The hearings were continued. President Smith of the New York Central, a Vanderbilt property, took the stand. Mr. Thorne submitted figures showing that his road had made eleven per cent net profit, that it had put by an eleven-million-dollar surplus, that if its dividends had been properly figured they would have been fifty-four per cent. President Smith was absolutely helpless, dumb. And how do you think the New York newspapers treated that incident? The “New York World” gave it this headline: “GOING TO THE DEVIL FAST, SAYS HEAD OF NEW YORK CENTRAL.” And not a word about Thorne! Likewise the “New York Times” gave President Smith’s testimony in full, and nothing about Thorne! The “Philadelphia Public Ledger,” the “Baltimore Sun,” the “Chicago Herald” the same. (“By the Associated Press”!) And next day came the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He, too, was helpless in the hands of Mr. Thorne; he admitted that he had made a stock allotment of forty-five million dollars; but again the same papers did not mention the matter. And next day came the vice-president of the “Baltimore & Ohio,” and the same thing happened. All over the country the newspapers were full of articles portraying a railroad panic, our greatest roads “going to the devil,” according to the sworn testimony of their officials—and never one word about State Railroad Commissioner Thorne of Iowa! All these are positive acts; and now for a moment consider the negative—the good things that newspapers might do and don’t! I could write a volume dealing with plans and social possibilities known to me, whereby the life of mankind might be made over; but you might as well start to fly to the moon as ask a capitalist newspaper to take these things up. For example, the idea of a co-operative home, as tried at Helicon Hall; or the idea set forth by Edgar Chambless in his book, “Roadtown.” Did you ever hear of “Roadtown”? The chances are ninety-nine out of a hundred that you never did. If you are near a library, you may look it up in the “Independent,” May 5, 1910. I will say in brief that it is a plan which won the approval of the best engineers, to build a city in a way that would save seventy per cent of the necessary labor of mankind forever after, and increase by several hundred per cent the total of human happiness. You did not find this plan “boosted” by capitalist newspapers—because its inventor sternly refused all propositions to exploit it for profit, and insisted upon preserving the idea for the free use and benefit of humanity. CHAPTER LI THE PRESS AND THE RADICALS