People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1896 — The Onward March of the Railway Trust. [ARTICLE]

The Onward March of the Railway Trust.

The New York World of November 24 has the following suggestive editorial on the “Railway Trust.” which will prove interesting reading to our subscribers., If, however, the readers of the Arena will look over the field from the time that our country was in the midst of unparalleled prosperity, before the greenbacks were retired and silver demonetized, and will see how Wall street and thejbanking class began to shake public opinion. they will readily perceive that the railway trust is merely acting on the lines employed by the money monopoly winch has been so s largely instrumental in bringing . our wealth-producers to such a wretched condition at the present time: The railway trust has organized a literary bureau to defend its violation of the anti-trust and interstate commerce laws. The bureau’s arguments thus far all resolve themselves into these: 1. The railroads are the most potent agencies in developing the" country and conducting its commerce profitably to the people. They ought to be ted to charge enough .to pay reasonable dividends and interest on the enormous investments they represent. 2. If they are not permitted to form pools they cannot pay such dividends. They will “cut rates” in competition with each other until their business is done at a loss.

The first obvious answer is that the people have not thought it cons ; stent with their safety to permit pooling. They have forbidden it by law, and informing this pool the railway representatives become lawbreakers. Lawbreakers have no rights to considered until they submit themselves to the law. Secondly, the right of railroads to earn fair interest upon actual and judicious investments is quite a different thing from their asserted rights to tax the people to pay dividends, either upon watered stock or upon fool -, ish and ill-advised construction. Thirdly, if the railroads are properly officered there is no danger that they will, even under competition, cut rates permanently below a reasonable earning point. If any one of them should do so its competitors would have only to let it take the losing business until it should repent of its folly. Finally, there is no object in such a combination, except to prevent competition and to impose as high a fax as the people will stand upon the commerce of the country. The railroads can take care of themselves without combination. The people’s only way to protect themselves is by forbidding combination and monopoly.—The Arena.

Under this war excitment the plutocrats will push their schemes of robbery. There is not half as much danger from England’s soldiers as there is from her capitalists. War ought to be declared against the democratic party for violating the Jefferson doctrine. It is not necessary to go further than Grover’s message to find out how well he loves the bankers. If it is in order we should be pleased to know what city the National Democratic convention will be sold to. If the people would raid the banks for gold as the banks raid the government, what bank could stand it?