Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1879-08-16
THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

| led-- The Snsidioms EsacrOac chm e,ats IF the
Railroad Oiigarchy upon a Sleeping and
Purbiind PeOpie-- me Startling Facts
To the Editor of the Globe.
1t is a curious fact in moral philosophy
that when a woman loses little of her viz.
tue she loses all; and it is equally curious
and equally true that people who will p.s
sively submit to the sapping of the
foundation of their liberties will not
resist direct and open assaults upon
the very citadel of their honor and manhood
perfect equality before the law-and the
right to transact their own affairs in their own
way within the law.
In view of the recent newspaper and other
public discussions of our present and pros
pective situation in regard to certain mann
moth railroad corporations, whose arms, yet
to number an hundred, like the devil fish of
Victor Hugo, are reaching out in all direc-
tons, and with terrible and irresistible sue
ton power are fastening upon wha, ever
comes within the range Of their desire, and
will az surely drag it down and after them
with hold that can never be broken, to the
unknown depths of d 'pendence and humili
alton in view of all this, say, it is inter
esting to note the progress of events, and
the methods by which we are to be lulled into
peaceful and fatal apathy.
FIRST, the Pioneer Press announces.
with an air of superior wis.,
dom, and yet trucking and
defereutial to the last degree, that Mr.. s. S.
Merrill upon having his attention called to
The discrimination against Us in passenger
rates had promptly put them up in Chicago
and Milwaukee to correspond with st. Paul.
''Having his attention called" is good, very
good, but this superserviceable zeal only
leaves him in this false position-if he did
not know it first, last, and all the time he is
not the man that he is reputed to be. Did
It ever occur to the Pioneer Press, to MIR.
Merrill, or to our railroad commissioner who
also took hand in this little game of
dummy-that it would have been just as
agreeable to our people to have had our
rates reduced to the Chicago standard, 500
for one thousand miles, rs to have theirs
raised to ours of $50 for one thousand miles?
We don't wish to add to Chicago's burdens
if understand the temper of
our people-we would much prefer
not to interfere with the cheap rates, but We
would like, and mean to have, the same Tor
ourselves. Tue irresistible logic of all this is
that if Mr.. Merrill fixed or allowed to be
fixed, two cents mile as a rate he could aud
did afford voluntarily to give Chicago, there
should then exist there and here, as in Cal
ltornia, power that would give that rate
legal and perpetual existence, be. ond the
control Of his Oh any other mans whlm to
alter, increase or abolish, or apply to one
man, one city or one State, to the tyrannical
exception of another man, another city OF
another State.
Now let Mr.. Oppenheim offer another res
olution in the chamber of commerce to this
effect: s.Resoived, that this chamber hum-
oily beg Mr.. Merrill to keep it advised IF the
time, place and mode of his next discrimi
nation against our city to the end that the
chamber may have reliable information upon
which to base remonstrance, etc., etc.
Lest MIR. Merrill should not make clean
breast of it and tell all he knows about dis
examinations against our city. will p ompt
him by stating that one of our best known
citizens, himself a railroad director, to me
within week that ct Langdon, twelve miles
or 80 below this city On the Milwaukee d
St. Paul road, road for which we taxed
ourselves 100000, and the State made val
liable grants for the benefit of all her citi-
zens, whether of Newport, Langdou, ST.
Paul or Minneapolis-at this station, the
depot and outlet for the wheat of Cottage
and Wo)dbury townships, that company
required as condition upon which an ele-
vator might be allowed to do business there,
that none of the wheat received by it should
come to St. Paul. This playful bit OF
tyranny of course don't hurt our trade much
yet, but if allowed to grow, it might. My
own idea was, and presume it was of all
others, that when we voted this tax upon our
property we did not intend that it should
erect an insurmountable barrier between us
and Cottage Grove or any place, but if thu
road was ever constructed our persons and
property should have at least rs unrestricted
transit over it as the roads of 1nonarchlcal
governments give. The function of rail
roads, existing by the vitality we
nave given them in charters
Of exceptional iberslity, built largely
With the lands and money we have granted,
Is not to transport wheat to Milwaukee only,
4s understand it, but to St. Paul, Mime
apolis, Duluth, or any other place where it
wants to 60, with as unrestricted liberty as is
-njoyed, (or should beg, by individuals, trav-
cling as fancy, whim, or business impels
them.
What! One man the arbiter of the desti-
ny of the mighty northwest? One man on
his road, and one man on the Chicago &
Northwestern road to hold in the hollow OF
two hands power that shall dictate like the
ukase of dsspot. where the currents of our
trade shall flow freely, and where they shall
not flow at all? Why, it is monstrous!
Twelve men will in time rule our Congress,
that went to sleep and dreamed that 1t was
free.
Our railroad commissioner, in recent ar
ticle over his signature, admitted that he has
no authority to correct these abuses-that we
are let at the unregulated and
unrestrained mercy of these great corpora
lions in St. Paul, in Mime apolis,
all over the State yet with commemorate
zeal he wrote Mr.. Merrill ssoficially" that be
thought he Dug ht not to tax Minnesota pas
.engers 80 per cent. more than Chicago
people. Then why can he not show the
,ame ZEAL and protest in the name of the
people whose servant and agent he is,
against policy of the Chicago, Milwaukee
Il st. Paul road that excludes wheat from
Langdon, Hastings, Northi-ld, Faribault,
,tc.. from St. Paul, and excludes our mer-
,hants from doing business with the people
# our own State on the same footing grant
cd the merchants of Mllwauk % to people on
che line of it's road in Wisconsin? H.
Knows or ought to know that these griev-
.nces exist; every Third street merchant can
INFORM him.
The following extracts will serve to show
The kind of relief we are to have-not from
IN established principle rooted deep incur
statutes or constitution, but the shifty and
time serving expedients of prompt and able
managers seeking to quiet an outbreak by
throwing a tnb to q few whales.
Col. Calkins St. Pan Special to Milwaukee
Sunday Telegraph.