The streets of New York City, which I have called franchise wealth or franchise property to distinguish this kind of property from the private property of the individual, were built and are maintained with money contributed by all the citizens; and all the citizens are as fully entitled to the usufruct of them, as is any individual to the usufruct of his private property.
The individual manages his private property or he employs an agent to manage it for him. And he holds this agent to a strict account. If the agent appropriates the income from the use of his private property the law steps in and justly punishes him. Acting collectively, the individuals elect by ballot a mayor and board of aldermen and members of the State legislature as agents to manage their franchise property for them.
“Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” In every large city there is a fat carcass of franchise wealth, and there you find the corporation eagles, and the political eagles gathered together to gorge themselves on it. The corporation eagles deceive the unsuspecting citizens by a pretended desire to serve them. They call themselves “public service corporations.” There never was a worse misnomer than this. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They fatten on the people’s franchise wealth and serve no one except themselves and their congeners, the political eagles. So far from being servants they become the masters of the people whose property they have obtained by every corrupt device that the vulpine instinct of man can invent.
The political eagles that feed on the franchise carcass have a different way of deceiving the people. They organize themselves into what they call a political party, and, by working three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, while other men are attending to their legitimate businesses, they get control of the legal political machinery of one of the great national parties. The name by which they call their organization will depend on the particular city they are operating in. In New York, for instance, they call themselves Democrats, not because they know or care anything about the principles of Democracy, but because a majority of the independent voters are Democrats, and then they secure the votes to elect their candidates from the very people they intend to despoil once they get in. For a similar reason the political eagles of Philadelphia call their organization Republican. If the majority of the voters of any city favored prohibition, you would have that city’s organized political eagles calling themselves Prohibitionists. New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, every city in this country which has a fat franchise wealth carcass, has its corporation and political eagles gathered together to devour it.
When a complete history of New York City for the past forty years is written, not the least interesting chapters will be an account of the development, growth and present perfection of the system by which the corporations and politicians enriched themselves at the expense of the people, and how the people were so hypnotized that they were unable to rise in their might and drive out these cormorants. This era of corruption began with William M. Tweed. The enterprise was in its infancy then and Tweed was a blunderer. He and his associates robbed the city treasury on false vouchers, fraudulent bills, etc. Then came Jake Sharp, who bribed the aldermen outright with cash to induce them to hand over to him some millions worth of the people’s franchise wealth. Tweed and his people, Jake Sharp and the boodle aldermen got into trouble, state prison or exile.
Politicians do not like striped clothes when the stripes all run one way any better than other folks do. So a new and safer system had to be found for exploiting the people. Money in the form of campaign contributions from the individual or corporation who wants something to the head of the organization who could deliver that something after election, looked good and safe, and this is the plan which has been in operation in New York for some years.
During the last mayoralty campaign in this city I was told one evening by a man who is thoroughly reliable, and who is in a position to know, that the Consolidated Gas Company, of this city, had paid $300,000 into the campaign fund of Tammany Hall. George B. McClellan, the Tammany candidate for mayor, was elected. In less than one year after taking office he signed the so-called Remsen gas bill. Had it become a law it would have tightened the clutch of the Gas Trust more firmly on the people of this city and would have turned over to that corporation some millions more of their franchise wealth. Fortunately a Republican governor vetoed it and saved, for the time at least, further encroachments on the people’s rights.
And you have today the spectacle of this so-called Democratic mayor lined up with the Trust magnates and their money-bags at the big ends of the gas-tubes and against the people of all parties who suffer extortion at the little ends of the gas-tubes. He is actually opposing the efforts of the people of this city to secure the necessary legislation to permit them to build and operate their own gas-plants and deliver the gas to themselves through pipes laid in their own streets. And if you refuse to support such a man you are likely to be told by an insolent Tammany Hall henchman that you are no Democrat.
Talk about municipal ownership! Why, the municipality, which is another name for the people, already own everything they need. They own the streets and the right of way through them, and they own the money to build lighting plants, railways and telephone lines. The only thing they do not own is permission to use their own property. And this is withheld from them by greedy Trust magnates through their bought-up politicians.
We need MEN in this city who cannot be deceived by the names Democracy and Republicanism. We need men who will stand together and protect our franchise property against grafting politicians and grafting political organizations, no matter by what names they call themselves. New York City may be likened to a big “skyscraper” laid on its side. The streets correspond to the elevator shafts. Now, what would be thought of the sanity of a company of men who built a high office building, hotel or apartment house and allowed their agents to give away to outsiders the right to run the elevators and the further right to prey upon the tenants who are obliged to use them? Yet this is exactly what the politicians have done and are doing with the streets of this city.