'Cbc Conservative.
The Topeka
QUKKUI.OUS
OUACKS. Capital assails the
railways for ad-
vaucing tariff rates on coal and lumber ;
while the Wichita Eagle threatens them
with a populist administration ; drastic
legislation and heroic treatment , if tariff
rates are increased on anything , at this
time ; or at any other time , for that
matter.
Both papers claim to be the champions
of the people , fearless in slugging the
corporations , when they need slugging ,
which is about every week , and bold , to
the point of recklessness , when it comes
to standing up for the alleged rights of
the tax-payers.
And having cudgeled their respective
brains , and the thesaurus , for expletives
to fire at the heads of the various rail
way managements , they have turned
loose , Filipino fashion ; and not finding
any dead or dying railway bosses block
ing the public highways , they are
furious. And worst of all the sovereign
squats don't rally to their support in
their seemingly righteous war upon the
railways. And they won't.
Both papers exhibit a lock of judg
ment , or even sense , in their assaults ;
both are wrong in
Eagle-Capital.
their premises , in
correct iii their conclusions and nobody ,
who thinks , will justify their unfair
fight. And instead of exhibiting a spirit
of independence in their wrathful edi
torials , they simply appeal to the lowest
passions of their readers , solely with a
view of catching public applause , which
is often as stupid as it is senseless.
When Wichita , Topeka and all the
other Kansas towns were voting mil
lions of 1onds
Bond Slaves. , , , _ , _
to be sold at 75
cents on the dollar , the money to be
used to buy tin cans to tie to dogs' tails ;
and when farmers were plastering their
lands for 12 per cent money to buy
pianos and pleasure carriages , the rail-
way construction companies were mort
gaging their lines at $40,000 per mile to
raise $20,000 in money to build $10,000
worth of cheap dirt railway. When pay
day came we all went down together ,
the sacrifice of our greed. We then
howled calamity , voted disaster , en
throned populism ; and in the end
became the victims of our cowardice.
Populism , by the way , is a political
science that teaches a government how
to pull itself out
Tlio Lift.
of adversity by its
boot-straps.
The receiver took the railway. The
f * mortgage took the farm and prices of
.1 * everything went down.
But the sun that set in clouds came
up in glory ; and the very conditions
that the Wichita Eagle and the Topeka
Capital predicted and prayed for are
M here. Pigs and steers and corn are up ;
farm products and farm values are up ;
labor , of every kind , is up ; everything
we consume or produce is up. Cotton ,
wool , paper , food , coal , lumber every
thing , except newspaper subscriptions
and railway freight rates.
In the meantime we have not failed
to observe that the principal Slugger of
the Topeka Capital
,
The Sand Haggcm. , , , , , . . . - , ,
and the Mam Push
of the Wichita Eagle are tramping about
in a very much higher altitude than they
were a few years ago. No longer are
these and other distinguished Kansas
gentlemen satisfied to travel on dirt
road-beds , sixty-pound iron rails and be
carted over the state by thirty-ton
engines , at twenty-five miles an hour.
Not at all. It must be ninety-pound
steel , stone ballast , iron bridges , double
tracks , hundred-ton engines , upholstered
palace cars , with dining room attach
ments , at fifty miles an hour ; and even
all this fails to meet the aristocratic re
quirements of the average Kansas nabob ;
while his pigs and his steers must have
palace cars , quick transit and feed and
water on the way.
And this costs money.
Every man connected with the rail
way , from president to goat wiper , is
ready to strike for
J .
Strikes.
shorter hours and
longer pay. From the man who cuts
the tree to the expert mechanic who
constructs the palace car ; from the ore-
digger , in Michigan , to the steel worker ,
in Pittsburg , comes the same demand.
And they are just as much entitled to a
fair-sized chunk of prosperity as are the
editors above mentioned ; and should
have it. It costs them more to live , and
the same rainy day comes to them that
come to all of us.
Will the bellicose gentlemen please
calmly seat themselves upon their re
spective tripods and tell us how railway
managers are to meet this constantly in
creasing demand for better service , this
tremendous increase in expenditure for
labor and material , and who is to pay
the bill ?
Printers' wages are up ; paper is up ;
coal , ink , types and all kinds of printing
material are up ;
Up ! Up ! , , . . .
and we note , with
some degree of satisfaction , that adver
tising space in the Topeka Capital and
Wichita Eagle is also up. Besides , more
of it is taken at the up rates ; and
this is all right. Both papers gave bet
ter service to the public this year than
last year , and their patrons paid the
bill.
bill.The
The railways are giving their patrons
better service this year than they gave
last year , and at a
Service. , , ,
much greater cost ;
and yet these two editors claim that the
railways should bo compelled , by law ,
to render the better service , at the in
creased cost , without raising the tariff
rates on anything.
The Kansas farmer no longer ships
his grain to market. He feeds it and
ships the finished product ; hence the
increased freight tonnage , to keep pace
with the increased cost of maintenance
and operating expenses does not ma
terialize , so the railway traffic manager
is compelled to put up rates , just as the
Capital and Eagle have advanced their
rates to meet the exigency of the
emergency.
More than a quarter of a century ago
the first roar was heard in the state for
railway 1 e g i s 1 a-
Amiloiit. , . _
tion. Ten years
ago the state was revolutionized over
the same question ; and from that time
to this it has been up for political dis
cussion. And will the esteemed editors
who are again trying to raise the ques
tion , please inform us what has been
accomplished in all these years ? Have
we any commission , court or tribunal
that has any power to regulate anybody
or anything ? Or has there been any
law placed upon the statutes that con
trols traffic rates ?
Railway managers all over the coun
try are today demanding that they be
prevented from destroying each other.
One half the railways of the country
have gone through bankruptcy in
the last dozen years , and it is not
regulation but government protection
that these corporations should have as
the two editors above mentioned well
know : and they ought to have the man
liness and the courage to say so.
Every stitch of imported cloth that so
artistically covers the backs of these
two Nesters of Kansas uewspaperdom ;
every ounce of food that daiiy lines
their abdominal budges ; every bottle
which cheers but does not inebriate
that floods their lower levels ; their Perfectos -
fectos and their pipes , even the lead
pencils which they so dexterously push
sometimes to the great disgust of their
many readers costs them more money
today than a year ago ; but not a word
do we hear about it.
Prosperity has spread itself over the
country like a Kansas September sun-
shine. It has
Thrm
* t
brought money to
the farmer , trade to the storekeeper ,
business to the professional man , work
to the laborer , brightening the homes of
the rich and the poor , adding peace ,
comfort and happiness to all ; but it
shall not come to those who invested
their millions in our state , trusting to
our honor and manhood for their returns ,
nor shall it come to the hundreds of
thoupauds of those who are dependent
upon these investments for their living.
Let these two gentlemen go into the
back country school houses , close the
blinds , lock the doors , blow out the
lights and preach their peculiar doctrine
to the people who may come out to hear
them. It's rot ; and will not stand day
light , as has been overwhelmingly proven
in the rise and fall of the political party
that first daddied it. It has had its
day and cannot be resurrected by the
