UC-NRLF 757 /9OS. as EflD flBfl GIFT OF *** ** * * * 'I" 'I' 'I' * 'I- * * * * * * 'I' * 'I' * * -I- * * * * 'I' 'I" * * * * '!' * * * 'i' * 'I- 'i' ************ * 'i' * * 'I" ********** ****< ; *****************M********>:*************** CONTENTS. Poem "Let's Have It Now" "God Give Us Men" ''Some Facts About Railroads" Thomas C. Clark Holland W. C. Green Entered at the Postoffice at Girard, Kansas, as second-class matter. > ***K***************** ********^**^^^**** * * * * 'I* 'I' '!' 'I' * "I" 'I' -I" Price Sets. PUBLISHED BY Per Year 50 ct J. A. WAYLAND, Number 25. GIRARD. KANS. May, If 02. . .|. .1. .f -I' -I- i' '! * -I" * !" -I" -I" i * "I" * * ******* i' * * il>* ++i>i>+++ LILT'S HAVE, IT NOW. We're gittin' tired o' hearin' of these "mansions in the skies," And lots o' things we once believed we've foun' are just plain lies; So we've concluded that we'd sooner have a little pleasure here, An' it's time enough for wings to sprout when we git over there. Now this don't mean we don't believe there's bet- ter times ahead, But just that we don't want to wait to git it when we're dead; We'd just like to have a little of it while we're here below, We don't ask a million' dollars, but we want a little show. It's gittin' so that one or two are hoggin' all the earth. They've had their fingers in our pockets from the hour of our birth; "They git us both a-comin' and a-goin' just the same, But we're gittin' on to them, you bet, and mean to block their game. If you listen just a little an' keep quiet you will hear The far-off sound of freedom, 'twon't be long until it's near; So lets all get close together an' work with all our might, To hurry up the glorious dawn of Brotherhood and Light. -THOMAS O. CLARK. Baltimore, Md. GOD GIVE US MEN. 'H3od give us'men a tlme'lVke thU Demands 'Strong arms, true faith fend ?eudy hands; M n whom the luats of jutfice cannot kill. Men whtfm th spp^i of- p*fice cannot; buy, M.II wht/pxswopifilonsa-ndia will* Men who have honor and who will not lie. 'Men who can stand and face a demagogue, And damn his treacherous flat'ries without wink- ing. Tall men suncrowned who live above the fog In public duty and In private thinking. For while old parties with their thumb worn creeds, Their large professions and their little deeds, Mingle in selfish strife, lo! freedom weeps, Wrong rules the land and waiting Justice sleeps." HOLLAND, In New Century Song Book by Law- rence. NO 25 MAY, 1902. PRICE, 5 CENTS Some Facts About Railroads* By W. C. GREE.N. I think if the people of this country knew the real truth about our railroads they would not be long in making them public property. RAILROADS ARE PUBLIC HIGHWAYS. Railroads are PUBLIC highways, and as corporations they exist OXLY by the authority and sufferance of the people. All public highways belong exclusively to the people and cannot be alienated from them by any power whatever. The control and operation of the public highways is exclusively a function of the sovereign state, and as such, cannot legitimately be delegated to any private person or corporation. The Supreme Court of the United States says: "The Tight of eminent domain nowhere justifies the taking of property for private use," and as railroads can only be built }>y exercising this right, it follows that they cannot rightfully ^be built by private corporations for private use. All attempts of the state to delegate any public function to private persons or corporations are gross abuses and per- versions of the public powers and an abdication of its au- thority, which if carried to its logical conclusion, would abol- ish the state altogether. Where it is done in the case of 300396 railway corporations, Henry Lloyd (author of Wealth vs. Commonwealth) calls it "the embezzlement of public high- ways and public franchises into private property." And again. "If the private use of private ownership of highways is to go, the private ownership must go. There must be no private use of public powers or public property." And again. "All the grants of franchises that have been given into private hands for private profit are void in morals, and void in that higher law which sets the copy for the laggard pens of legislators and judges." Every attempt to turn over public powers to the use of private individuals has always resulted, and must of necessi- tv result, in multiplied evils, wrongs and mischiefs, for it is an attempt to make an impossible and unnatural partnership between the state and favored individuals with the sole pur- pose of giving such favored individuals the right of taxa- tion, which is inherent only in the sovereign power, and of iiHiiir it as a means of plundering the rest of the people. Of course this has always been done under the false pretense of benefitting the people; but it has always, and in all times and in all places, resulted in planting an invsjircssible con- flict between the people and the persons securim: tin- illegiti- mate benefits derived therefrom. Their interests and those of the people are necessarily antagonistic in all things that inevitably result in perpetual conflict between them. The exercising by private persons of public functions ift essentially immoral and indefensible in every respect, and so far from becoming a "vested right," as claimed by rail- way corporations and others, is, on the contrary. >imply an intolerable and dangerous nuisance which >lx>uld he abated without unnecessary delay. It is a survival of the lonr since dell theory of the divine ri^ht of kinus and of privileged classes, when the people had no rights that these thieves and 5 plunderers were bound to respect. They have no place in a free country. We have outgrown them, and it is high time they were cast aside into the lumber room of other past bar- barisms and tyrannies. RAILWAY MISMANAGEMENT AND LAWLESSNESS. According to the books on the subject, the management of our American railways would "shame hell in its palmiest days." It is shown not only to be grossly incompetent, but criminal and vicious almost beyond belief. The whole sys- tem seems to be a festering mass, reeking with corruption, chaotic mismanagement and reckless abuse of its enormous powers. While under proper management it would become the means of almost inconceivable progress and prosperity to the nation with corresponding profits to its owners, it is, instead, by its overmastering greed and corruption the great- est stumbling block to both progress and profit. Their maxim of charging "all the traffic will bear," is not only the worst of robber maxims, meaning simply to squeeze the last possible drop of blood from their victims, but it ut- terly defeats its purpose. Whatever of prosperity the coun- try and the railways enjoy is secured wholly in spite of their iniquitous methods. Here are a few of the charges made against them : 1. Gross and criminal mismanagement. It is shown that although the railroad business is among the very best money making businesses in the world under honest and competent management, yet about "four-fifths of the stock and one-fifth of the bonds of American railroads go fruitless every year," and as much as 25 per cent of the railways are sometimes in the hands of receivers at one time; that their stocks fluctuate from 30 to 300 per cent and their bonds from 5 to 100 per cent during every year; that their fares and freights are so exorbitant as to kill all business but such- as must be transacted at any price; that their management is simply murderous in its recklessness; that they kill out- right over 7,000 and maim over 45,000 persons every year;, that this slaughter is worse than war itself and that the num- ber killed by them of their employes alone is 2% times as. many, and the number injured is 7^ times as many as upon English railways, while the number of passengers killed is 7 times and the number injured is 10 times the number on German railways. The Interstate Commission says: "Right under our eyes is waging daily a battle more deadly, more bloody, more cruel and atrocious than any of modern times/' and that "our railway management is in a state of anarchy and is morally reckless." 2. It is charged that the railways are criminal and rot- ten to the core. It is shown that they have the power to de- stroy the business of every man and control the value of his property, and that they continually misuse and abuse this power. Henry Lloyd says that no American farmer today has more than a nominal title to his farm, for the railroads can and do make and unmake its value at their own whim or will. It is shown that the railways make it their universal practice to conspire with favored customers to break down and ruin rivals in business; that two trunk lines deliberately sunk over $10,000,000 of their stockholders' money in assi-t- ing the Standard Oil company to ruin a rival pipe line com- pany; that they and other railroads contracted with said oil company to transport its oil at 10 cents per barrel and to- charge its rivals 35 cents per barrel, and, in addition, i > -rive this extra 25 cents over-charges to the Standard Oil com- pany. In this way the Standard Oil company ha- received from the railways tens of millions of dollars every year for many years. Franklin B. Gowen, an expert, examined the- 7 books of one of these railways in behalf of its stockholders- and found that it had given away to favorites of the man- agement over $100,000,000 in twenty years. He says the- railways of this country give away to favored shippers in re- bates from $50,000,000 to $100,000,000 every year: This practice of conspiring secretly to ruin rivals of favored cus- tomers has become a most intolerable nuisance, and has made the railroads of the country dangerous public enemies that should be suppressed. The Interstate Commission says that railways habitually break any law that does not suit them and insolently say that they do it "because they do not like them," and that railway managers "are guilty of acts which, if the laws of the land were enforced, would subject them to fine and imprisonment." United States Senate Document No. 53 charges that the railroads give free transportation to everyone who may be of service to them "from constable to cabinet," and that these favors are intended as bribes. It is a notorious fact that the railroads maintain at Washington and at every state capital, a paid lobby of expert bribers for the express purpose of controling congress and the state legislatures in their interests. The late Governor Pingree said that there were better men in the Michigan penitentiary than these lobbyists. It is shown that the railroads are beating the govern- ment out of more than $20,000,000 annually by their exor- bitant charges for carrying the mails, that they charge twenty times as much for this service as they do the express, companies for like service ; that they charge the government over 100 per cent of the entire value of the mail cars an- nually for their use; that they habitually pad the mails at the time of weighing them with a vast lot of bogus matter in order to cheat the government into paying for more than is carried. It is shown that the railways have entered permanently into the practice of controling primaries, elections, candi- dates and public men until it has become dangerous to demo- cratic institutions. No other circumstance exists today casting so much doubt upon the permanency and stigma on the purity of our republican form of government. It is shown that the railway managers perjure them- selves with the utmost fluency and sang froid wnenever the occasion requires, that they make a practice of debauching our judges, the pulpit, the public press and everybody in ^ight for whom they have the least use. COLOSSAL SWINDLES PERPETRATED ON THE PEO- PLE BY RAILWAYS. Out of twelve billions of dollars of railway capitalization in this country over eight billions is water. Every dollar of this watered stock is based upon franchises and other valuable things secured from the people under false pretenses and without any compensation whatever. On this fraudu- lently capitalized stock the whole people are required to pay ^an annual tribute to these corporations of over three hun- dred millions of dollars. The amount of land alone that the railroads have man- aged to cheat the people out of without any compensation would give every homeless family in the land a farm of thirty acres, and the $8,000,000,000 of fraudulently capitalized franchises out of which they have bilked the people would give every such family a $1,000 home. The anmuil Iribute the people are compelled to pay on this fraudulent stock would parallel every trunk line railroad in the country in ten years. Speaking of this sort of tliinir. Ili-nry 1). Lloyd says: "Property to the extent of uncounted millions has been changed from the possession of the many who owned it to the few who hold it 1. Without the knowledge of the real owners. 2. Without their consent. 3. With no compensation for the value taken. 4. By falsehood, often under oath. 5. In violation of the law." Railway charges are practically prohibitory and a se- rious block to the country's progress. There can be no doubt that the extortionate ly high charges of America railways are blocking the progress of this country more than any other cause. While the economies in railway transportation have been enormous and their ef- ficiency vastly increased within the past few years, yet the fares are even higher now than they were years ago, and the freight rates have not been reduced anywhere near to what they ought to be under the improvements and savings ef- fected. Both are simply extortionate, as I shall show here- after. The losses of ^ew Jersey farmers alone are estimated to be over $10,000,000 a year, owing to high railway charges. The American people do not and cannot travel. "At least 90 per cent of them have never seen the national capi- tol, or even one of principal cities." Only such business is done over the railroads as must be done at any price. "They have driven off the ox teams and the stage coaches, and now keep them off by charging only slightly less fares and freight rates than those conveyances." In fact, it is shown that they are charging the government 50 per cent more for carrying the mails than the old stage coaches used to charge for the same service. And yet, owing to the prohibitory fares, few of the passenger trains pay expenses ; and the pal- ace cars pay less than their expenses. It is said that there is only one railway west of Chicago whose passen- ger trains pay expenses, and that 20 per cent of the passen- ger traffic on western roads is upon free passes. 10- That this is solely owing to high fares the following facts will prove : The average nuhiber of passengers per train is only 40, while with our modern locomotives they might haul at least ten cars carrying 640 passengers. The average dead weight hauled per passenger is 7,500 pounds, or, say, fifty times as much non-paying weight as paying weight. The average earnings of passenger trains per trip are only about $20. In poverty stricken India, with their low fares, the aver- age train carries 250 passengers. The Manhattan Elevated railway, with its 100 miles of track, uniform 5 cent fares, and serving a population of only about 2,000,000 people, carried in 1893 over 40 per cent as many passengers as did all the railways of the United States, with their 170,000 miles of track and serving a population df over 60,000,000. After paying $2,000,000 in rentals and in- terest on its bonds, it earned nearly 10 per cent upon its $30,000,000 of capital stock (largely water). That the freight trains do not begin to earn as much as they might with lower freight rates is shown by the following facts : The average freight train consists of only twenty-one cars, of which 40 per cent run empty, while the modern freight locomotive is capable of hauling 60 full loaded cars. The average car only carries about three tons of frckht . when it has a capacity of thirty tons; and so the average nviirlit train only carries about forty tons, when il with slight additional expense, carry 1,800 tons of freight. The average freight car only does about twelve full days' work in a year and only earns $6.40 per ha id, while 11 with low freight rates it could do at least ten times as much work and earn just as much per haul. WONDERFUL POSSIBILITIES OP RAILWAY TRANS- PORTATION". The possibilities of railway transportation are almost inconceivably great. They will be vastly greater when elec- tricity comes into general use. Even now "it costs no more ; to carry a ton of freight 1,000 miles than it used to cost to carry a letter half that distance." Hon. J. L. Cowles, in his book, "A General Freight and Passenger Post/' shows this most strikingly. He boldly proposes that the government own and oper- ate the railways of the country and run them on uniform fares and freight rates, and he shows that they could be profitably run on the following low charges, viz : Passenger fares on "local" trains at a uniform rate of FIVE cents, without reference to distance traveled. On through trains fares to be 25 cents and $1, according to the train taken, "Express" or "Fast." This is so entirely out of any former experience that it will cause wonderment to many, and no doubt some will de- clare it to be impossible. It is not only possible, but there can be no reasonable doubt about it, for it is no mere theory of his, but he proves it to be practicable by existing facts and examples, and even shows that it would prove much more profitable than the existing charges are. The principal facts are these : Even under existing in- competent, wasteful and extravagant management, the av- erage passenger fare on our railroads is only a triflle over 50 cents per trip. So it is clear that if tickets were issued at a uniform price of 50 cents, good for any distance, even now, that the passenger revenues of the railroads would be fully as great as they now are, and one might ride across the continent on such a ticket. Some might say that everyone 12 would then ride across the continent and so it could not bo done. This is not true. They would ride just where they wanted to go and no further, same as they end their letter?. It should he borne in mind that every through line is made up of a series of SHOKT hauls. Even so _>Tent n through line as the New York Central railway carries 1.14 local passengers to one through passenger. It is asserted that if letters could be sent around the world for nothing ii would not alter the average distance they are now sent. People do not send letters to get the most out of the govern- ment, but to suit their convenience only, and they send them to the person they want to reach whether he is ten miles or 3,000 miles away. People use the street cars on the same principle and would use the railways in exactly the same way. They would go where they had business or to where the person lived they wanted to see, and no further. This is according to the law of averages, and under it the distance people will travel on an average can be calculated to a nicety. This is t lie principle upon which the "Penny Post" was established and has worked with extreme satisfaction. It is also the principle upon which the insurance businrss, the banks and other like businesses are conducted. Now, owing to the exorbitant fares charged by the rail- ways, their trains only carry an average of about forty passengers at an average 50-cent fare, when they could easily / carry 640 at only ;m insiirnifieMiii ;it;m< train- run 25-cent or a $1 fare, which would lrin.u r in a revenue of or the loads they carry cut little >r no fi.LMiiv in ilu- ex- penses of a railroad. In other words, the expenses of a j railroad system an; abonl the >anir without ivIVn-nre in tin- vnlunn- i|' its business. Kvi-n tin* grades on a railway cost more than the distance traveled by its trains. 13 At present they haul 7,500 pounds of dead weight to every passenger, while if their trains ran full there would be no additional non-paying weight to haul, but every addi- tional pound would be paying tonnage. Mr. Wm. M. Ack- worth, who is said to be the greatest authority in England on railways, says that were a train starting from London for Glasgow, 410 miles, and a passenger who would not other- wise have gone on the train could be induced to go, all above ONE-HALF A CENT of his fare would be clear profit to the company. He figures the expense of carrying him this 410 miles would be three-eighths of a cent for coal and that the other eighth of a cent would be more than sufficient to pay for oil and other expenses. Thus it will be seen that the cost of transportation after the machinery is once set. in motion is insignficant, and that the distance one is carried does not count in the cost appreciably. Mr. Cowles gives a number of lacts and man}'' cases of actual experience of the railways proving his contentions. I shall only instance a single example. The Northern Pacific, which runs through Blue Island, a suburb of Chicago, did not realize enough from its local trains between those two points, a distance of twenty miles, to pay expenses on the usual fares. If put down the fares to a flat 5 cents without reference to distance, and its busi- ness at once doubled and increased until it became the best paying part of the road. The manager, Mr. Ainslee, said: 'j-nere is more money in a uniform 5-cent fare than in 3 cents a mile." The same principle applies to freight charges. It is found that distance of the haul does not cut any figure in the co-t, and that the principle of charging a low uniform rate, without regard to' distance of haul, is the most profitable. Milk has been carried to New York City from within a radius of 300 miles at a uniform charge for all points within that distance for over forty years, and has been found to work with great satisfaction to both railways and the con- sumers. In fact many points in the United States have been grouped with a uniform rate between all points within those groups. The business from the Pacific coast to the east has been grouped. For instance: The charges from. . 14 Los Angeles on oranges to all points east of the Mississippi river have been made uniform and are the same to Chicago, ,265 miles, and to Xew York, 3,180 miles. The Great Eastern railway of England carries packages lo and from any two points on its 1,000 miles of road at a uniform rate without regard to distance. Mr. Cowles proposes a tariff of $6.00 per car load for any distance in the United States. When the foregoing facts are taken into consideration, and also what I have heretofore stated, that the average freight train runs with 40 per cent of its cars empty under the present high rates, that the average car only carries about three ton loads when it might carry thirty tons just as well, that our big locomo- tives can haul from 1,200 tto 1,800 tons just as well as they now haul the present load of forty tons, that each car might just as well be made to do 200 days' work in place of the paltry twelve days per year it now does, and that it now only earns an average of $6.40 per haul when it might just as \\cll make ten or twenty hauls at $6.00 per haul as proposed by Mr. Cowles, it becomes certain that the rate tariff he proposes is entirely practicable and that the railways would earn far greater revenues under these low rates than they now do under the present extortionate charges. Mr. Cowles estimates that their earnings would be at least double what they now are. The railways are the nerves and arteries of our whole social and industrial systems, and when they clog these arteries, as they are doing by their extortionate charges, they become public enemies and ruinous to the whole business jui'l social system. Henry I). Lloyd says that ''our highways an- used to prevent travel." Also, that "ownership of the hi- hways ends in the ownership of everything and everybody that has to use them." He further says that no farmer who defends on the use of the railways has more than a nominal lit 1 - to his farm, for the railways ean, by their absolute t.o\v(T over transportation, raise or lower, or make wort hie--, the value of his farm. A. B. Stickney, a railroad manager, pars that farmers are systematical lv di-eriminated against .t very year by the railroads; that they make high rates to 15 the farmer on his grain and so lower its value, and when the dealers have bought it make secret low rates to them on the grain until it is all moved to market. He says the railroads of this country exercise powers that would cause a violent revolution if undertaken by the government. Now I have given a plain statement of the alarming and dangerous facts about our railway system, and what tre- mendous advantages we might reap if they were owned and ^operated by the nation. It must be clear to the dullest understanding that they have got us by the throat and will destroy what few liberties we have left unless we take action in the matter soon. I, for one, do not think we have any choice left, and that they only thing we can do to save our- selves is to assert our right and our power and condemn them as dangerous and intolerable nuisances and take them out of irresponsible private hands, where they never ought to have been, and run them as they were intended to be run, in the interest of the whole people. We delude ourselves with the idea that we are a free people, when, in fact, we are living under the most vicious and crushing industrial tyranny in the world today. We boast of being the most progressive people on earth, when, in fact, we are behind every other civilized nation in this vital matter. Every nation in Eu- rope, except England, owns its railways in whole or in part, and England is said to be arranging to take hers over. That tioess? publicly owned railways are better managed, even when managed by monarchies and absolute governments, are cheaper and run more in the interests of the people than our privately owned roads is beyond question. Our railways kill seven times, and maim ten times as many passengers as the German roads; our average fares are over two cents per mile. In Great Britain, France, Germany and Austria fares are onlv three-fourths of a cent per mile. In Russia one can travel 2,000 miles for $6.00. Belgium workingmen ride at a little over one-tenth of a cent per mile(nine miles for a cent). Belgium sells a ticket for $5.50 good to ride fifteen days. Denmark does the same: Switzerland issues a like ticket for $6.00. She also issues a ticket good to ride for a year for $57.90. And yet, all these roads are run at a profit, 16 and the ..erman empire is said to get half its revenues froiri the profits of its railroads. Xo discriminations are made on these roads, and th< "deadly secret rebate" practiced on American railroads unknown. The poorest peasant can ship his small products at as low a rate as the largest and most powerful shipper. "Since mankind were first welded into nations, th< highways have always been the symbol of government. the owner of the highways has been the government." Ii this country the railways not only own the highways and tin government, but they own and control the people as well their private property, and they practice the most irresponsi- ble, arbitrary and despotic tyranny of any institution on earth todav. Xo\v what are we going to do about it ? It up to the American people to settle this question and do ii soon. Civilization Civilized By STEPHEN MAYBE,LL. A Socialistic Work on the Truths of Human Association, A prominent book reviewer In an eastern p"!"'' 1 S '*.VH of Civilization Clvill/ed: have attentively read this lunik and Ihul Ii a detailed plan to retina e fore\ enimre all pecuniary distress and all political Ills. Proposition! are so numerous ami so Impractical hie that we commenced our review prejudiced In advance, but us we \>r< -eeiled our emotions were: Flrt. mirprlse: ceo-nd. pleasure; third. COOT lotion and delight. That our author has really found the. DhlkMOpber*! stum- fur the removal Of "11 human Ills U certain. Kvery friend of humanity should hare a copy of this hook." The Appeal has JUKI Issued a new edition of this popular hook, und It I* now read) for mailing. Mr. Maybell has re-written and added much new matter to It making It valuable Sociological work. While It has always sold for 50 cents, the Appeal'H edition] printed on good paper with handsome cover, will he sold at the remarkably low price 20 cents per copy; six copies, $1 Appeal to Reason, Girard, Kas 300396 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OP CALIFORNIA LIBRARY THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW