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GEORGE W. BERGE, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER
Volume 18
Lincoln, Nebraska, October 5, 1905
Number 20
Senator Chandler Tears the Made
frown
Already the big guns are booming in the great battle which
has begun between the champions of the people, and the mercenaries
I of the railways. Former Senator William A. Chandler of New
) Hampshire has just thrown a succession of tbirteen-inch shells
squarely into the camp of the haughty and confident hirelings. lie
has come out as a strong leader on the side of the people, but he
warns his followers that they must not expect a quick and easy
triumph. Indeed he tells them, that restrictive railway legislation
at the next session of congress is foredoomed.
Senator Chandler has torn the mask from the face of the rail
v .way pharisees, scribes, priests and teachers. He has exposed the
conspiracy whereby the money power is seeking to suppress free
-speech. Tainted money and tainted transportation are being used
from one end of the country to the other. Tainted transportation
is liberally supplied to newspaper men, lawyers, ministers and edu
cators. Tainted money is given to newspaper enterprises, old and
-new, to' churches and universities, and the leading lawyers of the
country are retained as special pleaders for the railways. Thus
it is. that. we find the press silent as to the true conditions of the
mighty contest now being waged. Thus it is that we find ministers
of the gospel and chancellors of state universities and of other insti
tutions of learning constructing elaborate defenses around the gold
piles of corrupt financiers. -Speaking
of the free pass Senator Chandler declares, as The
Independent has frequently insisted, that it is as good as money for
purposes of bribery, and that in many instances it is better than
money because it can be given much more safely to influence judges,
legislators and executives. He asserts, what we all know to be true,
that this money power employs tainted money and tainted trans
portation to elect executives, judges and legislators in every state
in the union.
These are days of lucid and striking exposures, but Senator
handler's expose of the railway power and the allied money power
is more impressive and convincing than anything of the kind yet
written. He makes it clear that the railway power is determined
to prevent the passage of any bill that will give the interstate com
merce commission the power to fix rates found to be unreasonabSe'or
which will provide that-a rate, once fixed, shall immediately take
effect and remain in force unless and until changed by commission
or by court. To defeat such legislation the railway literary bureaus
have been flooding the newspaper offices with specious arguments,
false assertions and flagrant misrepresentations. They have been
"playing" one section of the country against another. They have
appealed to the prejudice of the southern people by claiming that
the government would have no right to permit "Jim Crow" car dis
crimination in the south.- If the argument were sound it would 13
equally applicable to the tourist cars in the north, but, of course,
it is a lying and hypocritical argument designed for the sole pur
pose of arousing race prejudice. 'f
Senator Chandler states that the great hope of the people lies
in the courage of the president and his perseverance in the policy
of railway regulation which he advocated last spring. The senator
shows that the railways have tried to frighten the president and he
takes the charitable view that the president has not been intimidated
or driven from his position. But there are too nariy indications
that the president has altered his views. Whe the his courage has
failed him, or whether he has been influenced by persuasive politi
cians is unknown to the people, but the people do know that the
president has changed front. The republican platform adopted by
the recent state convention held in Lincoln shows how the mind of
the president is wavering and how the railways have seized upon his
weakest utterance as an announcement of his policy. That plank
is as follows:
. With unbounded confidence in the integrity and statesmanship of Pres!
, dent Roosevelt we heartily approve his recent utterance in which he says:
"I believe that all corporations engaged in interstate commerce should be
under the supervision of the national government. I do not believe in
taking steps hastily and it may be that all that is necessary in the im
mediate future is to pass an interstate commerce bill conferring upon some
branch of the executive government the power of effective action to remedy
the abuses in connection with railway transportation.
This utterance is essentially different from the president's posi
tive declaration at an earlier date that the interstate commerce
commission should have the right to fix a remedial rate in case of
complaint, such rate to become effective at once and to remain in
effect "unless and until" changed by commission or court.
Place Only the ProVen Friends of Reform on Guard
It must be constantly kept in mind by the voters of Nebraska
that the great, reforms they are seeking can only be obtained by
electing good men to office. If they are to trust the men by whom
they have been betrayed, or if they are to trust men of the same
ilk, they will never obtain better government or better laws. What
the people of Nebraska need is a complete change of political con
trol. They must never forget that those who have been consistent
advocates of reform for years are the men to trust in office rather
than those, who, influenced by a sudden realization of the popular
sentiment, quickly desert the old gods for the new. This is a gen
eral but truthful statement of the present situation in Nebraska.
Careful study of this situation should convince the impartial voters
of two facts: . -
1. There is no good reason why a populist or democrat should
vote for the republican candidate for supreme judge or for the repub
lican candidates for regents of the state university. - :
2. There are many reasons why sincere republicans, who have
been demanding relief from railway rule and trust domination,-
should vote for the reform candidates. . '" - - - . -J
Nothing was said prior to the republican convention akutp
Judge Letton's being a reform candidate. That was an after-j " ,
thought. As soon as the nomination had been made republican jour-
nals began to describe the amiable judge as a stanch reformer. Their j
sole reason , for such a claim seemed to be that the avowed candi
date of the Union Pacific and Burlington interests had been de
feated in the convention. There was nothing in the career of Judge V
Letton to suggest that he would take to the supreme court those 1
qualities of mind and character that help their possessor to resist?"
corporation influence.
A reform candidate must be a man of strong personality, high '
ideals, firm convictions and unwavering will power. Such a candi-
date the reform forces found in Judge Hastings of Saline county.
The best friends of Judge -Letton do not claim that he fuilfils thesa '
requirements. The most the' will assert is that he is an intelligent
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