EDITORIALS
A Generous Railroad IT IS NOT so long ago that Louis D. Brandeis suggested to the railroad officials that if they introduced a little more scientific management into their business they would have...
...It is the policy of his company, he explained, to treat all industries along its line as generously as possible...
...If they mean business, why do not they come over into the Democratic Party, which is a great and powerful organization, and help us accomplish at least some of the things that ought to be accomplished...
...These things are not recalled with any purpose of disparaging Missouri's "gumshoe" statesman...
...It was pointed out by Senator Bourne that the southern states, the territories and other possessions, which never cast electoral votes for the Republican ticket, and whose delegations are dictated by the federal machine, had 338 delegates in the convention, making it necessary for the Administration candidate to secure only 153 more to control the convention while friends of any other candidate had 491 to secure...
...It was hoped that its effect could be mitigated by denouncing its author...
...There were in the last Republican National Convention 980 delegates, making 491 necessary to a choice...
...For those who speak and think most readily in the terms of current political expression, we will explain that the statesman here referred to is the same who is perhaps best known by the agnomen of "Gum-shoe Bill" Stone...
...The thing could not be denied or "explained" or argued away...
...The first remedy has been adopted in five states, namely, Oregon, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Dakota and Wisconsin, and should be adopted in every other state...
...Testifying before the House committee that is investigating the Steel Trust, Mr...
...It was Honorable William Joel Stone, United States Senator from Missouri, who spoke thus on the floor of the Senate a few days ago...
...If we recollect aright, it was the chief of the railroad lobby and a leader among the System political bosses of Missouri, who, when exposed as a result of the enterprise of Folk, declared of the Missouri Senator, "Bill Stone sucks eggs as I do, but he hides the shells...
...For these two evils, control of conventions and coercion of representatives, three remedies were suggested: first, a popular vote in the primaries for candidates for President and Vice President...
...La Follette had, in the Senate in open session, held up to the view of the Senate and of country, this made-in-the-dark arrangement and its purpose to protect from public exposure and possible prosecution the System Interests and the System corruptionists who had furnished the money to "put Lorimer over...
...The Abuse of Patronage THE VICIOUS INFLUENCE of federal patronage in national politics is pretty generally understood...
...We suggest that you read Senator Bourne's speech carefully and use it whenever you can in the campaign in your own state to bring the naming of presidential candidates more directly to the voteis...
...He was merely trying to deceive others...
...The second remedy is based upon good business principles as well as good governmental policy...
...It occured to many who knew something about the close communion that exists between the directorates of railroads and the directorates of great industrial interests, like steel, for instance, that there was little likelihood of the purchasing departments of the railroads driving too hard a bargain in buying equipment and rails and supplies...
...How this power is misused for the purpose of influencing legislation and controlling the action of national conventions was described by Senator Jonathan Bourne, Jr...
...How about the thousands of shippers and passengers who are served by the Pennsylvania railroad...
...And more, doubtless, will be heard about it in the months to come...
...Hence, he was not in sympathy with La Follette's exposure of it in its true light...
...It was a strong speech, fearless, logical and with a wealth of detail that carried conviction...
...of Oregon in a speech on the floor of the United States Senate last February...
...Roberts admitted that two other directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad—Messers H. C. Frick and C. A. Griscom—were also directors in the United States Steel Corporation, but declared that neither he nor his two colleagues acted on any matters of business that passed between the steel corporation and the railroad...
...second, adoption of the policy of making federal appointments upon the recommendation of Senators and Congressmen in the states in which the appointees are to serve...
...Doubtless this generosity on the part of the railroad helps the gigantic Steel Trust to keep the wolf from the door, but who pays for it...
...He said: "The railroad knows that its prosperity is absolutely dependent upon the shippers who use its lines, and consequently it has always endeavored to aid in the promotion of the shippers' prosperity, certain that such a course would be benifi-¦cial to itself...
...The third remedy suggested is almost sure to come if the abuse of the appointing power continues...
...No, "Gum-shoe Bill" was not deceived...
...To have joined Stone and the other System Democrats on the issues in the Lorimer case, for example, would have been also to have joined with and supported the System Republicans upon those issues...
...Directly, earnestly, with no attempt at oratory, Senator Bourne described the long train of evils that follow in the wake of the abuse of the federal appointing power, and suggested a practicable and constructive remedy...
...It came out, too, that the Pennsylvaxia Railroad is paying $32 and $33 a ton for rails, and not $28 a ton at which common Bessemer rails are quoted...
...Hiding the Shells" "THE TROUBLE about the Senator from Wisconsin and his immediate associates," announced Senator Stone of Missouri, referring to La Follette and the other Progressive Republicans, "is that they content themselves with denunciatory, oratorical outbursts and fruitless declamations...
...Senator Bourne met the argument that this would enable Senators and Congressmen to build up political machines of their own by saying that if the appointing power is to be misused it is infinitely less a menace to the country to have it divided among 92 Senators and 391 Congressmen than to have it centralized in one man...
...The remarks above quoted were emitted by Senator Stone on the floor of the Senate in the course of a speech in which the Missourian attempted by denunciation to obscure the logic and dull the effect of Senator La Follette's exposure of the bi-partisan deal made in secret caucus, whereby the Martin substitute for La Follette's resolution for the re-investigation of the Lorimer case was agreed upon between the Old Guard of Aldrich Republicans and the Organization Democrats...
...The question then before the Senate presented too clearly to be ignored even by him some of the reasons why such affiliation is impossible...
...Last week we were told something about this matter by Percival Roberts, Jr., a director of the Pennsylvania Railroad and a director, also, of the United States Steel Corporation...
...It was not that the Missouri Senator did not appreciate the reasons why the Progressive Republicans cannot attach themselves to the "Democratic Party," by which the Senator, of course, meant the "regular" Democrats in the Senate...
...Nor are we dealing in personalities at all...
...It took courage to do that, but it was effective...
...It has been better known by the public since the publication of the "Norton letter...
...He was trying to "hide the shells...
...Stone was in sympathy with and supported this "gentlemen's agreement" between the Senate "Regulars" sitting on the opposite sides of the center aisle...
...When the railroad asks the steel corporation for prices on rails, for ex-ample,these three directors gracefully withdraw and leave the decision to the other directors, or to the selling agent...
...Is the price they have to pay for transportation affected at all by the very generous attitude of this railroad toward the Steel Trust...
...but they will not come to us nor lend us any effective aid...
...Secretary Norton's published letter, admitting the presidential use of federal patronage as a club with which to coerce members of Congress into supporting certain legislation, was read by Senator Bourne...
...A Generous Railroad IT IS NOT so long ago that Louis D. Brandeis suggested to the railroad officials that if they introduced a little more scientific management into their business they would have less cause to complain that they were not making all the money they want...
...Hence the speech of "Gum-shoe Bill" from which we have quoted above...
...Roberts, who is chairman of the supplies committee of the Pennsylvania Railroad directorate, was questioned by the committee about the policy of his company in accepting prices from the steel corporation without making any effort to get better figures...
...Instead of doing that, these twelve or thirteen Senators, banded together in a little alliance of so-called Progressive Republicans, stand aloof and content themselves with hurling philippics and jeremiads in the face of the majority—the controlling and dominating majority—of their own party...
...No president can know the relative qualifications of the men who are under consideration for appointment to the thousands of federal positions and since he must accept some one's recommendation he should follow the advice of the men who have been elected to represent the several states in Congress...
...It is simply that some understanding of the recognized characteristics of a speaker is frequently helpful in the interpretation of his expressions...
...third, a corrupt practices act making it a crime to use federal patronage as a means of coercion...
Vol. 3 • June 1911 • No. 24
