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Show IN THE BYE AND BYE. Tho wool men of this region are up in arms because the railroads have advanced their charges for carrying the wool to market. Tho railroad companies declare that the old rate was too low. The wool men point to the earnings of the roads as given out by the road I authorities; they take the net earnings and esti mate how much capital that amount would pay 4 per cent on, and the longer they figure the angrier an-grier they grow at the raise. In their wrath they do not stop to think that human nature is about the same everywhere. For instance the sheep Smen themselves do not pay their herders any more wages in a good than in a poor year, do not feed them any better, do not look after the wants j of the men they employ; they figure everything I down to the sharpest margin, pay out just as lit tle as they can, take in all they can. The only difference between them and the railroad com- panies is that railroads are common carriers, by I virtue of their franchises they are practically monopolies, and the theory of the laws governing , roads is that they, in as much as the whole pub- I lie are called upon to support them, should not I be permitted to exact more from the public than ! their honest operating expenses, their repairs and S" betterments, and a fair interest on their honest investment amounts to. Of course this rule is not enforced for many reasons. One is no outsider out-sider knows just how much any railroad honestly !t i cost. Again there is a sentiment that a strict rule ought not to be enforced because railroads ' like rusiness men, have good and poor years, i f The danger railroad companies run is that I ' everyv exaction is treasured up against them, and one of these days there will be a cry for government control of roads which will be responded re-sponded to. f As a rule men look upon railroads very much as they do upon trusts and their minds are pre- I judiced. They talk about the controlling forces II of the world and forget that the real controlling j force, under the world's present conditions, is I money, and that it always will be until things shall be so adjusted that mere money will not i count for much. For instance, suppose the 200,000 I miles of railroad in the United States show a valuation of 10,000 millions of dollars and today represent the most tremendous controlling force n the Union. It is something terrible when we think of it. It commands an army of men, it has drawn to it the finest legal minds in the country; it commands a steam power which is almost beyond estimation. Then the public has grown to depend so much on the roads that were all to be closed down for a week the business of the country would be dislocated and a dozen great cities and a hundred lesser ones would be on the verge of a food and a coal famine. Perhaps Per-haps it is not strange that the chief rulers of this mighty force become arrogant at times. But, after all, ours is a government of the people, peo-ple, and no matter how much the country may drift, it will come back to the original basis now and then. Suppose sometime the people should decree that the government should own all these roads, own and operate them, and should proceed to take possession, giving its bonds for payment of the roads. The present stock and bond holders would get their bonds, the government would pay the interest in-terest and gradually pay the principal also. That accomplished what would the money be worth to the owners? How could they invest it to make it pay? Where would their prestige have gone in the meantime? Suppose the same proceeding should extend to the lands of the country, and men who had made great improvements should be paid in money for their improvements and the lands leased to the poor, would not the thought come to capitalists after a while that mere money mon-ey with no way to use it, Is no longer a power; that it really represents nothing? Now every exaction of railroads, every unjust advantage taken tak-en by trusts, every home that is finally absorbed by the usury of the money loaner is hastening the day when the machinery will be put in motion to make mere money valueless. It will have to bo that way for as matters are now progressing unless some new checks are intersposed, a few capitalists will own the world and the masses of mankind will by a natural process be reduced to serfdom. The Republican party seems to be in the very zenith of its power; the revenues of tho country continue to be enormous; the foreign trade is swelling steadily; the great industries of the country are all roaring like an earthquake; on the crest of this prosperous wave the Republican Republi-can party is riding and claiming for itself and its policies, tho prosperity. MUch of it is a Just claim, but not all. On the other hand, the Democratic party, like a great ship when, after a mighty storm, the gale suddenly ceases, is plunging and rolling apparently appar-ently having lost all steerage way. The Republican leaders look forward to an easy victory next year, and it is possible that on the old lines one more great victory may be achieved, for it will be to the interest of all the great industries to have no break in the on-sweeping on-sweeping splendors of present achievements. But there are premonitions of a coming change. Some very learned men have, with all sincerity, sought to establish whether or not religion was originally founded on reason or merely grew up from almost nothing, being nursed by men's hopes and fears. They have used all their senses, have called to their aid all that science and great learning could bring to them; they bave stated H the positions of church men as a problem and H then bent every power of their intellects to try iH to complete the demonstration and have failed. H Beside them under some lowly roof a poor woman has sat, with only enough means to se- cure her a poor living; she has been there since H she first became a bride; in memory she recalls H overy day how one after another of her children H died until all were gone, how then her husband M was called away, and yet there is a smile on her M face, for the simple faith which is given to the H lowly has come and filled her heart and she sees H her children fairer than they were here, her bus- H band more winsome to her than when on her M marriage day he drew the veil from her face and their lips met in their first nuptial kiss, and, as M slie watches and thinks, the squalor of her sur- M roundings, the lonliness in her heart all vanish, M and she murmurs, "one more river to cross, only M ond'more river to cross." H Among the scholars and financiers, tho acute intellects that reason only from a visible cause . to a certain effect, all the signs are filled with fl promise. But in the old days there was as much fl heart as there was brain in the direction of our fl Republic and the highest, tenderest thought of H statesmen was of the people. The reasoning then was that great wealth could take care of itself, M that bright minds could make their own adjust- H inents, but the common people must be a per- pctual concernment to the government and not H one avenue of progress must be closed against H tHem. This is not the rule now. In this great H advance, if we listen we shall hear that there is H only a metallic ring to the wheels of progress H all iron and gold. Well this is having its effect. H Do politicians note the startling increase in the H Socialist vote? Suppose that vote should increase H to 51 per cent, what then? Suppose a new order H of men should be elected. Men who would say H "Let the rich keep all their money, and If they own something which all the people ought to have I a share in, why we will pay them all the monoy I they think it worth and take it, and I we will work out this problem and dem- I onstrate how much real value there is to mere I money after all." Then what would happen? Why I the richest would have to seek some other land I In which to make investments. They would do- H clare that there was no heaven of home for them I in native land. In many an humble home in this' I land poor men are sitting with smiles on thUr I faces and the air they are humming is "one more I river to cross, onlyone more river to cross." I The danger is that when the day dawns in which H man is to be nothing and men everything, there I will not gravitate to the surface leaders with I brains and hearts great enough to safely direct I the new machinery of government. If there is I failure then, something closcV akin to anarchy I will succeed for a season, anarchy possibly ac- I companied with violence, but from It order will I emerge at last and a new Progress and the wheels I of that new Progress will not have altogether a I metallic ring. I |