What Buzz-Saw Morgan Thinks

BY W. S. MORGAN

PATERNALISM is preferable to infernalism.

When the gentleman with the cloven hoof collects what is coming to him there won’t be many bag barons left.

The Beef Trust does business on a sliding scale; the price they pay slides down, and the price they sell at slides up.

A pauper lives off the public, and so do those who make their money through special privileges granted them by law.

As Bryan is losing prestige with the people he is becoming more popular with the plutocrats.

The United States Senate should be rechristened and called the Corporations’ Cuckoo’s nest.

The way to make the cuss-toady-ans of public interests more amenable to our will is to have ready an Imperative Mandate lariat.

Yes, the trusts are in the people’s pasture, and they got in over Republican and Democratic fences.

It is better that a whole lot of business shall be “hurted” than that the trusts should continue to rob the people and be a standing menace to free government.

The Governor of Kansas is right; building a state refinery is not Socialism; it is competition, just what the Populists stand for.

The trusts also have “big sticks.”

The Standard Oil Company has outlawed itself and ought to be “swatted” off the face of the earth.

The bandit bag barons are going to have some hard sledding from now on.

If the concentration of wealth means the destruction of the republic, then the people have a right to stop the concentration of wealth.

The fact that the trusts are now in control of the railroads is another reason why the Government should own them.

An economic principle that does not rest upon a moral basis should receive no support from honest men.

Every applicant for a special legalized privilege is an enemy to good government.

It is the men who are always hammering at the doors of legislation for special privileges that want “something for nothing.”

The greatest power in the world is that which controls the volume of money, and the Republicans are talking about turning that power over to a few private buccaneers.

When the very rich men are called by their right names there will not be such a scramble to get rich.

It is to be hoped that in this fight with the trusts and railroad corporations that “big stick” of Teddy’s will not prove to be a stuffed club.

If Uncle Sam wants to mix his credit with anybody’s let him mix it with that of the farmers. Their security is better than bonds.

More that half of the men in the United States Senate wear corporation collars.

If all the big thieves were sentenced to jail we should have to turn the little thieves out in order to make room for them.

I challenge anyone to point out a single instance in this country where the national bankers have made a recommendation in the interests of the people. It is always a jug-handled proposition in their favor.

One of the biggest pieces of foolishness in this old world of ours is for Uncle Sam to make free money for the bankers to loan, and then borrow that same money for his own use.

Unless there is some change made in the manner of selecting United States senators, that body of corporation attorneys would better be abolished.

So insignificant was the last Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party that a great many voters have already forgotten his name.

The country is now ready for the election of United States senators by the people instead of the corporations, but that body of august lawmakers will block every effort in that direction.

If there is no other way to prevent corporations from violating the law they should be denied its protection, just like other outlaws. A dose of that kind of medicine would soon bring them to their milk.

The decision of the North Sea Commission seems to be based upon the principle (if it has a principle) that a naval commander has a right to fire at anything that frightens him.

If the packers didn’t steal their immense fortunes from the people, whom did they steal them from?

A “reasonable rate,” as interpreted by the railroad companies, is all the honey except barely enough to keep the bees from starving to death.

There has already been a good deal of water squeezed out of Standard Oil stock; now, if some process can be brought forward that will squeeze the water out of the oil the company sells, it will be better yet.

The great trusts have shown that they have no regard for “vested rights.” They have “frozen out” the smaller concerns without mercy. Why, then, should they object to a little of the “freezing” process, if the Government or states decide to go into the oil business on their own account?

If the Socialists insist on turning the world over at one flip, like turning a pancake, before they can start the show, they are following a mighty cold trail. If they are willing to go by the usual road of evolution there is no reason why they and the Populists should not work together, for awhile at least.

The man who is wholly controlled by sentiment is not fit to vote. Voting is a business proposition and demands both intelligence and good judgment.

It seems to be the policy of lawmakers in this country to grant special privileges to the rich and powerful, and to permit them to impose upon the weak, and this condition will remain just so long as men will submit to being robbed.

The men who prate most about “vested rights” and “law and order” are the ones who violate them most.

When the Government thought the express companies were charging the people too much for the transmission of money it went into the money-order business itself. What was the result? Why, the express companies had to come to the rate established by the Government or get none of the business. It was purely a matter of business, and that’s the way to do it.

It was the “battle-scared” bag barons that discredited government paper money during the Civil War between the states. Yet it is from these men that we hear most about “national honor” and “public credit.” They are the same class of men of whom honest old Abe Lincoln said: “They ought to be hanged”; and the country would have fared better ever since if they had been.

Nearly every civilized nation in the world owns all or a part of its system of railroad and telegraph lines, and they have no disposition to turn them over to private corporations. The United States alone permits a few wealthy buccaneers to levy taxes on the people which no government would dare do. An increase of three cents per bushel on corn alone means a tax of fifty millions of dollars to the men who produce that cereal.

Until recently the national bankers paid the Government one per cent. on the money the Government loaned them. Then they claimed that it was too much to pay for the use of the money and the credit of the Government, and Congress reduced the rate to one-half of one per cent. But the banker has no conscientious scruples about loaning this money to the people at eight and ten per cent.

The railroad companies admit that they violate the law by granting rebates, but set up the claim that if they did not do it they would lose their share of the traffic. It is a very singular plea. It is not half as just as the one that a man steals because he is hungry, or because his wife and children are suffering for the necessaries of life. “We violate the law because somebody else does,” say the railroad companies. Suppose that every criminal would set up the same excuse for the commission of crime. And ordinary criminals have a better right to make that plea in palliation for their crime than the trusts and corporations have. If, as they admit, the railroad managers are so dishonest that one must violate the law because another does, if there is no way to restrain them except to turn the whole matter over to them, and permit them to pool their earnings so that one thief can watch the other thieves, it is about time to abolish the whole system of private ownership and for the Government to take charge of the lines of transportation. The railroad companies make out the worst kind of a case against themselves. They admit that there are enough law-breakers among them to demoralize the whole system.

The public has heard a good deal about legislation that would discourage capital from being invested in the state enacting the legislation. It has been said that the passage of laws calculated to regulate the business of large corporations would have the effect of driving them away. Kansas just now is giving us an object-lesson along this line. The laws recently passed by the Legislature in that state are perhaps the most drastic in their nature ever passed by any state for the control and regulation of corporations, yet the prospect is that more capital will go to that state than ever before. Although the state is now engaged in building an oil refinery, there are several other independent refineries projected, with a good prospect for more to come. It is evident that capital has not as much to fear from the people, when it is legitimately invested and operated, as it has from the arrogant aggressions of such enormous concerns as the Standard Oil Company that will brook no competition. If capital will be satisfied with a fair profit it has nothing to fear from the people, while, on the other hand, independent concerns that operate legitimately in any line of business have much to fear from the great trusts that have been built up through favors granted them by railroads and municipalities.

Flying the Kite

HUDSON—Do you think they will be able to get along on $10,000 a year?

Budson—They ought to. With that much money they should manage to run in debt for another ten thousand.

The rich man may defy the laws of the land and keep out of prison, but when he gets dyspepsia from eating things out of season he realizes that he can’t defy the laws of nature.