Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1891 — TO BE GOULD’S SLAVES. [ARTICLE]

TO BE GOULD’S SLAVES.

THE ALTERNATIVE, GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP.

» . ■. -■ T e. Attorney-General lees* of Nebraska in a Vigorous Report Declares That Unless tbe Government Assumes Absolute Control of All Railroads and Operates Them *• it Does the'Fostal system the People Will Soon Be Delivered Over, Bonnd Hand and Foot, to the Ballway Magnates. [Lincoln, Neb., dispatch. J In his report to the Governor, giving an account of the conduct of his office for the last two years. Attorney General Leese has added some fuel to the excitement growing out of the present political muddle in this State by handling the transportation question without gloves, and advocating Government control of railroads. In speaking of the Board of Transportation and its work he says: This board is composed of five State officers, including the Attorney General, and has power to appoint three secretaries, who are presumed tp do the work. The subject of transportation Is One of the most Important with which the people of this State have to deal. I have given it as much attention as my other official duties would permit, and I am free to say that the present system is a complete failure. lam thoroughly convinced that the only true solution of the rillroad problem must be worked out through a railroad commission, but any Bystem, such as ours, that requires three men to do the work and make all reports, only to be signed by certain State officers who have not had a chance to examine into the subject matter, is to my mind very unsatisfactory. It seems to me that if the railroad com-

panies could be*-made to understand that It was for their interest to lighten the burdens of the people, and that the prosperity of the people was the prosperity of these corporations, this would be a step in the right direction. But they do not seem to look at it in that light and take a directly opposite view. I can OBly account for this on one hypothesis, and that is that the managers of these Western lines must make as large a per cent, as possible so as to satisfy the Eastern stockholders. ■’ The State officer who endeavors to bring these corporations to an account for open and notorious violations of our fundamental law is at once branded as a demagogue or an office-seeker. The subsidized press is turned loese on him, and the officers in charge of the road will write letters, hr have others do 60, concerning him, and publish them in all the papers throughout the State that they can control. I would recommend a law forbidding any railroad corporation from Issuing any mortgage bonds or stock until an itemized account of the cash, labor, or property, duly sworn to, has been presented to some officer of the State for examination, and if found to be a true account of tbe money, labor, or property received, to register and certify to the same as issued in pursuance of law and as constituting a part of the capital stock of all roads now in operation as well as those to be forced hereafter. Twd years ago in my biennial report I calledyottr excellency’s attention to the bill pending before Congress to extend the debt due to the Gbvernnientfififom thd Union Pacific, and while my viewsimay hot have been couched in the nicest language, your excellency criticised the same, and refused to concur therein. The notion given-to that part of my report 4ft row message aid, however, attract the attention of Congress as well as the citizens of this State, and 26,000 people of Nebthska have petitioned Congress to vote against the bill to extend the debt due to the Government. and praying that tbe Government might foreclose the lien and put the Union, Pacific on a cash basis, ; ... . al . By tbe recent ip the affairs of the ,Waging in his that he controls, reaching from China to the Atjapticcoast,; This transaction is only a part played in the formation of a gigantic railroad trust that .is a menace to public rights, andr unless something is done, and that, too, ’ immediately, the day is not far distant when the people of this country will be bound hand and foot, and condemned to perpptual bondage 'to these transportation monopolies., a . , n ... The people oj jjhis State are cognizant of the above facts, and their appeals year after 7«at- f<Jr relief have been laughed to •corn, And it n'ow temains for some stronger weans to be adopted, and that Is for the Government to assume control of all the railroads in % America. This is a question that takes precedence of the many important ones that are now agltatidg the public mind and the question, we ask ourselves is whether or not it is better for the people to submit themselves and their business to the tender mercies of a railroad trust or to the Government of our country. The principal objection made against the Government control and ownership is that competition will be destroyed arid thatthe'vast increase of patronage of the Government would be dangerous to our republican institutions.

With one man controlling the principal roads of this country, competition will be as much destroyed as It is now between Seward and Lincoln, where the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy owns both the lines of road. Competition will be destroyed in either case, and it resolves itself down to the one question, whether or not the profits shall go into the pockets of one man or go to the Government. If the masses were to determine this question there would be one unanimous voice In favor of Government control. The second argument Is absurd. There is no corner of this Union that is free from railroad influences in political matters. It enters the door of the merchant, the sanctum sanctorum of the press, and the courts of cur State and nation, always taking an active part, from the election of a chairman of a board of village trustees to the election of a President of the United States, savagely holding back in Its ranks those who would break from its corrupting embrace and deteriorating influence. If the Government should take the control, this growing danger to the people’s Tights would be forever removed. The civil-service rules could be strictly carried out. where removals cannot take place without cause, and ability and personal merit alone, and not political Influence, would be the test for advancement. The crowned beads of Europe have operated railroads in a very satisfactory manner, and can it he said that a government of the people, by and for the people, is so dishonest and corrupt that we cannot trust It with the same power? Or must we continue to trust to the Jay Goulds, apd Vanderbilts, and Rockefellers? I believe in the Government control, and also believe that a commencement should be made by foreclosing the lien of the Government against the Union Pacific and taking possession of the same.

... Mu.,Caminrttt.,who.has hee„n ..awarded * seat In the next Congress, is of Italian parentage hut a native-born Californian, and he is said to be the first man from CaliH>rnia In either Abuse who was born in th# "ttate. x ~ s __ ” Francis Moore, a collector of ant ciquities of the Revolutionary period, has secured a portrait of Gen. George \V ashington engaged in smoking a pipe. The photograph of the juvenile George in the act of hacking the cherry tree is still missing. Chatjncey M. Dbpew has had the honor of having a steam tug with the loudest steam whistle in New York harbor named after him. Editor E. H. Butler, of Buffalo, who claims that he made and unmade Grover Cleveland, Is now booming Gov. David B. Hill for the Presidency of the United States.