The Chandler Tribune (Chandler, Okla.), Vol. 10, No. 7, Ed. 1 Friday, May 20, 1910 Page: 2 of 8
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I
HON. Wm. H. MURRAY
Candidate for Governor
Will Speak at
Meeker at 10:30 a. m. May 26
Stroud at 3 p. m. May 26
Chandler at 8 p. m. May 26
Davenport at 11 a. m. May 27 Kendrick at 2:30 p. m. May 27
Come Out and Hear Him
INDICimONST^ VICTORY
To those Republicans who are In-
dustriously studying straws for some
encouraging sign there Is no word or
syllable of hope In recent occurren-
ces In Oklahoma. The shock of the
New England and the Rochester elec-
tions had hardly passed when the
Democracy of this fair state augu-
mented the Republican dismay by In-
augurating a most aggressive battle.
Democratic discord had become a
text of the hustings and the story of
a dlstrupted political organisation
filled the Republican press of the |
state. They had told the story of
inevitable Democratic discomfiture
until they believed It themselves. But
now their dream is ended and ended
In an hour.
The knell of vengeance was sound-
ed at Alva on the seventh of this
bright May. In a section that was
long ago Republican, in a district
where Democracy was alleged to
have lost its strength, on the border
line of bleeding Kansas where the In-
surgents are milling and the Wichita
Eagle screams—five thousand of the
faithful assembled beneath the lo-
cust trees at Alva to hear the Knight-
hood of Oklahoma initiate the great
campaign. And again on the ninth,
in answer to the clan call of Chair-
man Branson, the war chiefs of De-
mocracy assembled in council at
Oklahoma City in one of the most
aggreBive rallies ever called on Okla-
homa soil.
This is a Democratic year. The
high tides of revolution are at their
f'ow. From ocean to ocean there
is victory in the air. The unasham-
ed spirit of Democracy Is rallying
around its camp fires and enters
the red arena to once more claim
its own. "He who dallies is a das-
tard; he who doubts is already
damned." Fifty thousand Insur-
gent Republicans declare in anger
that their ship has been seized by
pirates and its guns spiked by trai-
tors. In truth this is a Democratic
tators ever since statehood put an
eternal end to the curse of territorial
proscription. Sacrificing every feel-
ing of civic pride and of the state
loyalty, they have shown themselves
willing to blacken the name of a com-
monwealth whose only offense has
been the election of Democratic offi-
cials.
But is the charge of capital exclu-
sion a true one? Is it true that Ok-
lahoma and its enterprises stifled
because of financial famine? Are
the railroads building in other states
and “chopping" in Oklahoma? If
these questions must be answered
in the affirmative, then tlve Republi-
can contention that Democratic ad-
ministration has superinduced com-
mercial paralysis is founded on fact
and must be vindicated by the suff-
rage of our people. But if the con-
trary condition is shown to exist,
then those current assertions are
nothing mor-' than mindless vapor-
ings without force, or consecration.
Upon the Republican claim that
capital is frightened from the state
by Democratic legislation much 'ight
is thrown by the recent sale of the
Kenefick bonds in Paris. While in
Muskogee a few days since, William
Kenefick of Kansas City president
of the Missouri, Oklahoma & Gulf
railroad, gave out a statement which
is very pertinent as illustrating the
question at Issue. He stated that his
company desiring to extend their
road from Wagoner north to Kansas
City, offered for sale in France three
million do’iarss’ worth of M. O.
THE SANTA FE RAILWAY.
Following is a fac-slmile of a letter
from President Ripley, respecting the
building of a rail road through sev-
eral of the northwestern counties of
the state of Oklahoma, extending
west from Avard or Alva, into Colo-
rado. This was in answer to an
inquiry from myself, and was writ-
ten in 1908, and shows that so far as
the president of the Santa Fe is con-
cerned, there is to be no building of
railways in our state till the people
are hoodwinked into the belief that
no road could or should be built till
an amendment to Article 9 of the
State Constitution is made, with-
drawing even a claim, by the state, to
control the rail roads. Here is the
letter of Mr. Ripley;
“THE ATCHISON TOPEKA AND
SANTA FE RAILWAY SYSTEM.
Rail Way Exchange, 9 Jackson
Bouleard, Chicago.
President's Office.
November, 24 1908.
Mr. E. R. Williams,
Buffalo, Okla.
Dear Sir.—I have yours of the
twenty-first instant.
A Rail Road through Beaver Co-
unty from East to west was one of
our plans, and it probably would
have been built before this if the
people of your state had not served
notice on all outside capital that it
is not wanted and is not safe in Okla-
homa. Any man who would in-
vest a dollar in an Oklahoma road
under your present constitution and
with your Railroad Commission re-
ducing rates every week would be a
fit candidate for the lunatic asylum.
If you succeed in building your road
it is my be'ief that you will have to
&
& G. bonds. In six days, according
to Mr. Kenefick, these bonds were
subscribed »wo times over. In other
words, when the people of France
were offered three millions of Okla-
homa securities they took six days
to investigate and then asked for six
millions. And French financiers are
beyond question among the most
careful in the world.
Such is the answer of figures to
the argument of the agitator. It is
unfortunate for our Republican con-
temporaries that these figures are
accessible for the figures cannot pos-
FARM LOANS
There is just one person, Albert E.
Ross, in Lincoln county, with
whom you can close the usual
low rate farm loan direct and
who takes the loan in his own
name. All others simply act as
agents for loan people out of the
county or state.
Why not deal direct with a home
man? Money furnished when
papers are signed. You avoid the
usual delay. Interest payable
once a year aod any month in
the year you may select. Rates
and terms to interest you. Full
particulars furnished. Write or
call
"Roads" to build them a line there.
And this is the way benefactions by
colonization has always been practic-
ed by the people or the government.
Talk about colonization of Beaver
county! Why, it has some of the
oldest fruit orchards and farms in
the state. Old Beaver county has
betweeen 35 and 40 thousand people.
Harper and the North West of Woods
county have 25,000 more without a
road. 60,000 people of Woods, Har-
per, Texas, Cimmaron and Beaver
counties, are going from 20 to 40
or even 50 miles to market their
stuff, and have been doing so for 10
years. If Mr. Ripley is honest about
going to build this road why has it
not been done long ago? He knows
it. will pay—the first year—and we
all know it. If these poor laborers
did not spend from one third to half
of their time on the road to market,
their patronage to the present roads
would be from 1-3 to 1-2 greater
than it now is, and their farms
would produce just that much more
for the same time and labor, and that
much more freight would be given
the roads.
The monied oligarchy is the veal
government of these United States,
and Ripley knows it, and intends to
coerce the proud patriots of Okla-
homa to lay down and let that gov-
ernment alone. The corporations
will not obey Article 9 of the Consti-
tution. Therefore I am in favor of
State Rail Road building, whether
the amendment "9-49” carries or
not.
1 do not believe that the road pro-
posed for the northwest, from Okla-
homa City, is anything but a plain
open defiance of the voters of the
northwest. It simply says: “Vote
for section 49 and get the road, vote
against it and lose it.” Such a pro-
position by any citizen outside of a
corporation would be mainfest bri-
bery. In the same way they have
always filched bonds from certain
townships, made to compete with
certain other, by the clandestine cor-
porations, who ever have impaled
the people’s sacred rights on the
point of awager they had themselves
proposed.
Vote for yourse'f and your inter-
ests by voting down “49” and then
vote for the state to build its own
roads. It will pay, and it will carry.
E. R. WILLIAMS.
raise the money among your own
people for certainly no outside aid
can be secured—and even if you
could build it complete and offer it
to us free, we would not accept It
with an obligation to operate it
under your laws. It would take at
least five years of hard work to
colonize the territory befor. the road
would do anything more than pay
bare operating expenses, and as soon
as it did begin to earn something
—and probably sooner—your Corpo-
ration Commission would order us to
put on more trains and reduce the
rates.”
Signed ED RIPLEY.
While the Railway Companies
do but litttle road building, this talk j
of Ripley is characteristic of all of
them when they desire to whip the
people into line as in Oklahoma.
When they thus give out the state-
ment that roads do not pay in a 1
given state or geographic territory,
as a matter fo business, their word is
taken by capitalists who are invest-
ing, and consequently their word is
made good that no roads are build-
ing that they become the slanderers
who block the game. We have a
tabulated statement of the "Reve-
nues” and “Expenses” of the whole
Santa Fe system for the fiscal year
ending June 30, 1908, the year ante-
dating Mr. Ripley's letter. That
year the road cleared $20,000. He
claims, in the matter that the benefi-
cent Santa Fe would be obliged to
colonize Beaver, Harper and Wood
counties, for five long years, before
they could expect any returns for
their benefaction. We have also a
statement by the "Chicago Rock Is-
land and Pacific,” which shows that
for the same year (1906-7), that
from only three stations on their line
through o’d Beaver county, (now
Texas) that the receipts for all
freights, baggage, ticket sales etc.
amount, in round numbers, to $631,-
000. Over half a million in one year
from three depots. Those who know
the facts know how much coloniza-
tion of the public domain the rail
road companies have done. The gov-
ernment gave them hundreds of mil-
lions of acres of ground to assist in
their benefactions (!) across the
continent, in an early day, and they
have filched from the people hun-
dreds of millions in bonds to build
most of the other roads that have
been built. This same Beaver co-
unty which Mr. Ripley would have
us believe is not yet settled, has been Chamberlain’s Cough Remedy is sold on a
„ j . . . ........ _ . „ guarantee that if you are not satished after
offered the Right of Way and so • U8jng two-thirds of a bottle according to
many thousand dollars per mile for 1 directions, your money will be refunded. It
years to induce capital or the it up to you to try.
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Smith, G. A. The Chandler Tribune (Chandler, Okla.), Vol. 10, No. 7, Ed. 1 Friday, May 20, 1910, newspaper, May 20, 1910; (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc915531/m1/2/: accessed April 24, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.