People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1895 — That Big Railroad Trust. [ARTICLE]

That Big Railroad Trust.

We want all our readers to keep their eyes open on it and watch the movements of the anaconda, as it wraps it folds around the American people and spreads its saliva preparatory to swallowing them. The trust has arranged most of the pre liminaries and announces that it will be ready for business on the Ist of January. It will be an event of the first importance and one fraught with most vital consequences to the future welfare of every man, woman and child in this country called America. Senator Chandler,of New Hampshire, seems to be the only public man who sees the danger, certainly he is the only one who has shown the nerve to confront the monster. He is out with another letter to the president, which reads as follows:

“Sir: —I make complaint to you and through you to your interstate commission against the trust and pooling agreement, now nearly finished, of the eight American railway trunk lines and the one Canadian line for pooling the traffic between New York city and Chicago. The agreement provides that every railroad in the combination shall make and maintain the transportation rates prescibed by a board of managers representing all the roads. This is a conspiracy in restraint of trade and commerce, under the act of July 2, 1890. The agreement also makes certain that all competition shall be abolished>as above required, by imposing heavy fines on any offending road, which fines are to be applied to for the benefit of the other roads. This is a division of earnings contrary to section 5, of the interstate commerce law. This trust and pooling agreement can be annihilated as provided by explicit existing laws of the United States (1) by injunction from the court, (2) by an order of the interstate commerce commission, or (3) by an indictment of the individuals signing the same. It also can easily be stopped by a vigorous appeal from you to Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, whose power over the nine governors of the nine trunk lines is as absolute as it was over the bond syndicate. It can not be possible that you intend to take on your administration the responsibility of fastening upon your burdened and helpless people this, the hugest trust the world ever saw or was ever conceived of, when one earnest word from you to your fresh attorney-general, your ambitious chairman of your commission or your omnipotent banker friend will paralyze the iniquity in its inception.” It is interesting to note how the railroad bosses receive Senator Chandler’s “impertinent” interference. We are not left in doubt on this subject. President D. W. Caldwell, of the Lake Shore, who is one of the combine, is out in an interview of “the public be damned” variety, which we quote below: “There are positively no grounds,” he says, “whereby any legal exceptions can be taken to the rules embodied in the agreement. Its fundamental principle is the making and maintaining of all fares, rates and rules of the association.” “Do you think Senator Chandler will be able to quash the agreement?” Mr. Caldwell was asked. “What do we care for what Senator Chandler or congress does? Nothing illegal has been done. People down atWashington are making all the fuss, but they will find that their efforts will have been for naught.” Here you see the cool effronttery and lordly impudence that actuate these capitalistic anarchists. They express the utmost contempt for congress, the goverment and all the laws which feebly endeavor to check the formation of such trusts as they are engineering. “What do we care for what Senator Chandler or congress does?” They go on serenely with their scheme to gobble the transportation system of a continent and resent all criticism of their doings with a lordly toss of the head. Jfp pent-up Utich contracts our powers; The whole boundless universe is ours. We hope Senator Chandler

will bring the matter before the senate and make that body show their hands. He may, at least, discover how many of them have their pockets filled with passes from the bosses of this gigantic combine, and the agitation of the question on the floor will have the effect of arresting public attention. It is useless, of course, to appeal to Cleveland or his subservient interstate commerce commission, who are gaping expectants of favors from the controlling spirits of the “agreement,” and are willing instruments in carrying out the conspiracy.