Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1874-05-28
ANTI-MONOPOLY.
Railroads. -BankS---Old Po-
litical Parties, and
the New.
Extracts from Speech by Oliver p.
Sabin, Editor of the Bloomington
"Anti-MonOpOlist,o Delivered
at Pekin, ILL.,, on the 10Th
day Of May, 1874.

CITIZENS OF TAzEwELL COUNTY: In this
beautiful city of Pekin, nestled upon the
eastern bank of the Illinois, favored by
nature in the fertility of your soil through
out your county, rich in manufactures, living
in this age of enlightenment, with its rail-
roads, telegraph, and the multitude of in
ventions that should combine to make all
prosperous and happy-I greet you as
friends of humanity and co-workers in the
cause of the people in their struggle for
equal rights and Justice.
Is it not right, and altogether appropriate,
that we should pause an hour or two in our
struggles incident to busy and enterprising
life to consider the questions of the
hour which are now aSitating every avenue of
civilized society? The greatest of these
questions is what is known in the compre-
hensive term of the Farmers Movement"
By this term we do not wish to be under
stood as meaning simply those who cultivate
the soil, but also that great BODY represent
ing practical industry wherever it NAV be or
can be found; that class of great deeds and
great worth. the glory and bulwark of every
country, whose prosperity and condition is
the most accurate measure possible of the
prosperity and condition of that country,
whence must come the intelligence and in
dustry, not only in our own land. but in all
civilized governments, the noble, honest
yeomanry. the bulwark now as it has ever
been in all past ages of liberty and human
rights-the common people ,chO hce bg ,cork
The constant encroachments of capital upon
the domain of labor, the extortions of the
bullion-loving, bondholding aristocrats. have
perforce caused the uprising of the laboring
masses Of this nation. Although of so re-
cent origin, it has spread with more rapidity
than the cloud that was no larger than a
mans hand. This movement. which was
recently laughed at with scorn, derision and
contempt, to-day promises to be controlling
power in our land. The freeman's voice
raised in the cause of right can be heard
from Maine to Texas, from the Atlantic TO
the golden shores of the Pacific, and from
the great lakes of the North to the Gulf on
the South. This land, which but few years
ago was stepped in fratricidal blood brought
on by the land-prates and human yultures
who assumed to be our leaders is now form
ing in closer union than ever witnessed in
the history of any civilized country. This
uprising has come only when necessity has
compelled it to come. When the bad COM
bire to destroy our liberties the good must
unite to preserve them. The bad long since
combined TO secure and increase their own
selfish interests by creating legions Of selfish
monopolies. Chief among these monopolies
are
THE RAILROADS.
They have by their so-called char.
tered privileges, vested rights Dartmouth
decisions; their moDeyed influences with
corrupt Legislatures their well-known
habits of consolidation with each
other; their facilities for increasing small
capital stock by spurious and felonious sys-
tenn of so-called watering stock and the ease
by which they reconcile all these nefarious
means to the accomplishment of their final
purpoce; by increasing their rates of freight
to so high a point-practically excluded
from the markets of the commercial world
many of our great States of the West much
so in fact, that the farmers of Illinois, Iowa.
Minnesota, Kansas and other States have wit
messed blessing turned into a curse and
have been compelled to see the fruits of their
| toll, in the burning of their corn fer fuel,
smolder away into worthless ashes. They
have stretched their long lines from the Far
East to the Farther West, and at the same
time have created rules and laws which have
| well-nigh destroyed the advantages which il
was hoped would flow from their construc-
ton. We lay down in the long night that
preceded their coming. fondly dreaming of
the blessings tnat would be showered upon
us by their advent: but woke up to find that
they had riveted upon chains that were
more CALLING thany any We had ever known
chains that wear none the less easily because
fashioned out of the materials that We our
selves purchased, by magnificent tracts of the
national domain, the depletion Of the COR
tents of our treasures, and the creation of
vast public debts, fastened upon the people
and their posterity, as if forsooth these cor
porations with ali eye single to their own in
terests, had determined to acquire vast tracts
of country fair as the sun in all his Journey
ings looks down Upon. And second to create
a race of slaves to work and till them for their
| especial benefit
|