Vol. IV APRIL, 1906 No. 2
Editorials
BY THOMAS E. WATSON
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.