If there ever was a sacred vested right, it is the absolute right
of the people in every franchise and in every charter which they
grant. The very condition precedent of every grant by the
people was the guaranty of reciprocal benefit, a fair and reason-
able return on an honest, actual investment, on one hand, and
efficient and adequate service at cost, on the other. But when
franchises and charters are prostituted by Big Business and ^Tiigh
finance" to the exploitation and robbery of the people; when
through the franchises and charters, not only fixed and operating
expenses, but the very capital itself is wrung from the people, not
once but twice, thrice and many times over; when on these fran-
chises and charters pretension and incompetency has built the
greatest maelstrom of waste and loss in industrial history; when
on these franchises and charters is based the most colossal con-



THE MAGNATE OR THE PEOPLE. 229

fidence game, the most '^gigantic skin-game which the world
has ever known/^ it not only is the right of the people, but it
becomes the solemn duty of the people, to terminate, to annul
and to destroy those franchises and charters. But, says apolo-
getics, how about sacred capital? How about the honest and
innocent investments of the ^^widows and orphans ?^^ Sacred
capital, indeed? When the "widows and orphans^' of the Penn-
sylvania E. R., in thirty-four hours destroyed $5,000,000 worth
of property, belonging to the "widows and orphans,^^ of the
Western Union Telegraph Company, how about this sacred cap-
ital? When "widows and orphans" have built up huge fortunes
by skinning, by starving and by wrecking hundreds of millions
of railroad property, how about these sacred investments? When
did the "widows and orphans" of Big Business and of high
finance hold anybody^s property, capital, and investment
sacred, but their own? But whence came this sacred capital?
Did it come from wheat, com, shoes and clothing, produced by
the "widows and orphans," and added to the annual product; or
did it come through the everlasting I. 0. 