_Sam Spencer_
Not long ago the Voting Trustees of the Southern Railway Company wrote to
Samuel Spencer, President of that robber combine, in the following terms:
“We congratulate you upon the success achieved in the extension and
operation of the property which have resulted in nearly doubling the
extent of its lines, trebling its gross earnings, and increasing its
net earnings above fixed charges, _over five hundred and twenty-five
per cent._ in the period of eleven years which have elapsed since its
formation.”
Bully for Sam!
He set out to please the men who bought him, and he has done it.
The Wall Street rascals who grabbed up the railroads in the Southern
States knew very well that they themselves could not do the work which
was required for the success of their schemes. The Belmonts and the
Morgans could not in person approach the editors, the politicians, the
legislators and the federal judges.
Strategy requires that local men be used in the looting of any given
state or section. One traitor inside the citadel is worth ten thousand
soldiers on the outside, when the object is to take the citadel. To bribe
somebody from within to open the gates is far more effective, vastly more
to be desired, than to attempt to breach the walls or batter down the
gates.
Consequently when Western states are to be plundered, the Wall
Street corporations use Western men as their tools. Local Western
corruptionists sell out to Wall Street, and do in Western states the
dirty work of their Wall Street masters.
So in the South, the Wall Street robber-gangs do not operate in person;
they act through Southern agents.
In pursuance of this subtle policy, the Wall Street corporations, who
gobbled up the various lines which now compose the Southern Railway
System, put at the head of it a Southern man, a Georgian, of the name of
Samuel Spencer.
They chose wisely. They generally choose wisely. The expert workman does
not better know how to select his tools than such men as Belmont, Morgan,
Ryan, Rogers and Rockefeller know how to pick out the men who can do what
Wall Street expects.
The Wall Street rascals had faith in Sam Spencer, and Sam has justified
that confidence.
Never did any robber-chief have an abler lieutenant than Belmont, the
Rothschild agent, has had in Sam.
The task to which they set him was hard. It demanded that he freeze his
heart and stifle his conscience. It demanded that he shut out from his
view of life every other purpose whatsoever, save the heaping up of
dividends for a ravenous gang of Wall Street rascals.
To make his work seem good in the sight of the men who had bought him it
was necessary that he combine railroads which the law said should not be
combined, that he destroy competition where the law said it should live,
that he charge excessive rates to shippers and passengers when the law
said the rates should be reasonable.
He has done this in spite of the law, in spite of the people.
How?
[Illustration: “One traitor inside the citadel is worth ten thousand
soldiers on the outside.”]
Editors have been bribed into collusion or silence; politicians have been
softened with boodle; lobbyists have been kept in clover; legislators
have been duped or corrupted. Railroad Commissions have been seduced or
defied, federal judges have been mellowed with favors, blandishments,
indirect temptings which poor human nature can seldom resist.
Bully for Sam!
He is victorious all along the line. From Washington City he rules the
South. In his native State of Georgia he is monarch of all he surveys.
He made Terrell governor, and he means to make Howell governor. He
controlled nearly all the daily papers, but he wanted another—so he had
Jim English to cut the ground from under the feet of John Temple Graves
and scoop the _Atlanta News_.
Hamp McWhorter is his hireling, and Hamp keeps the mechanism of
corruption oiled. Hamp keeps the Legislature in pliant mood. Hamp jollies
and greases the local politician. Hamp peddles the free passes. Hamp
picks and chooses the “local attorneys.” Hamp “sees” the editor who
appears to require “seeing.”
But the Brain and Will of the whole plot are those of Sam Spencer.
For eleven years that God-given brain and will have been concentrated
upon one purpose, only one—to heap up riches for Wall Street rascals!
Great has been the result. Sam Spencer’s masters are so highly pleased
with his work that THEY congratulate HIM!
How interesting! It seems to me that _they_ are the fellows to be
congratulated. Sam has doubled the amount of their property, he has
trebled the gross income from that property, and has increased their
_net_ revenues _over 525 per cent_!