The Tyranny of the Tracks

The public debt of the United States is over two billion dollars, and the railroad debt is over four billion more. Over two-thirds of this debt is held abroad, and the interest must be paid in gold, causing an annual drain on the finances of the country of more than 177 million dollars. The balance of trade in our favor does not cover a tenth of this sum. Is it any wonder we have hard times? In good times, railroads pocketed the profits of their investments and never paid labor a farthing it did not earn. Now, railroads seek to reduce expenses by cutting down wages at a time of great general depression—brought about by reckless mismanagement on the part of railroad corporations—and saddle all this hardship upon the labor of the country, without reducing the salaries of officers or stopping the squandering of money to corrupt legislation. No wonder that labor revolts against such an act of tyranny and oppression. Simple justice demands that corporations, which in times of financial prosperity have reaped all the profits of both labor and capital, should now be made to bear the loss their own blunders have brought about. Capital has no right to take advantage of necessity and take from it the profits of labor without giving it a full share. Let railroads stop squandering money, put freights at a paying figure, stop the importation of cheap labor, reduce expenses by cutting down salaries, and practice the same kind of economy that they compel employees to practice.