Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1880-03-06
Wteklg gutelligenfer,
OFFICIAL COUNTY PAPER.

Wfeklg gatelli9enfeF
OFFICIAL COUNTY PAPER.
THE POWER OF 90 RPoRATIONs.
From the st. Louis Times.l
During the eighteenth century tn
| old forms of oppression, which hat
been growing weaker since the grant
ing of the Great Charter, wont dow
in common ruin. The French revO'
lutions swept the last Of the ole
| order of things out of existence. a.
far as that country was concerned
| with a whirlwind of destruction
| There was nothing in it worth pre-
serving, and the wreck was complete
The great Napoleon, with the French
people az his instruments, took uE
the work the revolution had accom-
plished so thoroughly in France, and
shivered the despotisms Of Europe
into atoms. Tho last half of the
eighteenth century and the first hall
of the nineteenth was q period OF
decentralization. Everywhere there
was an awakening, until in 184S the
thrones of Europe again rocked to
their foundations. Concessions were
made ; constitutions were establish
ed, and for a time the people rested.
But the last thirty years have been
q period Of Capitalization. England
has confederated her colonies, and
now, firmly united. they surround the
earth with q living chain of English
speaking people. Cavour has united
Italy once more into a great empire.
with the semblance but with little OF
the reality of constitutional govern
ment. Bismarck constructed out of
the scattered German principalities a
colossal military power. with the
anomaly of universal suffrage, with
out the executive being responsible
TO the people. Russia has spent mil
lions Of money and sacrificed hum
dreds of thousands Of lives to extend
her autocratic sway to the Bosphorus
and the Mediterranean, the ambiti-
Gus dream Of all her q since the
time of Peter the Great. In this coun-
try we have put forth the most gil
gantlc efforts to preserve the union
Of states, aud to strengthen and con-
solidate the power of tho central fed.
eral authority.
But there 10 another form of GEN.
traiization, which has gained ground
rapidly, and the weight of which the
people are beginning to feel. The
power of the moneyed corporations
can scarcely be stated, and ID almost
invulnerable to attack. The difficult
ty lies in the fact that their power
WAS given them by the people them
selves. The chains of ancient feudal-
ism compared with those Of this form
of modern feudalism are as letters of
glass compared to letters Of steel. A
blow may shiver the one to atoms.
but the other oan only be removed by
a long, laborious and doubtful pro-
cess. When the old teudsl baron was
asked to show the title to his estates
aud the source of his authority, he
haughtily displayed his naked sword.
His was the law of force-the right
of the strongest man to hold and to
govern. A stronger man might break
his power and lay it III the dust. But
until the stronger man came his
power vas supreme. When modern
feudalism, however, is asked to show
the title to it's privileges and prero-
gatlve, with cynical GOODNESS it un.
rolls broad parchments--tbe statutes
of the Dation-in which the people
themselves have, like Esau OF old,
given away their birthright.
1t would require a long article to
attempt to anaiyze, or even 10 pass
IN cursory review, all the different
forms this modern Manifestation OF
feudalism has taken, aud the links by
which these different forms are bound
together and made liable to become,
at any time, if attacked or their cor
pOrats privileges t~haeatened, q COM
pact, consolidated and aggressive
force in public affairs. The people
have seen and felt the combined pow
+r of the 1000 national banks i'll the
malign influences they have exercised
ou state legislatures, on congress and
on the business and prosperity d
every community i'll the country. The
insurance companies in their mani.
i0ld forms constitute a distinctive
system OF Capitalization, with almost
amounted money at their command,
and consequently with almost un-
limited power lodged i'll the hands oil
. few men. But tho most potent and
dangerous form in which this spirit
manifests itself, undoubtedly is the
many railroad organizations in the
country, with the excessive privileges
with which they have been invested
by legislative enactment and the de.
cisions of the courts, u which they
have usurped outright-with thei,
enormous wealth, their tendency to
consolidate competing lines, to form
pools and syndicates, and their pow
er to lay every industry under tri
butte through tho tariff they can levy
OH every pound of freight exported
for sale or imported for consumption
The absentee system of land tenure'
hat has rested for ages like an in
cubus upon Ireland and brought tn,
irish people more than once to til,
point OF starvation is not more OPP
pressive and does not iuflict a greater
wrong upon the natural rights of tn,
people Of that country than that will
which the people of this country ar,
nenaced by the privileges of thes
overgrown corporations.
Even the broad and supposed fire.
fields of invention and discovery t
supply our physical wants, are to
great extent controlled by the cen
,ralized power of capital. We hav
been lately told that the phiIosophe
OF MEMO Park is but the figure hea,
IF animmense corporation, the agent
of which are diligently gathering u,
all over the world every hint all,
original suggestion respecting tn
electric light, and converg;ng Their
all into one grand focus, aud subject
ing them to the critical analysis q
The most original inventive mind @
The age. What chance has the poo
man, insulated and single-handed
against him? The end Of all this i
that the man whose intellect has no
been trained, who has no money, VIII
is outside of the charmed circles, ali,
who has only his hands to fight will
is a tramp. He must 60 down in tn
Inevitable struggle. What we cal
enterprise in tins free land, where a
men are equal, is associated effor
buttressed upon capital, while isola,
ed and individual effort has a found,
ton of cloud mists, and che word
worker and beggar are rapidly bt