Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1874-04-23
Our Railroad NabObs.

Madison, Wis.,
As to the association of capital, our
republican democracy seems to have
shown itself more complacent and facile
than wise. Recognizing the undoubted
impulse given to industry and trade by
large amounts of capital, skillfully man.
aged, we have granted corporations for
nearly every possible purpose, giving
special privileges and powers of making
money to organized capital withou
much thought of the great masses who
must make their money, if they make
any, by earning it. Now, what is the
result? In the first place, sum ex-
ceeding our national debt, and probably
equal, or nearly SO, to all our public in
debtedness, has been invested in railway
stocks, on which we are expected to pay
ten per cent. interest, and on which We
did actually pay, for 1872, as Mr.. Poor
tells us, 50 per cent. on the so-called
cost of So, 159, 423, 057, which is nearly
double the capital stock. Next, $780,
600, 900 in national bank stock, an I'M
known amount in the stock of other
banks, insurance companies, ETC., upon
all of which it is essential to their good
standing that good rate of interest be
made so that. In addition to public
debts amounting in 1870 to 50, 271 ,S74,-
1853, the people of this country have to
carry as much more in the shape of cor
porate stock. The evil of this stock is
Its perpetuity. The persons who own it
may change: but the stock remains, a
perpetual incubus men may come, and
men may go, but it goes on forever.
This is not so with private capital. The
unsuccessful merchant, or mechanic, or
farmer, simply gets low rate of inter-
est, or sinks q part of his capital; but
capital stock must pay, and, l believe,
does pay, about double the interest that
the farmer makes from his farm. The
result, unless the tendency is checked,
is the absorption of private capital by
capital stock. In the words of a writer
in the North american Review Dan.
1879: cit is evident-for it is a
mathematical proposition-that this
movement of property from the many
to the few, if unchecked, will, sooner or
later, make the few the possessors of
all property, while the masses will be
necessarily impoverished, and virtually
enslaved. The ratio of relative in
crease on the one hand, and of dimi-
mutton ON the other, viii make the time
required for this contamination proper
tionally longer or shorter I; but it cannot
change the result"
Thus far l have spoken simply of
what may call the legitimate results
of the association of capital in corpora
tions-of what they can do and actually
effect under the management of honor
able men. But there are even worse
phases than this. Capital, In the hands
of few, is organized with facility,
handled rapidly, and may be used un-
scrupulously. 1t may do more mischief
in q democracy than elsewhere. SIN
democracies, said De Tocqueville,
"statesmen are poor, and have their
fortunes to make" He could not have
put it more scathingly had he seen the
Credit Mobilier in vision.
Associated capital again takes most
oppressive form In the shape of monop-
olles. These are the result of conspir-
acies against the public's welfare, effect
ed sometimes by obtaining exclusive
National or State legislation or grants,
and sometimes by buying up, crushing
out, or combining with rivals, so as to
destroy the legitimate workings of the
law of supply and demand. Our trans
portation by rail, and even by water, is
largely done in this way. Each railway,
to start upon, has a practical monopoly
of tine country through which it runs,
except, possibly. at few points where
it is crossed by roads with which it has
combined. The routes from the interior
to the seaboard are dominated by q rail-
way despotism as lawless and rapaoous
as the robber bands of the ancient Rhine.
The commerce of the Upper Mississippi
is practically monopolized by single
steamboat line. The whole railway sys-
tenn of California, and the navigation of
her rivers, are in the hands of legal
lied band of robbers. The very trans
portation of the Columbia river is given
up to corporation and wheat, 81. Is
per bushel at Portland, has hardly q
market value on its upper waters. FL
evator "rings" infest our lake cities, a
towboat ring the mouth Of the Missis-
eippi; and producer and consumer must
pay heavy toll for the privilege of transit
1 might lengthen this list with show
ing the monopolies afforded by what
are called protective tariffs, and by pat
ents wrongly granted, or injudiciously
extended and l might name the we'll
organized monopoles in school books,
in plews. that are not to be sold to clubs
and Oranges for less than retail rates /;
but I fcrbear.
ALI these evils of corruption, r,onop-
oily and extortion, though found In
many forYcs of associated capital, are
peculiarly aud specially the work of our
railway corporations. The most threat
ening danger to the liberties of Amer
leans to-day lies in the dangerous power
now held and welded by our railway
corporations. Vast monopohes domi-
nate our thoroughfares to the seaboard.
Their chartered powers are great their
financial strength is enormous. These
in their turn, are controlled by few
men, often of brutal instincts, who de-
sire and appreciate only the power that
money gives in our Misunderstanding
communities. They are moneyed ariste.
Gratis, the basest form Of nobility-a no