The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1881-02-26
..Ths impending shadow


The following article, which recently ap-
peared as the leading editorial for the day IN
that staiG and solid yet thoroughly stalwart
organ the New York Eeeniag Post, has created
considerable surprise rs coming from such
source and is being circulated AS campaign
document" by The National Autobiography
League:
THE IMPENDING SHADOW.
Great bodies move slowly, and the public Is
slower than monOpolizing corporations. But
time may be conceived of, nay, even may be
predicted, when the public will become swift
er than corporations, and when those corpora
tons may not only be caught up with, but
even ground to powder by the public wrath.
A shadow has crept over the earth, n chill
has filled the air. The bllthe and confident
spirit that so lately prevailed is damped and
hesita,ing. What does this mean, and what
does It portend?
II means that the people, through the streets
of Ominous and accommodating events, are get
ting to see that they are in danger of becom-
ing the victims of new and crushing forms OF
oppression 1t means that the words consei-
dation' and combination are beginning 10 be
understood. 1t means that the people have
come TO perceive that if to-day they are to be
heavily ltAtu through wa
Il thing they cannot possibly do without, the
process may be repeated tomorrow on some
Thing else, the next day on some other neces-
sity; so that at last their very iite-bood will
be sucked out by the greedy vampires who
grow more Unsuitable with impunity, and who,
already swollen nearly to bursting, still plot
and strain tor further accumulation.
1t means yet more. 1t means that the pco-
pie see, with growing alarm and anger, that
the bloodsuckers are tortIfylng themselves so
strongly in legislative bodies, that relief or
protection from those quarters, II sought for,
may be sought for IN VAIN; that men who have
been thought to be representatives OF the peo-
! ple, have become, instead, representatives of
The corporations; that the corporations, thus
.nugly ana surely entrenchcd, are fast learn
IN. to laugh at public opinion. For who
shall say them nay, with the highest power IN
the land holding up their hands from behind
There is reason, then, for the impending
shadow There Is reason for solcitude, when
the people. who must use the telegraph, are
told they must pay dividends on eighty mil
T lions of dollars, when a quarter of that sum
would replace all that the stock of the inflated
CORPORATION represents. There is reason for
solleitude when the same principle, applied
now here now there, to lines of transportation
threatens to end in imposing, throughout the
J country, tOuT times inc charge III Caiyiu
goods or persons that the service is worth
{ There is reason for sollcitudc when, seeing
t what may lie done, free Of lot or hindrance
. with telegraph and railroads, monopolists are
vsiblv preparing to repeat tue performance in
} other fields, 80 that at last il may even be thai
the whole labor Of the nation will stagger un
, der unprecedented ana, at last unbcarabc
7 burdens, to swell the already cranmcd purses
} of scheming monopollsts.
! All this, we may be sure, is no summer
= cloud that can overcome the community with
, out causing either special fear or wonder, IL
betokeas real, a menacing, present dam er
1t implies that a time has come when the
| forces Of public opinion must be set at work
, IN earnes, to breast and bear back grlcyous
r calamity. Supineness will not answer; to
; close our eyes and stop our ears will not an
Iswer. A moment has arrived when we mus Z
5 change all that q moment when 'comhiners'
and consoidators,' and all other p'olters
r against the common veal in the interest OF
corporate monopoly, must be told III trumpet
I tones, and in something more than words, il
: needs Le, Thus far shall ye 60 and no fur
Their