330 The Plan of the Ages.
tion shall restrict their liberties, charges, etc., and compel their operation in such a manner as to serve the public bet- ter. As it is, railroads built during a period of inflated val- ues, instead of curtailing their capital to conform to the gener- al shrinkage of values experienced in every other department of trade, have multiplied their originally large capital stocks two or three times (commonly called watering their stocks), without real value being added. Thus it comes that great railroad systems are endeavoring to pay interest and divi- dends upon stocks and bonded debts which on an average are four times as great as these railroads would aclually cost to-day new. As a consequence the public suffers. Fanners are charged heavily for freights, and sometimes find it profitable to burn their grain for fuel; and thus the cost of food to the people is greater without being to the far- mer's advantage. It is proposed to remedy this matter, so that railroads shall pay to their stockholders about four per cent, on their present actual value, and not four to eight per cent, on three or four times their present value, as many of them now do, by preventing competition through pool- ing arrangements.
We well know, says the artisan, that in the eyes of those who hold watered railroad stocks, and other stocks, this re- duction of profits on their invested capital will seem terri- ble, and will come like drawing teeth, and that they will feel that their rights (?) to use their franchises granted by the people, to squeeze from them immense profits, based upon fictitious valuations, are being grievously outraged, and that they will resist it all they know how. But we feel that they should be thankful that the public is so lenient, and that they are not required to make restitution of millions of dollars already thus obtained. We feel that the time has come for the masses of the people to share more evenly the blessings of this day of blessings, and to do this it is necessary so
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