Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 20, No. 44, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 15, 1900 Page: 4 of 16
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SOUTHERN MERCURY
Thursday, November 15. 1900.
THREE MILE8 FOR A CENT.
The Benefit of Government Ownership
of .the Railroads.
In Australia, on government-owned
railroads, you can ride a distance of
1000 miles for $6.50, first class, while
workingmen can ride six miles for two
cents, twelve miles for four cents, thir-
ty miles for ten cents, and railroad men
receive from twenty-five to thirty per
cent more wages for eight hours of
labor than are paid in this country for
ten hours. In Victoria, where the rates
prevail, the net income from the roads
is sufficient to pay all the federal tax-
es, which is another convincing proof
of the possibility of government with-
out taxation. In Hungary, where the
roads are state-owned, you can ride
6 miles for one cent, and since the
roads were bought by the government
the men's wages are doubled. Belgium
tells the same story—fares and freight
rates cut down one hald, and wages
doubled, yet the roads pay a yearly
revenue to the government of four mill-
dollars.
In the United States, under private
ownership, it is the other way. We
have paid the railroads billione of dol-
lars in land and money and are now
paying them millions yearly for carry-
ing the mail, and yet freight and pas-
senger rates are so extortionate as to
be almost prohibitive, while wages paid
railroad employes are degrading and al-
most criminal in their smallness. Sure-
ly, America has a deal to learn from
other countries. In Germany you can
ride fuor miles for one cent on the gov-
ernment-owned lines. Yet, wages aro
over 125 per cent higher than when
the corporations owned them, and dur-
ing the past ten years the net profits
have increased forty-one per cent. Last
year the roads paid the German govern-
ment a net profit of $25,000,000.
If our government owned the rail-
roads we could go from Boston to San
Francisco for $10. Here is the proof:
The government pays $275.00 for haul-
ing a postal car from Boston to San
Francisco. That car with seats in it
would seat sixty people, which at $10
each would be $600, or a clean profit of
$325 over and above the $275 which the
government pays for hauling the postal
car. The railroads will ship a dead hog
from San Francisco to Boston for $6..
yet for a dead man they charge $100.
Difference in favor of the hog of $91.
It is remarkable how fond the people
are of being taxed. They are taxed as
long as they have anything to pay tax-
is with, and when they have nothing
left the balance of the people are taxed
for the support of those who have been
taxed dry, and the band planys on.
Give the people an opportunity to
vote on the laws that are to govern
them, we may begin to talk about civi-
lization and lower taxes.
The semi-democratic party born at
Sioux Fallas declares for government
control of railroads. The regular old
hard head Democrats, who control the
party and the patronage, constructed a
platform at Kansas City, and Ignored
government ownership of railroads and
the telegraph, and contained no prati-
cal solution of the trust question at all.
So long as railroads are controlled by
private corporations the discrimination
in freight rates will continue which
drives to the wall every manufacturer
and small dealer who remains outside
of the trusts. Therefore we say, to
ignore the railroad question Is fatal to
the success of any party which lays any
claim to a reform on the trust question.
Rockefeller could not have accumulat-
ed his colossal fortune except by an il-
legal compact with the railroad cor-
porations. He could not have driven
out of business every independent oil
refiner had not the railroads Illegally
discriminated in his favor. Wm. C.
Whitney, a Standard Oil magnate, and
the guiding power in the Democratic
party, would not permit his party to
touch the railroad question at the Kan-
sas City convention. Croker, Belmont
and ex-Judge Van Wyck and that class
of men were sent to Kansas City to
formulate an anti-trust platform. Bah!
—Vineland Independent.
NEWSPAPER LIFE IN NEW YORK.
Current Advertising says: "To Re-
porters, Small Editors and all Newspa-
per Men."
Keep away from New York!
If you are moderately successful at
home, don't get it into your head that
New York needs you.
Keep pegging away; do your best;
be contented with your lot.
So shall you live long, happily and
usefully, and avoid the worst fate that
can befall a writer.
And that is to be ground in the mer-
ciless mill of New York Journalism
If you have literary ability of a mark-
ed character you will be squeezed re-
morselessly and relentlessly for a time
and then cast aside.
It is the pace that kills.
You will find a journalism that cares
little for news and nothing for facts.
You will find city editors who frown
coldly upon actual news devoid of the
spice of scandal or the tint of crime.
You will soon perceive that to keep
from actual want you must make the
story of an east side dog fight Involve
some of the 400 in a noisome and nasty
scandal.
You will discover that you must re-
spect neither the dread secrets which
the merciful shroud seeks to hide for-
ever from the vulgar gaze of the mor-
bid and heartless scandal mongers nor
the sacred canopies of the bridal bed.
You will find that your duty is to
distort, to mangle, to invent, to slander,
and to impute, with vulturine, diaboli-
cal malignity, motives of the basest and
most despicable character to the good
and the pure.
You will find that you are expected
to build up from the faintest breath of
anonymous and incredible rumor, a cir-
cumstantial. plausible fabric of lies—
an edifice which you know has not the
slightest foundation of fact, and which
the developments of the next twelve
hours will certainly prove to be pure-
ly imaginary.
And over and around and through
this monstrous and criminal abortion
of journalism you will find an editorial
policy which impudently and blasph-
emously assumes something akin to di-
vine inspiration, and claims, by plain
inference at least to be the chosieu
and anointed instrument of the Al-
mighty.
This is what you will find.
It is true that if you show a hideous
aptitude for this sort of work, and a
willingness to prostitute your talents
to It and to throw yourself heart and
soul into it you will have your little
hour of prosperity and a false, shallow,
superficial success.
But the artificiality of it all, the tre-
mendous strains to meet the demands,
your inflamed imagination and the
sense of your degeneration will drive
you to drink—to physical and mental
wreck and ruin.
And in due time you will be cast
aside like a squeezed orange, to join
the ranks of the scattered has-beens
who exist, God only knows how in
the lowest substratum of New Yorlr
newspaper life.
And all for two or three years of
slimy and disreputable "success."
To be sure, there are real newspapers
in New York—honest, dignified journ-
als. But they can all be counted on the
fingers of one hand of a man who has
lost several in a sawmill.
And your chances with them are al-
most infinitely small, as they are hand-
led and manned by men who have
grown up with them and remain with
them, working on and on to an old age
crowned with honorable, clean and un-
sullied success—such as you may ach-
ieve in your own city if you have it in
you to do so.
Cures
Weak Men
Free
INSURES LOVE AND A HAPPY HOME
FOR ALL.
How any man may quickly cure himself after
years of suffering from sexual weakness, lost
vitality, night losses,varicocele, etc., and enlarge
small weak organs to full size and vigor. Sim-
ply send your name and address to Dr. L. W
L. W. KNAPP, M. D,
TO THE RICH AND TO THE POOR.
By Victor Hugo.
I am asked what has been the lesson
of my life, which I have learned in my
years of living to bequeath as my most
precious legacy to humanity. I reply
that my soul has two messages of coun-
cil, of promise and of threat to de-
liver. One to the rich and the other to
he poor. The two contain the sum of
human wisdom.
TO THE RICH.
The poor cry out to the wealthy.
The slaves implore the rulers. And as
much now as in the days of Spartan
Helots I am one of them, and I add my
voice to that multitude that it may
reach the ears of the rich. Who am
I? One of the people. From whence
come I? From the bottomless pit.
How am I named? I am wretched-
ness. My lords, I have something to
say to you.
My lords, you are placed high. You
have power, opulence, pleasure, the
sun immovable at your zenith, unlimit-
ed authority, enjoyment undivided, a
total forgetfulness of others. So be it.
But there is something below you.
Above you, perhaps. My lords, I im-
part to you a novelty.
I am he who comes from the depths.
My lords, you are the great and the
rich. That is perilous. You take ad-
vantage of the night. But have a care;
there is a great power, the morning.
The dawn cannot be vanquished. It
will come. It comes. It has within it
the dawn of irresistible day.
You, you are the dark clouds of
Knapp, 1424 Mull Bldg , Detroit, Mich., and he
will gladly send the free receipt with full direc-
tions so that any man may easily cure himself at
home. This is certaiuly a most generous offer
and the following extracts taken from his daily
mail show what men think of his generosity:
.'Dear Sir :—Please accept my sincere thanks
fo yours of recent date. I have given your
trratmeut a thorough test and the benefit has
been extraordinary. It has completely braced
me up. I am just as vigorous as when a boy and
you cannot realize how happy I am."
"Dearir:—Your method worked beautifully.
Results were exactly wh t I needed. Strength
and vigor have completely returned and en-
largement is entirely .satisfactory "
Dear Sir : Yours was received and I had no
trouble in making use of the receipt as directed
and can truthfully say it is a boon to weak men.
I am; greatly improved in size strength and
vigor
11 correspondence is strictly confidential,
mailed in plain sealed envelope. The receipt is
free for the askingand he wants every man to
have it.
Mnd it baci i
AMP I A hV [only] wanted In each ri-
vllC, LAUI cinity to bundle our told
wire and shell Jewelry: samples furnished free.
O. u. COLEMA > <t BRO., Dallas Texas
CUE'S ECZEMA CURE $ I
ed free. Cos Cliem,
Co,, Cleveland, O.
300ays Trial
FREE. 8400 Fine American
Watches at Bankrupt Sale prices. 14k Solid
Wold quadruple-plated cases, elegantly en-
graved and finished in appearance to
equal a $60 Solid Gold watch. These
accurate Kallriiad Timepieces retail at
$lfi to (20 cach and are intended for
Conductors special use.. Stem wind
l& set. Finn Nickel jeweled movements
GUARANTEED for I Will send by
Ofl Vr«DC I express for ftill
■ CAI)9i | examination
Without a Cent in Advance. If found
the grraten bargain you ever «aw pay express
agent 84.75 and express charges and take It for
days Free Trial. If not n pcrfect timekeeper
We Will Hxclmngp op Kefmid Your Monty.
8tate whether ladies' or '.rents' *iio, Op<*n fare or fi'inting case wanted.
HARRINGTON & CO., Dept. C. G, 169 Wabash Ave.,Chicafe
SO CONVENIENT —OCTOBER 28
THE NEW "KATY FLYER" ROUTE TO
THE SOUTHEAST VIA GREENVILLE
AND SHREVEPORT, SAVING FROM 8
TO 10 HOURS TO VICKSBURG, AT-
LANTA, BIRMINGHAM, NASHVILLE,
CHATTANOOGA, MONTGOMERY AND
OTHER SOUTHEASTERN CITIES.
Ralelgli, N> C., Nov. 9.—A cotton mill
owner who came here today from
Alamance county says the union -ex-
employes there are moving out of the
mill company's houses. The latter
named tomorrow as the date by which
they must vacate and the sheriff has
the papers.
*
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Mercury Machines are selling fast.
Send in your order.
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Park, Milton. Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 20, No. 44, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 15, 1900, newspaper, November 15, 1900; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth185875/m1/4/?q=land: accessed July 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .