Litchfield enquirer., 1873-09-18

bor; they can issue orders all along the line that none of their employees shall deal with me; they can ruin merchants who will not regard their orders. It may be 8
 question of ruin, of bankruptcy, of bread
 to my family" .as. ss5.ss as.. The struggle of his manhood is earnest
 and painful, but the yoke is upon his
 neck, the iron in his soul Others will
 join yod, act with you in all sincerity, perhaps. There comes a time when a tempting offer is held out, new road or
 bridge IS to be located where 1t will inure
 to great public use and private advan-
 tage, improvements are to be made that will advance particular property, then
 there are vacant places on the committee,
 sudden conversions, and ingenious com promises where one party takes the oys- ter and the other the shell. 1 God in Heaven! You are two hundred
 thousand-they are three! Have they
 got nook in the jaws of this leviathan,
 to draw it as they please? -........ | THE GOVERNORS COMMUNISM.
 l l believe that the man who owns one dollar holds it by right as sacred as the
 man who holds million; and that the
 man who does own 8 million does not acquire, by that ownership, any greater right to take the dollar, than the owner of the dollar has to take the million. l do
 not subscribe to that doctrine of political
 ethics, To him that hath shall be given, and from him who hath not it shall be
 taken away, even that which he hath"
 do not concur in the new Scriptural read ing, ''Sell all thou hast and give it to
 railroad company" The man who has
 earned his dollars by the honest sweat of
 his brow, or his brain; the man who has
 received by inheritance, or who has ac-
 cumulated by industry, energy, thrift, frugality, foresight, or good luck,-I
 would protect his fortune, small or great, by every sanction and imminent of law.
 Housed in his possessions-cabino or cas- tle-he should be protected from the
 touch of the government and the fury of the mob. But if he had GespoiledS the
 nations inheritance, m his greed of gain 1 and power; if he had bought legislators, judges and executives; if he had organ
 ized corruption into system, made hrib-
 cry trade, until he had debauched the
 moral sense of the people by the grandeur
 of his robbery, and all titles became
 insecure in his grasping presence-I | should say-I should say-I hink should say that he had enough, and that the fact that he had taken so much did not give him in reason and shQuld not
 ln law, vested, absolute and indefeasible right to take all there is left And, wheth- CT It he 2 nan, or a corporation, or a system of corporations bound together by the common hopes of public plunder,
 l do not think should modify the senti- l ment To this degree has my ''commu-
 nism' come. Is yours shade less-or | more?
 Is CORPORATION INDIsPENSABIE? There are those who believe that 8 certain amount of political corruption is
 necessary for the maintenance of any gov ernment. confess respect those who | avow the sentiment more than do those | who act upon it without avowing it. There | are those who believe that the system now
 in vogue is the only one under which rail-
 roads can be built do not think so
 do not believe that 40, ,O00, 900 of Ameri-
 can people, with $50, COG, ,O00, 900 of proper l ty, must barter their birthright to secure transportation. do not think railroads
 need be political machines any more than grist-mills, tin-sAops, and farms. In thir- ty years the population of the United l States will approximate 100, ,000, 900 souls, it's property values $1OO, ,O0O, 900, ,OOO Do J field, the fruit on the trees, the vessel at the docks and that all commercial and in-
 dustrial life Is to stagnate, if the admInis-
 tration of the government is not given up
 to railroad companies and their allies? i do not believe the future of California, with all it's illimitable possibilities, should be mortgaged now to any set of persons
 with power to appoint guardians and re- ceivers for all generations to come. To this complexion it will come unless we burst the bands wherewith We are bound before our locks are shorn?
 SHALL THE GOVERNMENT TAKE THE ROADS One solution proposed is, that the gov- ernment take possession of all the roads.
 That this would involve a concentration of
 power in the general government, and
 must be preceded by a civil service reform
 of Q nature of which as yet we have had
 no experience, none will deny. It has lately been urged in newspapers of wide circulation in this state that we must vote for legislative candidates who would go
 into caucus in order to get appropriations
 for our state. The logical conclusion of
 this argument-if it have any-is that we
 must vote particular ticket, designated
 in particular way and in well-known
 office, or our forts may be dismantled
 and our mails be stopped. Charles the
 First in his boldest moments would not
 have dared to use such words to the Commons of c treat Britain, and if Louis XIV, when he said 'I am the state" had
 acted upon such pollcy, he would have
 lost his head. I do not believe any ad-
 ministration ever elected by the American people ever deserved such a reproach-if so, we are already slaves. But the very
 use of such an argument by an intelligent
 man in public newspaper, must s'give
 us pause" upon the question of conferring additional power until We have additional guarantees. We have at least reached
 the point, however, where we can say when the government does build the roads it should own and operate them for the public good, and where the government
 has loaned its credit and given it's lands
 to build road, and been defrauded of its securities, 1t has the right, and should exercise the power, to take possession of the road 's4fe - 1a-i-l'7'3' ia#-
 If no man has yet been able to devise a solution for the whole question, every man knows the first step which must be taken before any solution can be reached The political power and dictation of these corporations, whether they comprise three men or three thousand, must be broken.
 That tyranny which is potent when exer-
 cised upon individuals and interests in detail must be destroyed by general
 uprising of all individuals and interests,
 heralded by new declaration of indepen-
 dence.
 The Amarican people are just people,
 law-abiding people, debt-paying peo- pie; and it is not necessary for any corpor- alton to own the government in order to protect it's rights-that only becomes nec-
 essary in order to peFpetuate wrongs. The time has come when the people should assert their rights, through forms of law, to exercise that control over railroads which will secure uniformity, fairness and accountability. The issue is fairly made up between the people upon the one side and railroads and allied corporations up- on the other-which shall govern.
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