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Show THE STATE AND PUBLIC UTILITIES. - In .the old days when there was a surplus in the treasury of the; United States a large surplus it was the habit of the Government to make a division of it and pay it to the State governments in the proportion pro-portion to which each was entitled. . Tom Watson has found that in 1845. when a large" surplus, was thus divided, John C. Calhoun, then a Senator of the United States, in a letter to William C Dawson of Georgia, advised that the surplus be used by Georgia and South Carolina in building railroads to be owned by the States, the roads to connect those two States with', the lines leading to the west and southwest. . ' Mr. Calhoun's words were: "To make this great fund available for so important an object, the Legislatures Leg-islatures of the States interested ought to move forthwith. I hope that Georgia will take the lead. The action of no other State could have half the influence." If that advice had been followed it would have become the rule and the Stales would have owned the railroads oyer which their commerce. Is carried. That fact ought to make all railroad corporations cautious. It ought to induce them to give to all the people exactly fair treatment, because it would be a simple thing for the voters of this country, should they once take it in their heads to do It, to elect a president on the slogan of public ownership of public pub-lic .utilities,, and then the railroad corporations would have their money-making machines taken away from them, they would have the full value paid to them in greenbacks, and they might find it difficult to put those greenbacks to any use that would begin to pay what they are drawing now from the public. . . 'A railroad in its very nature is a hold-up on a grand scale. Men cannot travel, cannot do business without them; and this being true, it being further true that they are valuable only-because of the money paid them by the people, theyought.to always al-ways keep in mind that thy are common carriers and are bound by at least an implied contract to render, to. every individual (in the land equal ' and exact justice. ' '. '. |