Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1874-07-16
WHOLE NO. 1854.
Correspondence of the Hefald.l
The People and the Railroads-Reso-
olutions of the Bloomington Grange.

4
olutions of the Bloomington Grange
Mr. EDIToR:-We admire the spir
it with which you invite discussion
and tolerate a difference of opinion
and think your motto good: "To be
right of more consequence than to be
popular"
You seem to be surprised at the as
founding declarations OF the resolu-
tions of Bloomington Grange, that in
the past the railroads have ruled the
Legislature and the people. Some bold
adventurer has gone still farther than
the Bloomington Grange and says the
Congress of the United States and
people, as well as the legislatures of
some states, has been and are the vic
tins of railroad cupidity. The wind
blows, and it is useless to attempt TO
convince the people it does not, be-
cause they cannot see it. As humili
ating as this may seem to the people
of Wisconsin, how much truth is there
in the resolution in question? The
railroad director boasts that he is the
friend of the public, and modestly
keeping himself in the background,
speaking of the immense advantage
of his road, he appears ostensibly as
the benefactor of his race; and have
not the confiding public granted, IN
hesitatingly all the privileges asked
for? Is not the right of way given,
lands donated, money paid, taxes lev.
led upon counties and cities, and mon
ely subscribed by the people through
which the road is to be built Con
gress has already donated 198,l05,-
794 acres of land to build railroads
over 100000 square miles, an area of
land larger than the Virginias and
Texas combined, and money as well
rs bonds and land. In some cases,
sufficient to build the entire road has
been donated, and to accomplish the
necessary legislation to secure these
grants from the government, Lobbyists
have been kept by these patriotic
leeches upon the government who are
being fed from the national treasury.
1t is we'll known that shrewd men and
women are annually at Washington
and at the legislatures of our state
capitals, engineering schemes through
Congress and legislatures. 1t has
been common to charge the State of
New York as the chief of sinners. TO
suppose Wisconsin an exception to all
other states, is to presume the people
cannot see. Credit Mobieler investi-
cations are familiar to alt Who does
not know the systematic and persist.
ant manner in which the Union Pa
cifc attempted to corrupt the highest
Legislative body in the land. Is it not
true that railroads keep at the state
capitals secret agents who corrupt
the representatives of the people?--
Vanderbilt's influence at Albany is
we'll known. The history of many
legislative campaign will never be
written. Gould's checks to lobby
members, reputed from five to one
hundred thousand dollars, and Sena-
tors and Representatives from fifteen
to twenty thousand dollars, fill the I'M
written page; while the exploits of
Jim Fish in running the Courts of
great State show their power in cor
rupting courts of justice. What has
been done in New York has been re-
peated on smaller scale elsewhere.
Commodore Vanderbilt controls 2l50
miles of railroad; the property which
be administers is represented in the
stock exchange as $215, 100000, and
its annual income at $45, 100000. 1t
is impossible to contemplate this ag-
gregation of capital without feeling
concern.
Does the public take away private
property and give it TO a company of
private individuals called a railroad
company so that it may make any rule
it pleases and through it can carry the
public at 2 cents a mile at profit, il
may charge 4, 5 or 10 cents, does it
intend to tax itself so that few ia |
vored individuals may become AFRO
giant and rich? Is not the public rob-
bed year after year; and when the
farmer utters his complaints, is he not
told his grievances are imaginary;
that he has brought all his woes upon
himself by overstocking the market?
The surplus Of the west in order to
find market, must, to some extent,
pass over some railroad. The bulk
of the wheat is sent to Chicago and
the lake ports and to St. Louis; whence
it finds its way by lake and canal to
New York and Boston. The season
of navigation being only part of the
year, the great bulk must find its way
eastward over one of the great rail-
roads. The transportation of wheat
eats up one-half the value and the
farmers profit is small in order that
the freights may be paid and large
profits gained. The western states
being the principal grain producers,
are the most dependant upon rail-
roads-consequently the greatest suf-
ferers by extortions. film Fish with
his paltry $50 miles of railroad, run
ming through a half-settled country,
could on an emergency bring $4,000
votes into the field, how many voters
must we reckon Vanderbilt the rail-
way king, with his 2l7o miles through
settled country, with his 10000
miles of telegraph. Who is not &C
quainted with the fact of the great po-
litical power of the Milwaukee 81 st.
Paul and Northwestern railroads in
the political world and in legislation?
The peoples complaints, or that of
the Bloomington Grange, is not any
acts they desire repealed, but it is
the repeated defeat of all legislation
designed to relieve the people, and
not until the Reform legislature of 1874
have they succeeded; and now the
corporations refuse to obey the law,
the question is forced upon US to de-
eide whether corporations or the peo-
pie rule the State.
Al