The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1873-04-11
Plain Talk by Gov. Palmer.

The following are the remarks of ex-
Gov. Palmer before the Illinois Farmers
Convention
This convention is an event of the
highest significance. 1t is fact that we
are generally too much absorbed in mat
tiers of little consequence but / think
the times have changed all that, and that
conventions are being held to consider
questions of the gravest moment. What
is the cause of all this disturbance? Your
farms are loaded with produce your
barns are full, and your harvests have
been bountiful, but you are compelled to
give to others too large portion of what
you earn. You need the money. You
need all you can earn. i think there is
no dispute on that point. You cannot
use the old-fashioned wagon to get your
crops to market, and you must use rail
ways whether you want to or not. The
business of the country has become
adapted to railways, and the question is
not one between railways and the OK
cart, but between the railways and the
builders of roads and payers of taxes.
Now can you regulate this matter of rail
way charges There is no divine right
of kings in this country. We make Presi-
dents, and as you can prove by me we
make and unmake Governors, and the
old principle of vested rights is as fall
lacious and rotten as that other super
stition of the divine right of kings, be-
fore which men used to tremble and turn
pale. The germ of this whole subject
of vested rights is the Dartmouth Col
lege case. A State never made a beng
more lofty than the being that God
makes, and no corporation can have
rights superior to the rights of the citi-
zens. The roads have right to take
the lands, for you gave it to them, but
they have no right to go beyond the linn
is of reason and justice, in making their
charges for carrying freights and pas
sengers. The principles of free govern
ment prohibit the right to do injustice
to the people. No government can be
superior to the people themselves, and
when the people of Illinois determine
that they will not submit to exactions
they will begin to cease. When it is I'M
derstood that men will not submit to
them their liberties are safe, and then
only. Laws must be submitted to and
obeyed, so long as they are in force. But
when laws do not accomplish that for
which they were framed, they should be
changed. Youmust look at this railway
question from radical standpoint, and
must take the position that whatever it
is necessary to do you will do. You have
declared railways to be highways that
they are under the control of the Legis-
lature and that their officers are public
agents. The managers of these railways
are in Wall street, New York, and your
troubles begin there among the jobbers
in these stocks. There are in other large
cities railway stocks which are personal
property and pass from hand to hand
They are the subjects upon which men
gamble. Now you should repeal the laws
that make them personal property and
have them so managed that you would
know of their transfers and who owned
the stocks. You cannot, as it now is,
get at the real managers of these West
ern railways / would sweep out of ex-
istence the laws by which these stocks
are made personal property. / would
fix it so the stock could not be watered.
Who knows what the roads in this State
cost? No one except railway men, for
the stocks are watered, and watered to
death. / would declare these railways
to be highways, and allow farmers and
others to put cars upon these tracks and
compete with the railway companies in
their own business, and when this can be
done much will have been accomplished.
We are but in the infancy of this bust
ness, and men are now living who will
see railways multiplied indefinitely, and
you must study this thing with n view of
getting at what is to be. You remember
in Jackson's time how men shook at the
idea of having a corporation control
thirty-six millions Why, there are
men here who can remember how that
idea made men shake. What do you see
now? Men who control untold millions
to corrupt the people. A man in Penn
sylvania, who can raise the price of every
thing that you raise, for his own benefit
and prosperity keeps whispering, "Don't
interfere with vested rights" Why, l
can remember few years ago few hun
dred millions of dollars of vested rights
were at the South. But now a remnant
of those vested rights are voting III
Springfield to-day
Now, how is it about the politicians :?
| think l can tell you something about
them. If you want the politicians in
this State to be true TO your interests, be
true to them yourselves. Your repre-
sentatives will always be as weak or as
strong as you are. Don't lose confidence
in your own government. A government
of the people moves slow but don't be
impatient, for no change is worth any
thing that is not brought about by the
people themselves. Recollect you have
a good deal of work to 10, and don't get
prejudiced against men who are serving
you well and | believe that the Legis-
lature and Governor of this State are
doing their best to find solution of this
question but punch them up little.
That's my speech.