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Show THE RAILROAD POWER. B A railroad table gives the gross earnings for 1903 of twenty-two railroad companies in the Unit- ed States, a majority of them, roads west of Chi B cago and St. Louis, at more than $800,000,000, and the net earnings more than $280,000,000. A H favorite theme of writers Is to speculate over what H might be were some man on horseback, a new B Alexander or Napoleon, or Caesar, to appear in our M country and lay his plans to assume the rule of H the great Republic. At the same time almost any B political economist will demonstrate that wars are H won by money. Now we are getting down very m near to business. The railroads of the UniteJ jH States have in their employ an army of men mor? HB than double in number the army that Napoleon K m- started from Franco with to make the conquest of B Russia. They include the brightest men in every B walk of life in the country the brightest mentally, m the strongest and best equipped physically. Grades Grad-es ually the roads are combining; it is said that even Bi now less than forty men are the real dictators of B the railroad business of the United States and H these are growing fewer and fewer annually as the H roads are being consolidated. Now comes the B problem. If one man on horseback, without means, B in his short life, might steal away the liberties B of the country, what might five or ten men who H command a million of disciplined men and unlim-B unlim-B ited money do if they were to put their heads to-H to-H gether and conclude to dictate the government of B the country as well as the government of the rall-B rall-B roads of tue coutnry? B It would be a startling proposition in any Bj country but out own. True, they have a vast in-Bl in-Bl fluence now. They have many a representative in B congress; they control many a newspaper; they B have their influence in the legislatures and the B courts of the country; they can stand off a request B for favors by quoting the dreadful Blkins law; K they can manage to extend a few favors where K they want to despite the Blkins law; they can Bj still discriminate against individuals and localities Bi despite the Interstate commerce law ; they still can B exercise a fine discrimnation between a competing B and non-competitive point, but they are not yet B' quite ominpotent. The people stand it so long B as they keep their gloves on while handling them. B but should they try force there would be trouble; K even their own employes would desert them. H But railroads only began to be a power in the B United States fifty years ago. What of the next H fifty years? When one tries to compute that Probst Prob-st able power, he in a little while begins to pray for H the invention of a successful airship, for he says: H "These railroads are like King Pharo; they levy tribute on all the people and the percentage of the game will use the players up after a while, and the roads will own the earth." It is the danger of this that makes so many people anxious to have the roads appraised and paid for with Government bonds, which would make every taxpayer a stockholder. stock-holder. It is liable to come to that, and before very long. It requires only the ballots of 51 per cent of the voters to fix it, and events move rapidly rap-idly in this country. |