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Show RAILWAYS ARE BUI PUBLiCJfEAMSTERS So Declares a Shipper in Answer An-swer to "Transportation," Decrying the Law. DRAWS DEADLY PARALLEL ' OF'LONG-EtfDURED ABUSE Claims That the People, Especially Espe-cially in West, Have Been Robhcd for Years. Editor The Tribune; The railroad man who addresses the public through The Tribune on the subject of President Taft's very sensible recommendations to congress concerning restricting railroad abuses by federal law. attempts to draw a parallel that docs not' exist when hc says that Improved Snlt Lake real estate under the title of a "hotel" may "go up" as high as It can, but that the same piece of real estate, when used for nnd called a "depot," cannot Increase In value without with-out violating the law. If the railroads would play fair with the pcoplo there would ho no need for such restraining lnws. ' Tho people trusted the railroads In the past and they were false to their trust. They robbed the people of every cent possible and still keep the people, especially of the new west, working to produce more money for tho railroads to take away from them. A Simple Illustration. Before tho railroads came the ranchman ranch-man came. He tracked west through hundreds of mites of Indian-haunted wilderness and set up his home. He plowed the land and planted a crop, and hauled It to market by wagon, or drove It on the hoof. Then came the rails and the engine, and great promises for helping help-ing the frontier farmer. More people poured In and the wilderness became settled set-tled states. The farmer raised his wheat at a cost of say 40 cents. It was worth 00 cents at the other end of tnc railroad and the farmer had to have 10 cents or hc would not stay on the frontier farm, so the railroad rail-road took 10 cents for hauling the wheat to market. Living was high, as It always Is on the frontier, but as the country settled up tho cost of many things, like shoes or harness, became less la the farmer, and hij could raise the same wheat for 30 cents. Then the railroads promptly raised the cost of hauling the wheat to 20 cents. Later tlic price of wheat went up to SI. Other prices also advanced nnd It cost the farmer SO cents lo raise the wheat. This left 50 cents profit for somc-hodv. somc-hodv. Did the railroads continue to charge only 20 cents, or did they charge "all the traffic would bcar7" They promptly charged "all the trafllo would bear." The farmer would stay In business busi-ness if he made only 10 cents on the wheat, so out of the 50 cents the railroads rail-roads calmly took -10 cents. This went on for years and Is the condition In Utah today. "Keoping Everybody in Business." In other words, no matter how much the farmer reduced tho cost of raising his wheat or how high the wheat sold for at the other end of tho railroad, the railroad always took every cent It could nnd left the farmer only enough to keep him raising more wheal. The farmer had to raise wheat or get oat of business and 10 cents was better than nothing, better than starvation. .so he had to take the 10 cents and see the railroads get all the rest of the profits on his labor, no matter what those profits were. So much money poured Into the pockets of tho railroads that their earnings earn-ings became a scandal. Dividends yearly year-ly of 100. or "3000 per cent." as "Transportation" "Trans-portation" sighs for. could not reasonably reasona-bly bo paid on tho capital Invested, so the mllroads issued more stock, increased their paper capital to billions, and paid low dividends on such watered stocks at I to 6 per cent. The railroads have "gone up higher in proportion than has real estate. What the railroads can bo reproduced for today to-day represents the actual money Invested Invest-ed In them. At tlrst this may seem a wild statement, but on examination It Is true. Hundreds of millions have been wasted in railroads, have been stolen by tho railroad officials from their companies com-panies under the guise of "construction companies" nnd many other devices. This money cannot bo said to have been invested In railroads. Railroad Alone Responsible. If 5100. 000.000 is put up by the Investors, Invest-ors, but S50.000.000 of that amount goes Into the pockets of others, or Is wasted, and 550,000.000 goes Into the railrond It-solf It-solf then the railroad represents an Investment In-vestment of only $50,000,000. not of $100,000,000. The railroad stockholders cannot expect the shippers to pay ' ra -road rent," as "Transportation calls dividends, on the S50,000:000 that the stockholders allowed their officers to divert di-vert from the railroad company Into other pockets, usually their own. The shipper Is not to be expected to Insure the Investor against crooked work of the Inventors agent. Thnt Is a matter between be-tween the investor nnd his agent with which the shipper- has nothing to do. When a bank cashier goes wrong and steals Jl.nuu.uuu irom a mmr.. : must come on the stockholders, not on the depositors. But the railroads claim that tho shlnpor. who Is to the railrond what the depositor Is to the Imnk. must stand the loss, must pay "railroad rent on all tho money lost and stolon in building rallronis. "Why?" as "Transportation" "Trans-portation" says. Four Universal Partnerships. Transportation Is of two kinds, that of matter and of energy. Transportation or energy includes electricity, heat, and other forms of energy. These In turn include in-clude such things aa telephones, telegraphs, tele-graphs, power, light. In fact all the practical prac-tical uses to which energy is put. bncrgj under the form of coal or Ice. where the transportation of matter is required to transport the energy. eomen In practice under the form of transporting matter, and we will so consider it hero, as Is done In everyday life. Confining ourselves, therefore, to tho transportation of matter wo get to sucii carriers ns tho pipe line, the street car, and the railroad. That every person Is by necessity a partner In the rullroau cannot be disputed Hence every one has a vital personal Interest. In how railroads rail-roads are conducted, and having such vital unescapablo Interest every poison must by necessity have the right to some control In the operation and In everything every-thing else pertaining to the railroad. On this basis the right of the public to i emulate emu-late railroads cannot be honestly disputed, dis-puted, even by "Transportation, fcvery person, who all together form the public, pub-lic, Is either directly or Indirectly, a. shipper, so for convenience, wo will uso the term "shipper" to represent tho pub- lkThe railroad and the shipper, therefore, there-fore, are partners In business. Lot us. to' make the cnoe more clear, insider them as two men In partnership, tho shipper raising wheat and the ntllrnau hauling the wheat to town In a wnon. Let them bo two brother,, one a farm -r and Hie other a teamster. Clcarl in Mich cases tho two should work topoUicr. Unth start poor, and practically on equal terms. This la the relation of the pubic pub-ic and the railroad reduced to the last annlysls. to Its simplest terms. Let us sre how it works out. The two men go into a new ""ntry The farmer devclopea tho farm and the teamster makes a road to town, buys horses and wagons. Engines aro but Iron horses, cars are but wagons nnd the railway is but a road. Tho farmer cannot neglect his work or both of the men will starve to death, so In sc f protection pro-tection the farmer niUBl work and raise wheat. He cannot sell It unless the teamster team-ster hauls It to town, and the teamstor cannot live unless he nulls at lenst enough to live on himself and lo feed his horses, repair his wagons, and keep up his road. So both must work. Each works hard, and not ''only is there a living for each, hut a surplus. Hero is where tho trou- b,SnvBthe'ro Is a surplus of 1000 bushels of w"heat. Suppose the teamster says to himself; "If l demand 1000 bushels of wheat for hauling 1000 bushels of when' to town, the farmer has nothing to gain, so will not raise any more whent, than ho needs lo live on and to give mo for hauling his shnro to town, bo I wll charge him 000 bushels of wheat for hauling the extra 1000 bushels, and to iret the fxtra 100 bushels for himself he will raise the 1000 extra bushels and I will get 000 of them all lo myself. So the teamstor rofuses to haul the extra 1000 bushels of wheat to town unless un-less he gets 000 bushels of It. If Transportation" Trans-portation" were that farmer, how long would he stand such a deal? In this case. "Transportation' happens to bo the teamster, and Is getting the 000 bushe s of wheat, and because ho has had thin share so long hc hovls "robbery when II Is suggested that each, the farmer and tho teamster, lake 500 bushels. Judgod by Results. Incidentally tho teamster's road runa across the farmer's lund. The farmer has been able lo build a frame house In placo of hlit log cabin, nnd can afford to buv a llddle. but the teamstor has built a marble palace. In which ho maintains main-tains a whole private orchestra. I In farmer has a row boat and the teamster has a motor boat. Tho farmer wears a garnet. In his necktie, but the teamster wears a ruby at his throat. The farmer'-! children go lo school and the teamster's team-ster's children go to Europe. In such a case. If "Transportation" were the Juii-llco Juii-llco of the peace, what would he decldo when tho farmer demanded that the teamster get only GOO bushels of wheat for hauling the oxtra 1000 bushels Instead In-stead of keeping 000 bushels? The farmer In this simple illustration Is tho public, tho people of tho lulled Stats. and the railroad Is the national teamster. Tho 000 bushels of wheat out of 1000 bushels la "what the traffic will bear" and the. 100 bushels, tho farmers present share, Is "keeping everybody In business" Thero are two sides to every question. "Transportation" has given one side, that of Ihc railroad, the teamster; this 1h the other, the side of tho farmer, the pub lie. 1 o |