The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 12, No. 26, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 29, 1893 Page: 1 of 16
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" Organize, Educate, Co-Operate."
Official Journal of the Farmers State Alliance of Texas.
''Liberty, Justice, Equality."
Vol. XII, No. 26.
DALLAS, TEXAS, JUNE 29, 1893.
Whole No. 59.
THE RAILWAY PROBLEM.
MISS BESSIE AGNES DWYER.
Railroads are the highways of
the nation. They are the great
arteries of the body politic through
which course the tide of traffic,the
pulse of the business world, and
the transportation of humanity it-
self. As civilization advances,
modes of rapid communication be-
come imperatively necessary, be-
tween not only separated individ-
uals, but as a source to supply to
collective necessities, and to meet
exigencies arising from pestilence
or war.
While we grant a species of ad-
miration to the promoters of gl
gantic engineering and electrical
undertakings, minds which have
spanned space and made autocrat-
ic nature subservient, we pause up-
on the threshold of adulation, con
fronted by an unlovely specter.
We realize that in these immeas-
urable mercantile undertakings,
the incentive was calculativo gaih,
and the motive deep-rooted and
unconscionable greed. To create,
to own, to hold, not subservient to
public weal, but in defiance of it,
laying dogmatic tribute even upon
the creatures which served to give
it being, and holding plutocratic
sway over vast stretches of terri-
tory, and vaster interests of com-
mercial exchange.
The courts of the country have
rendered decisions adverse to gov
ernment regulation of freight
schedules. The way out is the
last resource of enslaved in iividu-
alism by corporate feudalism.
Control means an attempt by con-
gress or legislatures to create com-
missions empowered to fix rates
and tolls. It is difficult to recon-
cile the nominal admission of own-
ership made by this application of
discipline, with the arbitrary ac-
tion ot practically taking the reins
and driving the steed. If A
charges too high for apples, shall
a city municipality step in and de-
clare "you own this fruit, but we
will dispose of it for you at our
judgment of value." Both parties
would be wrong; one by abuse of
privilege, the other by usurping
an authority over the legal hold-
ings of a citizen. But if A should
be creating widespread hardship
by his exorbitant sales, the gov-
ernment being greater than the in-
dividual or municipality, should
lay on him its mandate: "Take
the price, a fair and equitable one,
lor your possession and go in
peace." And that government,
truly paternal and fostering, could
devise ways and means to sedure
out of its purchase the greatest
good to the greatest, number. In
our form of government the final
refuge of monopoly is the court.
Legal quibbles are evoked, the
pomp of circumstance, of specious
argument and oratory, brilliant de-
baters, and even politics, to mould
decisions. And the courts have
emphatically decided that neither
congress nor the states, by legisla-
tion or commission, can provide
for,or put in operation, any sched-
ule of rates to bind a railway,which
cannot be restrained by injunction,
and declared void by either a state
or United States court, if, upon
hearing, the court deems it un-
reasonable. The courts claim that
if the schedules fixed by the pow-
er of law are not, in the opinion of
the court, reasonable, then it
amounts to a taking of private
property for public use "without
just compensation," (the sarcasm of
the last three words is unsurpass-
ed by anything ever written by the
author of the famous "Junius let-
ters,") and is forbidden by the
constitution of the United States.
This has been decided by the su-
preme court in the case of the
United States vs. the Farmers
Company, and in Dow vs.
Beidleman, also in the Uni-
ted States circuit court, and by
decisions of the courts of last re-
sort in many states, where it was
held that even where the constitu-
tion empowered a board to fix
rates absolutely, it could be re-
strained by the court if it thought
Ir'gher (and other) rates proper.
The final, absolute decision of
our courts, therefore, is that the
power to fix rates is in the courts,
and cannot be placed elsewhere.
What, then, is the rule adopted by
the courts? It is this, that the
rate must pay—first, the interest
on the railway debts; second, all
its operating expenses; third, a
fair dividend on its capital stock,
as fixed or increased; fourth, the
general outlay as shown by the
books of the company—because no
one is permitted to disprove these
books even if falsely kept or sub-
scribed to by auditors or others.
This amounts, therefore to allow-
ing the company to fix its own
rates, despite any attempt to re-
strain or regulate. So, if the Far-
mers Alliance was in possession of
every branch of the government it
would be helpless to control rail-
ways. Every law or commission
would be immediately Btayed or
crippled in its operation by injunc-
tion of a court.
This was done when Judge
Brewer, by injunction forbade the
state of Iowa to put its schedule of
rates into operation at the suit of
the Chicago and Northwestern
Railway Company. It was done
when the supreme court of Cali-
fornia prohibited the city of San
Francisco from putting its sched-
ule ot water rates into operation—
and that such is to be the course
whenever control is attempted, is
squarely asserted by C. P. Hunt-
ingdon, in an interview published
in the Examiner, at San Francis-
co, oil April 4, 1892. When he
was ask 3d what would be done if
any political action should be tak-
en by the Merchant Traffic Associ-
ation to compel a reduction of
rates, his answer was: "I will say,
that the association may, or may
not, draw the company into poli-
tics. I think not; but if the legis-
lature of the state passes aots tend-
ing to destroy the value of our
property, we shall call for protec-
tion upon the judicial arm of our
government." Aye "call." He
did not even paliate his sentence
by use of the word "appeal."
This proves that henceforth the
above doctrine, established by the
courts, is to be the safeguard and
the shield of monopoly. They
can increase stock and bonds at
pleasure, so that no income, how-
ever large, but that they could as-
sert it was required to pay operat-
ing expenses and dividends. They
have the supreme court of the
United States committed to this
doctrine and decision. And the
judges of that august body hold
office for life ! ! !
The producer must have rail-
roads, more and more of them, of
the greatest efficacy, run at the
least possible cost. It is justly a
function of government to own
and control all public highways.
Corporations which own railroads
cannot be trustees for the public,
for they seek only individual pro-
fits. It is idle to say you favor
ownership by the government if
control fails, because all efforts to
control have, and of necessity must
fail, until the people gain absolute
mastery. How can you expect to
join two such utter inconsistencies
as private ownership and public
control? The right to fix rates or
values is the very essence of own-
ership. He who cannot control,
cannot of necessity own property.
If he seeks by boards, commis-
sions, legislatures, congress, or
courts, to frame methods and
sources to control railroads, the
inevitable law of self-interest will
immediately induce the owners to
"own" these boards of manipula-
tion. And only too often have we
shamefacedly acknowledged such
bodies elected, packed, and owned
by such monopolies. To that they
may say, as did Louis XIV of
France, in the supremacy of his
despotism, "I am the state!" They
are the state. They are the gov-
ernment, because they must con-
trol it—or perish. It is a matter
of self preservation.
Lincoln said we could not live
half slaves and half free. So we
cannot survive and control honor-
able government, unless we re-
move the incentive of railroads to
control that government, and there
is but one way to do this—we
must own the railroads or be own-
ed by them! There is no middle
ground. I am frank to confess no
affiliation with nationalism and
socialism. I believe in individu-
ality, its obligations, its responsi-
bilities, its merits, its ambitions;
but I have no manner of patience
with it either when it drifts into
anarchy, and in villainous abuse
of power, misuses its office and af-
fronts or afflicts its fellows.
You will readily perceive that I
do not go into all the issues of this
question. It is too great a one. I
am perfectly aware of the provis-
ions of the constitution. Lt,t it
rest as the corner-stone of our eco-
nomic and social government, but
upon it rear a structure commen-
surate with the march of the na-
tion, its demands and its require-
ments. We have amended it be-
fore—it can be done again. It is
the work of men, and by men can
be added to. We, of all people,
are the last to invoke the past, to
bow to precedent, to be shaokled
with a tradition. You will tell
me that if the government usurps
the functions of vested wealth, she
deprives us of our arbiter. Mo-
nopolies have deprived us of the
government, and at present we
have no arbiter. But to return to
specifications and figures. The
tendency to consolidation is so
great, that in a short time our
railroads wil be very few, and fin-
ally one company. Imagine the
political despotism, not to men-
tion the commercial autocracy of
such a syndicate! At present, al-
though there are on paper over
1,700 companies, yet 41 companies
operate 77,872 miles, and 74 com-
panies receive 80 per cent of the
amount paid for service. 0. P.
Huntingdon has announced his de-
sire to see all the railroads in the
Unised States under one syndi-
cate. Thus they could more easi-
ly escape every attempt at oontrol;
and to evade the last vestige of
any law which might affect them,
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Park, Milton. The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 12, No. 26, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 29, 1893, newspaper, June 29, 1893; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth185522/m1/1/?q=%22bessie+agnes+dwyer%22: accessed July 10, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .