The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1874-04-02
THE RUTLAND. GLOBE THURSDAY MORNING APRIL 1871

ties and the equal rights of this country are
to be preserved, they are to be preserved
by State and local government. What
does Massachusetts know about the govern
ment that ought to exist in California?
What does California know about how the
school system of Massachusetts should be
administered? Neither of them ought to in.
termeddle with the rights and duties of the
other Each of them should be at liberty
to determine what its own method of gov
eminent should be; how its own people
should be ruled in their domestic affairs;
how its own sovereignty should be carried
on. The gentleman from Connecticut Mr.
Hawley1 in front Of me said, when some.
discussion was had in the last Congress on
the educational bill, that it was wiser to
have thirty-seven states to settle these
questions than to have one body like this
to settle them, and, although he always
speaks wisely, he never said wiser thing
than that. II you are going to bring the
local affairs of all parts of the country, in
all the thirty-seven States which we now
have, with the vast territory they cover, to
be settled here mainly by men who know
little of and care less for the effect of legis-
lation upon remote localities, what chance
is there that in nine cases out of ten inius-
ticc and wrong will not be done? What
possible expectation can there be that the
people of California can he aided in con-
trolling the railroads of that state by the
Congress of the United States? They have
the power to do it themselves, and they
have just shown that they know how to use
that power, and there is 10 state in the
union less bold, less rcsolutc, less able to
solve this railroad problem for itself than
California and Illinois and Iowa have shown
10 In In r Al.
proposition, | believe that the control of
these railroads should be left where it has
always been, with the states.
But, sir, | cannot forbear saving in mass
ing, that l do not suppose the great railroads
those operated Ivy Vanderbilt, or Jay
Gould, or Tom Scott-will object to Con-
gressional control; certainly those railroad
kings have given no sign of hostility to this
measure, and they are not usually quiet
when they consider themselves in danger.
Controlling, as they do to-day, lines of rail-
road reaching into every State in the union.
they would be glad to be rid of state control
and have but one legislative body to look
after. But can any one who has seen what
the power of money and the greed of money
has accomplished in national legislation
look without the most serious concern upon
proposition which makes it for the inter.
est OF the managers of the seventy thou.
sand miles of railroad in this country to
control the national administration? The
railroads of the United States represent n
capital of nearly $4,000, COO 600 and by the
use Of money WELD a tremendous power.
Who wants to turn that power upon the
Congress of the United States, and make it
for the direct interest of the railroads to
nominate Presidents. and name Cabinet of
tinRr. ind r,1a a
Congress and accomplish politically what
ever the power of money will buy, or the
fear of hostility will compel? Let him who
won invite such a future for our national
politics. vote for this bill, and he will have
taken long step toward that result, a re-
suit more debauchine and demoralzing to
our politics than any invited or accomplished
by any previous legislation in our history.
One word more, and have done. If we
inauSratc this species of leg station other
measures become inevitable. We are at
tempting to fix prices. We are attempting
to make contracts between parties album
dan lily able to make contracts for them
selves. W. are attempting to say what A
shall receive from Il for his services. and
what b shall pay. Is it not plain to what
this must lead? The railroad whose freight
charges are fixed by law may rghtfully de-
mand that the price Of what it has to buy
shall be fixed by law. 1t will want cheaper
iron 1t will demand cheapea engines and
cheaper care. 1t will ask to be protected
against strikes of engineers and employees,
and for the aid of United States authorities
to compel its workmen to receive and work
for such wages as Congressional commits
sion may fix. And if you fix the price of
the laborer, then YOU must fix the price of
. al. Al. u.
laborer wears, and of the food with which
he supports life VIII this stop anywhere
short of the practices eff governments which
modern political writers of all schools
have treated as evidence of q semi-civilzed
people incapable Of sclf-governmcnt and
scarcely fit to be anything better than slaves
tho governments which have everywhere
given place to those giving freer play to all
human faculties, and which have looked
for mans highest development in the Gull
ture, in the greatest possible freedom of all
human powers? A century or more ago this
government control was typeiof despotism,
OF absolute power which could
trust nothing to the people and
did not believe in human progress.
Now it is Il type of a subtler and more dam
gcrous political economy, which ends, il
pursued, in communism, or the use by the
Government of the property of the people
for the benefit of what majority may BY
vote decide to be for the general welfare.
Every measure like this looks in that d.
rection, and in the tendency Of such legis-
lation think | sec one of the greatest per-
lis nov threatening the future of our gov
Our safety lies in less faith in
the machinery of government, and in great
or selt-reliancc on the part of the people.