The Portland daily press., 1879-02-15
The Looming Issue.

The sleeping car question has come out of
the West, and far-seeing statesmen who have
the interests Of the dear people closely at
heart, demand in voices that will not be de.
MED hearing the reduction of sleeping-car
fares. The Money Power and banded mo-
nopolists now wiring from the starving poor
the sum of one dollar for the occupancy dur
ing twenty-four hours of seat and berth in
a Pullman coach. This gross exacton has
long been submitted to in silence, but even
worm will turn Ito something very dead and
disagreeable indeed-when trod upon, and
patient people which has for years submitted
to despotism grinding,it to the dust has
at last iisen in its strength and is going to
hurl the oppressors from power, if necessary
at the point of the bayonet. This may
seem little strong, but in treating Western
topics one should write in the Western vein,
so as to preserve the local color. Editors out
that way use asbestos paper as measure of
precaution Ito resume: the Legislatures of
Missouri and Illinois have listened to the
m;srmurIngs of an outraged and expectant
people, have trembled, aud are about to tbey,
Bills have been introduced, and will doubtless
pass limiting the fares charged by the various
sleeping and drawing-room car companies in
those States. The bills will certainly meet
the crafty and unscrupulous opposition of the
nefarious and Briarian Sleeping-Car Lobby {;
but that Lobby, we feel warranted in assur-
ing our readers, will be swept away like
chaff before the wrath of an indignant and
aroused people. The boated monopolies
will be compelled to furnish berths to passen-
gers below cost and perhaps for nothing.
The most sanguine believe that no charge
will be exacted of sleepers; but others doubt
If the States of Illinois and Missouri are yet
quite educated up to that-though the recent
action ofsome of their municipalities does, it
must be confessed, give strong ground for
hope.
The movement for free sleeping berths will
of course. make its way East, aud be taken
up. very likely, by the retrenchment and re-
form party of Maine. The question is being
seriously agitated and it is even now conf
IDENTITY predicted that the coalitionists will
go into the next campaign shouting the bat
tie cry "free beIths or blood.o The more
conservative OF the retrenchment or coalition
party in this State are not quite prepared to
demand free berths at the expense of the car
companies; but hold that the Government
instead of corporations should provide the
berths. They contend very ingeniously,
that the right of tine Government to do this
Is expressly recognized, not only by the
Declaration that all men are entitled to the
pursuit of happiness, but, also in those
sentences of the preamble to the Constitution
which speaks of the insurance OF domestic
tranquility and the promotion of general
welfare. No man can be happy, they urge,
or generally well-off who has TO sit up in
railway car all night; nor is his mood when
he reaches home after the long nights vigil,
conducive to domestic tranquility. The up
holders OF this view find, it is intimated.
strong encouragement in some of the Su-
preme Court decisions. But the best-in
formed say the contest will not be made on
SO broad ground as this, as the coalition have
decided to fight the battle next fall on State
issues alone-though there are those who
contend that the sleeping car question is
really State issue, as, for obvious reasons, a
vigil in Maine is drearier aud more uncom.
Portable than anywhere else, owing to the
absence Of that hilarity,-an absence necessi-
tated by the peculiar provisions of our State
law,-which characterizes all night sessions
elsewhere. Taking this view of the question,
they say the whole license element of the
State can be rallied to the support of the free
berth principle.