist who "writes with his tooth," and the Washington Herald opines that ho may say biting tilings. Still, that may be a false Impres sion. Atlanta Georgian. - Postmasters are complaining that they cannot got twine to tie up packages of letters. But could not the departments at Washington send them a stock of red tape? There is certainly no lack of that. Pittsburg Dispatch. As the conditions' exposed now appear, San Francisco was so honeycombed with graft that the only wonder is that it stood until an earthquake shook it down. Nothing was overlooked appar ently, that could pay tribute; even a prizefight trust was held up and hit hard. Baltimore American. CALAMITY Men like Harriman make a thpusand anarchists for one made by men like Joliann Most. . The no torious Alton deal is a typical illustration of the machinery of manufacture. The various phases of this have been discussed as they transpired. The cynical frankness of Harriman and others b2 fore the Interstate commerce commission ties them all logically together, so that the infamy may be reviewed as a whole. The Alton was an old-fashioned corporation with small capital, debt and mileage, like the old Boston & Albany or the present Lackawanna. It was conservatively managed, paid liberal divi dends steadily and put surplus earnings Into bet terments. The people who owned it did noL real ize the golden opportunities in the-modern fashion of capitalizing present and-prospective earnings, mortgaging everything in sight, dividing up the stock and bonds among promoters and leaving the public to furnish means through heavy freight charges and new loans for interest, dividends, de preciation and improvements. The figures hsive been printed. Harriman and associates bought the stock at $200, diluted It 50 per cent, sold all the bonds they could unload .vi banks, life insurance companies and the public through their connection with them as directors, paid dividends to themselves and realized profit on the sale of stocks and bonds to the amount of nearly $25,000,000. In this process the liabilities of the company, on which the public must pay interest and divi dends through freight rales, increased from $10, 000,000 to nearly $125,000,000. In this time only about $20,000,000 was added to the value of the property by betterments, with no allowance for depreciation. The promoters did not even spare one another. The Rock Island group was joined with the Union Pacific group in the deal, with the understanding that they were to manage the Alton in alternate years. Mr. Harriman took It first and when the Rock Island people got it the next year the treas ury was empty and everything mortgaged up to the hilt. " If a common man acquired dollars instead of millions in precisely this way, he would go to jail. Harriman is worshiped as a master of high finance. Minneapolis Tribune. RAILROAD FINANCE Mr. E. H. Harriman is president and chairman of the executive committee of the Union Pacific, president of the Oregon Short Line and chairman of the executive committee of the Southern Pa cific. In 3901 it appears that the Union Pacific was bonded for 8100,000,000 and the Oregon Short Line for $45,000,000. This made a huge total wholly in the hands of Mr. Harriman and his associates to use and they used it to buy and sell other railroad properties. They were independent of banks and trust com panies, of bank examiners and government or state agents. With this they made famous the corner In . Northern Pacific, and, though they lost -control, . they came out with an enormous profit. Subse quently the deals in Baltimore & Ohio and Illinois Central were made, and probably best of all was the deal in Chicago & Alton. This road they bought for $39,000,000. A divi dend of thirty per cent wiip declared-dliVof a bond issue of $40,000,000: Tlioy-Hbld inost'opflid&c bonds to themselves at sltfty-iive cents and then un loaded a fourth of then onto the N6w York Life, which they practically controlled, at . ninety-six cents: The Chicago & AJton's liabilities in six years -were Increase;! to $12.'l,000,000. The comnidn stock for which they had paid $175 per share wart left not with a dollar. Improvements which the old management had made out of earnings were at once charged to stock. A large block of the stock was sold to the t'nion Pacific, and Mr. Harriman and his co-workers pocketed profits to the amount of ovav $2.',0(J0,000. 'This Is railroad high finance. These men were not using their own money, but they used what was essentially a trust fund to their own benefit. They used the money of one railroad of which they were otllclals to buy another railroad, and watered .the stock, which they then sold to the first road. These are railroad kings, niultl-mllllonaires. The watered stock pumped into (lie Alton will help form the basis of freight rates the people will be asked to pay, and nobody is In jail except the man who stole .bread to keep his family from starving. But the moral of the tale that has been unfold ing through the interstate commerce eommissloiVH investigation, of which this is but a part, is that the railroad kings of this country have not made their millions through legitimate railroading, but by such manipulations as these of Mr. Harriman. They do not come by transportation earnings or dividends, but by using one railroad as a basis for trading in the stocks of other roads and loading them for cash with pure water, on which all fu ture generations must pay dividends. Is It not time such finance was slopped and railroading made 'an honest and legitimate business? Duluth News-Tribune. ATTHE TOP OFTHE ROAD "But, lord," she said, "my shoulders still are strong I have been used to bear the load so long; "And see, the hill is passed, and smooth tlieroad." "Yet,"' said the Stranger, "yield me now' thy load." Gently he took it fro"m her, and she stood Straight-limbed and lithe, In new-found maiden hood 1 Amid long, sunlit fields; around them sprang A lender breeze, and birds and rivers snug. "My lord," she said, "the land Is very fair!" Smiling, lie answered: "Was it not so there?" "There?" In her voice a wondering question lay; "Was I not .ill ways here, thou, as today?" He turned to her, with strange, deep eyes aflame; "Knowcsl thou not this kingdom, nor my name?" "Nay," she replied; "but this I understand That thou art Lord of life In this dear land!" . "Yes, child," he murmured, scarce above his breath: "Lord of the Land, but men have named me Death.." Charles Buxton Going, In McCIure's. THE FATHERLAND Where Is the true man's fatherland? Is It where he by chance is born? Doth not the yearning spirit scorn In such scant borders to be spanned? Oh yes, his fatherland must be As the blue heaven, wide and free! Is it alone whore freedom is, Where God Is God and man is man? Doth he not claim a broader span For the soul's love of home than this? Oh yes, his fatherland must be As the blue heaven, wide and free! Where'er a human heart doth wear Joy's myrtle wreath, or sorrow's gyves, Where'er a human spirit strives After a life more true and fair, ' There Is the true man's birthplace grand, '' His is the world-wide fatherland! Where'er a single slave doth pine, Where'er one man may help another Thank God for such a birthright, brother That spot of earth is thine and mine, There is the true man's birthplace grand, His is a world-wide fatherland! James Russell Lowell. Tia I in m w.S V Mil i ;ifrirfli - -?i&i j-Uiftfe jvliJ .