■°\ n 4- •x
A WORKINGMAN'S OPINION
OF THE
Railroad Question,
Tie Boston & Maine Monopoly a Foe to New Haipslire Interests.
The Hazen Bill should be Defeated and the Atherton
Bill Passed.—A Solemn Warning- to the Legislature.
It appears to me that there is a scheme on foot to cover up the
real issue in this railroad contest, and I hope the plain, honest
members of the legislature will get down to the solid facts in the
case, and be governed by them. The vital question is not what
this railroad has done or not done, or which one shall win or not
win. It is this : How shall we place our railroads to the best ad¬
vantage, not of the stockholders and speculators, but of the state
and people? We shall have an efficient service anyway. Self-in¬
terest will insure that. For, whether one road has done better or
worse than another in the past, the future development of the
magnificent resources of New Hampshire will exact a correspond¬
ing service. We shall get it, not for love, but for money. Be¬
cause a good service will pay, and a bad one will not, and pay is
what railroads are after, like the rest of us. It is misleading to
make so much of the past history of these rival companies. We
can judge their future by their past, so far as their interest leads
them along the same line of endeavor, and no further. When the
situation changes, they must change with it, and fit their action to
it. A railroad will scent the track of a dividend and stick to it
like a dog after a fox, and with instincts quite as natural and un¬
erring. If the chase is leading south, is it any sign the dog will
keep on in that direction after the fox turns to the west? That
dog wants the fox, and will follow him to death. The Concord
road wants dividends, and will pursue them wherever they lead, up
hill or down dale. The conservative methods which have built u,p
that road, and made it one of the richest, cleanest, and best man¬
aged railroad properties in the country, will expand as the system
expands, in order to secure the full possible measure of its benefits.
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"New times demand new measures, and new men." The policy
which is best for the Concord road, when its service is prescribed
to the intermediate forwarding of traffic, would be fatal to the
broader management contemplated by the "Atherton bill." The
case is as different as that between a mere toll-taker and a person
whose living depends upon his exertions and success in securing
patronage for the bridge against its rivals. The interest of one
says, "Sit still, keep cool, take toll,' watch, and economise." The
interest of the other says, "Wake up, go out, put in your best work
to supply the bridge with business." Before, you could rise and
retire at your leisure, because your living depended upon what
your neighbors brought in. Now, you must be up and doing to
get your own living, and your working day must have stars at both
ends to keep you even with your early rising competitors. This
healthy shaking out will arouse new faculties and new aspirations,
and invoke that spirit of progressive enterprise without which suc¬
cess cannot be assured in this new order of development.
We are told that the Concord road is selfish. Well, the more
selfish it is the more liberal and enterprising it will be in its new
field of action. For these are the very first instrumentalities that
an enlightened selfishness would put to work. The Concord has
never been charged with a want of brains or business sagacity, but
it would be lacking in both, if it applied to this new railroad system
the same policy and methods that were best in the old one, on the
ground that a good specific remedy is as good for one disease as it
is for another. Such an assumption is preposterous, and unworthy
of the men who are trying to fool thoughtless people with it. The
Concord road has stood true to itself, true to its patrons, and true
to the state. It is sound timber all the way through, and can be
trusted to hold up any superstructure the people may place upon
it. In saying this, 1 am not crying down the Boston & Maine.
That road is a stranger in this part of the state, whom we have not
tried by the test of years, as we have tried the Concord road. We
know our own roads have them in hand and can set bounds to
their ambition, but what power have we to stop the expansion of
this foreign corporation, and how do we know what the end may
be, for if it goes down we must go with it and share its doom.
Is it best to give up the helm to these strange hands instead of
commanding the ship ourselves and putting our own safe and ex¬
perienced pilot at the wheel? Viewing the situation from this
high standpoint, all the little irrelevant details that crafty lawyers
have smuggled into this case sink out of sight, leaving in plain
view the one vital question upon which this case should stand or
fall, namely, Is it or is it not safe to surrender our railroads to a
foreign corporation whose enormous grant of political power might
hold us bound by a hard bargain for ninety-nine years ? I do not
say it would wring extortionate tributes from the people. I desire
/
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to be perfectly fair with both roads. I do not say this vested
monopoly would oppress the business of the state, control its elec¬
tions, or dismantle and build over its judiciary. Neither of these
dangers may be imminent in this relation. But will any man say
they are all impossible when he beholds the forces that stand guard
around these monopolies. When he sees nearly every lawyer,
every lobbyist, every politician of any account up and down the
state, held, like Tam O'Shanter, by the golden leash of
"Favors secret, sweet and precious,"
past, present, or to come. But, you say, "that proves nothing, for
both sides do this." I say it proves one thing conclusively, and
that is, that the state should keep its strong hand to the collar of
these corporations, and hold them in subjection. For if they ex¬
ert such mighty strength while winded and weakened by the mer¬
ciless grip each has on the throat of the other, what reserve force
will be available to restrain the ambition of the victor when this
grip is broken and his enemy lies helpless and submissive at his
feet?
Is not this a reasonable question to ask, when we have seen and
known that to hold fast what we give them, and catch what they
can, is the first best purpose of every monopoly on this earth?
Will not the road that is strong enough to invade our state and
drive our strongest road out of its entrenchments, be powerful
enough to dictate the terms of surrender and dominate the politics
of the state? It is true that this power, though possessed, might
not be used in this manner. But should it not be true, that it
cannot, and shall not, be so used? All must admit that such an
exercise of power is possible, to say the least, and is it wise ? Is
it good and prudent legislation? Is it in line with the saving
principles of popular government, already endangered by the rapid
aggregation of wealth in a few strong hands at the expense of the
many? Is it politic to put the state in the range of such a possi¬
bility? Bear in mind that if we take this step we go into outer
darkness. For in no other instance has any corporation been
bold enough to ask a state to surrender every foot of its railroads
as contemplated in this invasion, and no state has been unwise
enough to open the gates of legislation and admit such a proposi¬
tion. Shall New Hampshire be the first to embark on this un¬
known sea, unaided by the stars of precedent, or the chart and
compass of experience ? Shall she allow her fair limbs to be
bound in chains of stronger material than those which congress
and the leading states in the Union are vainly struggling to loosen?
I hope not. I believe not. For, surely, there is no public exi¬
gency to justify the state in rushing blindly into such an uncertain
domain. This is no time for precipitancy.
4
Mr. Burns and other advocates of the Boston & Maine road
assert that the statutes of this state defend us against all the possi¬
ble usurpations of this monopoly. So they do so far as dead ink
and paper can defend us. But law is the mere "image of author¬
ity" into which enforcement must breathe the breath of life before
it becomes a living soul with power to defend anybody. We have
law enough, but what will it be good for when its enforcement de¬
pends upon its enemies who control our legislature for themselves
and not for the people. There is where the danger is, and we
shall do well to guard against it before it is too late. Mr. Frank
Jones gives us a clear illustration of this in his business at Ports¬
mouth. That enormous business, employing hundreds of men and
making millions of money, to say nothing of its annual product
of widows, orphans, criminals and paupers, is an outlaw today, and
has been an outlaw for thirty years. If the statutes of this state do
not defend us against the power behind this liquor monopoly,,why
should we expect them to defend us against the power behind this
hundred million dollar railroad monopoly? If Mr. Jones, the
bewer, defies and tramples upon the law, what better should we
expect of Mr. Jones the railroad king? Physician, heal thyself!
If the Boston & Lowell road, in four years, added eighty-four
per cent, to the market value of its stock, besides paying its divi¬
dends, retired its President with several hundred thousand dollars'
stock profit, and sold out its chartered rights to the Boston &
Maine at a handsome advance, it seems that our roads must have
been worth a good deal more than they paid for them, or than we
thought they were. If not, how is it that a road that paid such
small dividends before it got hold of our roads has been able to
make such a big pile of money since we gave them a rescuing
hand? Is it any wonder that the Boston & Maine with its keen
eye for number one, was so anxious to buy into this happy experi¬
ence? When we see these clear-eyed, three-story-headed specu¬
lators paying such wonderful prices for stock to control "the situ¬
ation," is it not plain that our roads are safe property to keep until
we can find out what they are really worth to the people, and then
dispose of them accordingly? Perhaps we can drive a smarter
bargain than we did with the Boston & Lowell, and get a more
equitable share of the profits. At any rate, we want to do some
strong thinking before we bind ourselves out to anybody for ninety-
nine years. We have the winning cards in our hand, and if we
don't know how to play them now, let us study the game till we do
know. For my own part, I would urge the claims of a "New
Hampshire system," by which we shall be master of our own cor¬
porations, instead of being servants to any other.
A prominent Boston N Maine man asked one of our natives the
other day, how he stood on the railroad question. He replied, "I'm
a New Hampshire man." That told the whole story, and he was
5
questioned no further. Whitefield is a "New Hampshire" town, by
more than three to one, as shown by its special vote on the ques¬
tion, notwithstanding the exertions and influence of Mr. Hazen,
the sponsor of the "Hazen bill," and the regard in which he is
justly held by his townsmen. Whitefield is the largest shipping
point in northern New Hampshire. Its leading business men are
ranked among the first in the state. They have thought out all
the points in this question with that care which their great busi¬
ness interests demand, and nearly every one of them is opposed
to the control of our railroads going out of the state, regarding it
as a peril to our material welfare, and a menace to that perfect
freedom of political action upon which our institutions are found¬
ed. They take this stand on general principles, and not because
they have any ill feelings toward the Boston & Lowell road, al¬
though it is in black and white, that, taking their shipments as a
whole, the tariff has been higher under that road than they paid
to the old management. This was shown conclusively by the tes¬
timony of Hon. A. L. Brown, President of Brown's Lumber Co.,
and others, before the Railroad Committee. I know Mr. Brown's
testimony is disputed by counsel for the other side. They even
went so far as to challenge him to come to Concord and verify his
statements, boasting that they had secured the facts to impeach
his testimony. But they did not put him on the stand when
he presented himself and waited several hours to be heard. He
is ready now, and always has been ready, to exhibit his books and
confirm every word he said. His relations with the road and its
officials are cordial and friendly, as they always have been.
If this demand of the Boston & Maine road were confined to
the unification of roads having a strict physical connection, it
would be less objectionable. But it takes a much wider and more
questionable scope. It requires our roads to be practically merged
with a foreign system, a large part of which is totally disconnected
from them. A fragmentary system, made up of roads solvent and
roads bankrupt, roads paying and roads losing, pooled on equal
terms with our solid paying roads. Is this a fair partnership?
But you say, "Our roads are only leased, not absorbed." True.
But does not common-sense tell us that what a weak road loses a
strong one must pay, to make up the general dividend for the
system, and is it not obvious that our roads, being the strongest in
the system, would have to pull their weaken partners through at
our expense, in some way, open or covert? Besides that, we
would have to share all the risks of the ultimate bursting of this
beautiful bubble, and the great disaster attending that result. We
all remember how the Eastern road dazzled the eyes of its more
prudent and conservative New England neighbors by its annual
display of leases, great and growing possessions, equipments and
unfailing dividends, until one day the sheriff got a grip on it, and,
6
after wringing out the water, it was hardly worth hanging out to
dry. Its glory of yesterday had departed, like "a poor player,
who struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is seen no
more."
These greedy, big-bellied corporations that are never satisfied
unless they can breakfast, dine and sup on smaller fry of their own
species, may keep up a robust appearance to the -very day of their
death. They will always bear watching, and, unless you can see
clear through them—as no mortal eye ever could—they will bear
letting alone. Is it not safer and better to keep our railroads so in
hand that their surplus and the avails of their thrift and good
management shall not be boarded out bv a perennial visitation of
their poor relations from Maine, Vermont, and Massachusetts, but
shall go to the people of the state, along with the inevitable in¬
crease in the value of their franchises, from year to year, which
gives these schemers such a special love for the term of "ninety-
nine years, and no less."
If the Hazen bill should become a law, the Concord road
would be surrounded, overlaid and underlaid with coercive forces
to compel its unconditional surrender. Not openly and in plain
terms, perhaps, but just as surely in fact. The Concord road
would fight back for its life. The fight would go into our courts
and become "an irrepressible conflict" in our legislature, in some
form or other, until this magnificent property, which so well de¬
serves protection as the pride and hope of the state that gave it
birth, holds up its hands and falls down before its masters in sheer
weakness and dispair, followed by all the lesser roads which have
taken part with it in defending their independence. Then we
shall have to take what is given us and ask no questions, for the
corrective hand of competition can no longer be raised in our be¬
half. Do the people—the every-day, industrial people, whose la¬
bor creates the wealth and pays the taxes, wish to see such a state
of things as that and pay the bills ? I shall not believe they do
until I am obliged to. They are already too weary and heavy
laden with the burden of special legislation for the classes against
the masses, in state and nation, to allow this ninety-nine year mo¬
nopoly, with a hundred million dollars at its back, to set foot with¬
in our borders unchallenged. Because the trend of this invasion
is against the principles upon which all working men rest their
hopes of future justice and equality. Diffusion of wealth and con¬
sequent diffusion of political power among the people, by fair and
legal courses, is the first problem and necessity of our time, for in
this direction, and not in the opposite, we must learn to look for
the security and full fruitage of our free institutions. Every sign
of the times, here and all over the civilized world, admonishes us
against turning our faces away from this living truth, and all legis¬
lation built across its pathway cannot and ought not to endure, for
7
the day will soon come when the survival of our form of govern¬
ment must depend upon the adoption of this principle as one of
its cardinal virtues. Republics, like their individual units, first re¬
veal symptoms of dissolution bv coldness and diminution of vital
force at the extremities with congestion at the centres, and working
men cannot afford to countenance legislation which in essence or
intention is productive of this result, for the best thing that can be
said of our popular form of government is that the toilers, who
bear its burdens and fight its battles, have really the greatest stake
in its welfare and perpetuity.
We are told that if the Hazen bill becomes a law agitation will
cease, a permanent railroad policy will ensue, and both victor and
vanquished shall stand with uncovered heads before this arbitra¬
ment. Impossible ! Let us not be led away by this specious fal¬
lacy. That enactment would not give the Boston & Maine road
possession of the Boston, Concord & Montreal road, whose lease
to the Boston & Lowell provides that it shall not be leased to any
other road without its own consent. If the Boston, Concord & Mon¬
treal road will not consent to the proposed lease of the Boston &
Lowell to the Boston & Maine, as it certainly will not, how is the
Boston & Maine to succeed in its designs? The transfer and sale,
in fact though not in name, by which these two roads propose to
break this important provision of the lease of the Boston, Concord
& Montreal to the Boston & Lowell, would be such a plain violation
of the spirit of this contract that the courts would not tolerate it for a
single moment. It is beyond the power of legislation to break a
contract, and it seems very plain to me that the passage of the
Hazen bill would be the beginning rather than the ending of rail¬
road war, and a perpetual element of fear and disturbance to the
industrial interests of our state.
The splendid resources of our state are largely exempt from the
uncertainties which attend those of an artificial character. They
are the mountains, forests, lakes, streams, and air bequeathed to us
by the sign manual of God, and are sure and steadfast as the hand
that gave them. Appreciated and developed as they should be,
they will make New Hampshire one of the richest and happiest
states in the world, because we shall always have for sale, at a high
price, an abundance of what other people want, and have plenty
of money to pay tor.
This legislature is called a strong one, and, like Caesar's wife,
" above suspicion." Having faith in its integrity and sound sense,
we await its conclusions with patience, knowing that the1 greatest
railroad fight our state ever saw should not be hastily decided.
Take all the time you need, gentlemen. Hunt out and uncover
the truth wherever it leads. But remember one thing. These
railroads are the servants and not the masters of the people, and
this relation must be rigidly maintained. It is your privilege to
s
lead, not to follow. Command, not obey. Above all, it is the
right and duty of the legislature to keep these railroads under sure
and absolute control, for in this little word control we hold the key
to the armory of their power. Go sure-footed along here, for the
man who votes to surrender that key to any corporation, under any
pretext whatever, will have the " plain people " administering on
his political estate before the "remains " pass out under the sol¬
emn dome and eagle of the state house.
Edward H. Weston.
Whitefield, N. H.
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