The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1873-08-15
Speech of Gov Booth, of California.

Gov. Booths great speech before the
mass meeting under the auspices of the
Peoples Union. was given last Tuesday
night is the sensation of the day. Touch
ing the disintegration of political parties
that have growing tendency towards the
Capitalization Of power and aggregation
of corporate wealth he illustrated alb
solute power of railways over the CONNER
cial business by special and discriminating
rates in transportation. and applying his
remarks to the Central Pacific railroad, and
reciting its interference in political and
mercantile affairs on the Pacific coast.
He showed that his general propositions
were neither exaggerated nor sensational
appeal, he said, to the experience of
every business man in this community who
takes part or feels an interest in public af-
fairs to say if they can get together COM
mittee for the purpose of considering any
question of public importance without in.
stantly feeling the encroachng power of
this railroad monopoly The moment such
committee trenches upon rail- DAD ground,
how many feel that it is dangerous ground,
full of pitfalls for their personal safety,
ATTEMPT to create an organization to resist
railroad demands, no matter how bold
and INSCRIPTIONS, and how many will tell
you IL should like to join you but it
will certainly injure me in my business.
The railroad can take awaymy special or
give discriminating facilities to my neigh
Dor They can give out all along the line
that none of their employers shall deal
with me. They can ruin merchants who
will not regard their orders. 1t may be a
question of ruin, of bankruptcy, of bread
to my family The struggle of his man
hood is earnest and painful but the yoke is
upon his neck. The war in his soul. 4
ballot box is stuffed or returns are altered
to carry one railroad subsidy and then
another demand follows
They will say ~ know it is wrong. it is an
outrage, but my property is all in the city
They cannot affect its ultimate value, but
it is mortgaged, and they can unscttlc
prices by their threats, and | should soon
have a Sheriff at my door, if | resist their
demands. What interest is there here
which cannot be made tn feel this iron
pressure But as If it were too tedious to
capture there several interests in detail
they 90 to Congress and demand posses
sion of Goat Island, they still demand it
and board that they will get it if they
carry this election. Reserved, though it is
for military purposes, they scarcely intend
to change its purpose. They only intend
to lombard the city from it instead of
bombarding the city's enemies until their
demands are conceded. In Gods name
look at it. You are one hundred thousand
they are but three men. Have they got
hook in the jaws of this levathan to draw
it as they please Even in the country,
farmers will tell you that rates for trans
portation may be changed, or their depots
may he moved to their disadvantage,
or else their accommodations restricted
Or they tell you that they owe money upon
railroad sections of land with imperfect
titles and that they too la tolls. To
one community seductive hopes are held
ont threats are made to another to sway
both to the monopolies will. Go through
the State and upon every pulse of industry
there is All iron finger counting its beats.
Upon every throat there is an iron hand
that tightens or rclaxes its grasp at the in
stance or caprice of an iron will. | have
referred but incidentally to that twin birth
of incestuous shame, the Credit MObilier
and the Contract and Finance company. |
have said nothing of two hundred and
twenty-fOur millions of acres of public
lands, three times the area of Great Britain
given to railroad companies, and at the
last session of Congress bills were intro
duced giving one hundred and eighty-ninc
millions more.
have said nothing of the millions and
hundreds of millions of which the southern
states have been robbed under false pre-
tence that railroads were to he built by
paper companies, to whom these millions
were granted.
have made no reference to the $50, 000,-
600 that this state and its counties have
been asked to appropriate for railroad COM
panies through legislative action and pop
ular notes.
Nor have cited the fact that while the
general government is paying two millions
of dollars per annum interest on bonds of
the Central Pacific railroad company and
state $105, 200 more, the company can sue
ccssfully defy the state to collect its taxes.
With an effrontery that is sublime it makes
the very gifts and largesses it has received
on the ground of its refusal to pay
to such infamous successes we are in
debted for the fact that to-day there is
not piece or species of public property
from China basin and Goat Island to all
the broad acres of our national domain,
from the remotest point on the noun
tains to the rolling waters of rivers, of
plains upon which some incipient or full
grown monopoly has not fixed its covetous
eye and which it does not hope to obtain
through some kind of political corruption