&a Nebraska. Indopondont
PAGE 4
OCTOBER 10, 1001
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Current Comment on Leading Topics
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RAILWAY REGULATION
The Kansas City Times predicts that the
president in his next message to congress will
point out the speciousness and utter fallacy of
the railway agruments against railway regula
tion. This will be interesting Indeed to those
who think that the president has been rather un
certain in his views as to Just What measures
should be taken to secure national regulation of
railways:
President Roosevelt has received abun
dant assurances of popular support for his
railway policy, but he also knows that tue ,
railways have been making a systematic ,
canvass, through various devices for reach
ing the people, against this policy. It is said
that he will meet this voluminous propaganda
by making the subject of rate regulation
the leading topic of his forthcoming message
to congress and that he will place before the
readers of the whole country the specious- ,
" ness and the utter fallacy of the railway argu
ments. The president will have the advant
age of reaching the people openly and frank
ly and through the medium of a state paper
for which every public spirited man in the
'country 'will ,T"Ut with interest, while a great
deal of th jdlway matter circulated must
necessarily je classed as "dry reading."
There Is particular significance in the method
employed by the railway corporations in this
instance. They recognize the power of pub
lic sentiment as they have never recognized
it before. They know that tLey cannot carry
out : their policy against the restoration of ,
the rate-adjusting perogatives of the inter
state commerce commission unless they get
some public sentiment to help ..them out.
Therefore, they have adopted the plan of
conducting a "campaign of education." They
have enlisted some plausible writers and
some eloquent spokesmen to oppose the presi
dent and to twist the president's own record
on this subject. Now the significance of this
method lies in the fact that ordinarily the
railroads would not have troubled them
selves much about the people. They would
have relied solely on their representatives
in the United States senate. :
Professor Ripley of Harvard denies the
statement so freely and confidently made by
James J. Hill and other railroad managers
that, freight rates have steadily declined for
twenty years. Rates, he says, did decline
about the time when the supreme court took
from the interstate commerce commission the
power to enforce its decrees, but for the past
six years there has been a steady increase.
This increase, he asserts, has been confined
to rates in localities or on articles which
were not subject to competition. On the art- .
icles which have been raised, the Increase
has been about 30 per cent, while the general
level of rates has been raised 5 per cent. It
is significant that the period of the general
rise in rates has corresponded with the
period of great consolidations of railroads,
showing that the movement for mergers was
not altogether in the interest of more econ
omical management, but also laid the found
ation for an increase in tho tariffs. This, of
course, was the most natural inference from
the anxiety of the trunk lines to consolidate
their interests, and although the railroad
men strenuously denied any such intention,
the significant fact remains that consolida
tion and rate-raising are contemporary and
complementary. Minneapolis Journal. '
Furthermore, the provision putting tho
administrative work on the circuit courts
failed to insure tho prompt relief desired.
To be sure, the shipper may sue for dam
ages if the railroad rate is finally held to
be excessive. Rut meanwhile his business
Is apt to go to pieces. Experience has suftl
clcntly shown that the remedy for an unfair
rate Ih not to continue it in effect and allow
a suit for damages, but to substitute a rea
sonable charge at once. In short, the Klklns
Jaw defines the position of Its author In favor
of tho extreme let-alone policy for the rail
roads which would shear tho interstate com
merce commission of all real authority and
would leave the shipper with only such re
dress as the slow process of the courts at
present afford. This would be all very well
if the public were satisfied with existing
transportation conditions. But granted that
the nation is discontented with them it
is not apparent that any remedy in line with
the Elkins law would give relief. Kansas
City Star.
The people of Missouri are not deeply
interested in the triumph of either the Ram
sey or the Gould factions, but they are in
terested in the things that Mr. Gould and
Mr. Ramsey have been doing with the rail
roads in Missouri and with the laws of Mis
souri; they are Interested in what the win
ners of this contest may do hereafter with
Missouri railroads and laws. Judge Taylor's
significant statement that the record is "re
plete with evidence of violations of the Mis
, souri laws" is of great importance to the
people of the state. It has a deep interest
for Attorney General Hadley, who represents
x the per " and who has the power to make
the gov .ment of Missouri representing the
people arty to a suit against the law
breaker -ailroads. The issue of "clean
hands" wi not obstruct his action. The
laws which were cited as having been violat
ed were section 17, article 12 of the consti
tution, and section 1052 of the revised stat
utes, prohibiting common ownership, control
or management of parallel and competing
railroads. Now that Attorney General Had
ley has a clear intimation from the bench
of the court's opinion that the laws of Mis
souri have been violated, what will he do?,
St. Louis Post Dispatch. ,
WHEN THE PRESIDENT TRAVELS
The New York Sun suggests that congress
should supply the president with a special train
to be maintained at government expense. The
Columbus Press-Post treats the suggestion' in a
rather facetious vein:
Considerable discussion is being carried
on concerning who shall pay for the special
train which will convey the president south.
By all means let Uncle Sam pay the expense
of the trip, and thus relieve Mr. Roosevelt
from any obligation to the railroad corpora
tions. The people of this country are often
anxious to entertain the president, and why
should not they make it possible for him to
travel independent of any railroad monopoly?
Uncle Sam is richer than any corporation.
Why then should' the president be forced to
accept favors from the very people whom he
will ask congress to investigate? The natural
man does not wish to accept favors from
those whose business methods he feels called
upon to question. And it is certainly not con
sistent to expect -the chief executive of this
nation to beg favors from Interested corpora
tions. Let the country build a presidential
train and let Uncle Sam invite Mr. , Roose
velt to get aboard and visit the people of the
country whenever he sees fit. Let him en
joy himself to the full limit of his strenuosity,
and when he returns, let him be soon con
vinced of the superiority of the independence
of the people's train over the private car . of
some railroad magnate, that he will blaze
away at the crooked corporations without
fearing to hurt those whose favors he has
accepted. Build the train now! Get it into
good running order, for the democratic presi
dent who will board it in 1908.
Most people are apt to forget that the presi
dent is commander-in-chief of tho navy as well
as of the army. Attention is called to this fact
by the St. Louis Republic:
By all odds the most interesting incident
of President Roosevelt's October Jaunt will
bo his return from New Orleans to Hampton
Roads in command of a fleet of armored
cruisers. He will be the first commander-in-chief
of the navy of the United States to
go to sea in one of the floating fighting ma
chines in which tho American people have
taken such pride ever since tho days of Paul
Jones and Nicholas Blddle of the Randolph
There is an appearance of Roosuvcltlan
strenuousness in the billow-bounding ocean
race in which the president will try the
mettle of the three great cruisers that will
be under his command as soon as ho goes
on board. But as commander-in-chief of tho
navy it is part of his duty to find out for
himself of what stuff our boats are mado.
Throughout the voyage tho president will bo
. constructively within the limits of tho United
States,for he will have an American deck
under his feet and the American flag above
him all the time. Rough seas and a speedy
trip to the commander-in-chief on his initial
i voyage! Everybody will wish the cruiser that
carries him may win the race.
THE STATE CAMPAIGN
In order to delude the people, republican
newspapers are striving to turn public attention
from republican extravagance by presenting
statistics to prove that the f usionists while Jri
power produced conditions that caused great ex
penditures after the republicans gained control
of the state. On this point the Omaha World
Herald says:
The republican state committee, through
the party press, is peddling a lot of Juggled
figures in the endeavor to explain that the
doubling in cost of state government under
republican administration is largely due to
the alleged fact that the republicans have
spent very much more money on the per
manent improvement of - state Institutions
than did the fusionists. It is set forth that
appropriations for permanent improvements
in 1897 and 1899, under fusion administration,
were $464,545, and for the same purpose in
1901 and 1903, under republican adminlstra- ,
tion, were $1,007,200. A little analysis shows
how deceptive and misleading these figures
are. During the period mentioned tho fusion
ists spent, on permanent improvements at
the Hastings asylum, the Lincoln asylum,
the Soldiers and Sailors' homes at Grand
Island and Milford, the industrial schools
at Kearney and Geneva, the industrial home
at Milford, the deaf anl dumb institute at
Omaha, the feeble-minded institute at Be
atrice, and the home for the friendless at Lin
coln, a total of $285,725. The republicans,
during an equal length of time, spent but
$273,450 on permanent improvements at
these institutions. These totals may easily
ber verified by consulting the figures fur
nished by the republican state committee
itself. Where, then, did the big republican
appropriations for permanent improvement
go? The penitentiary got $205,700 from tho
republicans, as against $4,000 by the fusion
ists. The republicans allowed the penitenti
ary, to burn, it will be remembered, and had
to rebuild it. The Norfolk asylum , got
$105,850 from the republicans, as aealnst
4.020 from the fusionists. For the republicans
. also allowed this Institution to burn, and
it had to be rebuilt. Do you begin to under
stand? More than $300,000 of this Increase
for permanent improvements, about which
thev are bragging so loudly, went for burned
buildings -burned because of republican lax
ness, inefficiency and carelessness. Tho
rest of the increase, according to the figures
given by the committee, went to the stnto
university and the normal schools. Tho
university has been granted a 1-mlll levy,
and the republicans are Increasing the as
sessment roll so fast that heavy annropria
tlons have to be made for university pur
poses to allow that Institution to use up tho
revenues that 1-mlll levy brings In. Con
seouentlv tho university Is drawing ns much
money now as It eot to run the whol nto
government twrntv-flvo years ago. These
fleures are Interesting, wo erant. But they
are not so Interring as some others. They
are not, so Interesting as thrmo that show that
renuMlcan ndw'nlMrntlon hs Increased tho
nes9tnent roll from a valuation of llfiS,.
onn ono to tins nno non. Thw are not nn in.
terestlnar ns tbi tbnt jlmw h rnmM'cnn
administration has piled up a state debt of
mo "0 that $2,000,000. They aro not so ln