Weekly Chillicothe crisis. (Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Mo.) 1878-19??, 1881-07-28
ANTl-M0N0POlY.
Speech of Mr.. Bernard Peters, Of the
Brooklyn Times, at the Anti-Monop-
oily meeting at the Academy OF Music
in Brooklyn,


in Brooklyn.
Mr.. Peters considered it safe to say
that the next great movement which
would agitate the people of the Uuited
States, would be movement against
monopolies; one made for the purpose
of restraining the giant corporations
that threatened the welfare of the
people, and that needed some power
emanating from the people to regulate
their management, that they might be
what they were organized for and en-
titled to-a blessing, and not curse,
for the benefit of the whole, and not a
vile combination to Cypress and crush
the people. In 1928 the first railroad
tracks were laid in South Carolina. In
1884 the speaker remembers having
gone up the Hudson, and there took
cars drawn by horses to Schenectady.
That was the beginning of the great
monopoly known as the New York
Central railroad. About fifteen years
later, Prof. Morse was at Washington
working through small appropriation
of about ten thousand dollars, so that
by the aid of congress he might be ell
abled to make an experiment in laying
wires from Baltimore to Washington
to test the feasibility of the modern tel
egraph. This, the speaker showed.
was the first movement that finally
tended to give us what subsequently
became the telegraph MONOPOLY. The
assumption of undue and mischiryous
power involved in the existence Of
these great corporations was something
which had only grown up within tie
present generation. 1t was sonnet ing
about which the world knew nothing in
past ages. 1t furnished new element
in modern civilization, Il new expert
encc, so to speak, and something des-
tined, if properly restrained, to enlarge
the blessings it had already conferred
upon mankind, but something that if
left unrestrained, if left to grow still
more gigantic and powerful in its hold
upon the resources of the people, would
finally end in destroying the common
prosperity and in reducing the masses
the great body of the people, to Il
chronic condition of poverty and de.
pendence.
Five hundred years ago, in the gov
ernments of Europe as they then exist
ed, the powers of government were
vested in the hands of u few, who cy-
crcised those powers unreservedly to
their own advantage. Turning back
through the years to the days of our
ancestors we find that the power was
held despOtically by feudal lords and
masters, under whom the masses of
the people, who were in Il condition of
semi-barbarism, suffered servilc bond
age. They belonged to and were Il
part of the estates on which they lived.
They were bound down by the tyranny
of those
WHO ASSUMED CONTROL
and were helpless to take the first step
towards bettering their condition.
From time to time, by a turn in the
wheel of fortune, mere slip in the
uncertain chances Of war, they found
their masters changed, and new rulers
to temporarily assume ill-gotten power
over them, but their own condition re.
mained by these changes virtually I'M
altered; they were yassals still. They
were still mfreed, still in Il hateful
bondage.
When this continent was discovered,
and new nation founded, where say.
age Indians had occupied the land,
though our fOrefathers came over with
their parchments from their kings, and
thus secured what was recognized as Il
title to the land, there was no nobility,
no feudal lords, no masters to institute
a condition of things such as had so long
cursed Europe. The step taken by our
fOrefathers in organizing this govern
ment, was the first grand, broad pro-
gressive movement in the history of
the world for the successful emancipa-
ton of the human race. And this
great movement was subsequently led
by the fathers of the republic, who
builded wiser than they knew, and who
were gradually led more and more to-
wards practical realization of the
broad and comprehensive truth uttered
by Thomas Jefferson, that all men are
born equal and are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights,
among which ale life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. Applause. The
object in founding the United States was
to found government in which there
should be no distinctions save those
growing out of GOd-given gifts and
native talents. Let it be said here, at
the outset, that it was never the pur-
pose of the founders of this govern
ment to deny the rights of property.
If there was anything which the found
ers of this government respected, it
was
THE RIGHT OF EVERY MAN
TO acquire and hold in perfect security,
whatever he might earn honestly, just
ly, and righteously. Applause. If
this right was not given, if this safety
was not guaranteed, then there would
be no such thing as virtue in thrift, nc
virtue in economy, no virtue in fore.
sight; there would be no benefit in the
possession of talents given by God, and
the shlftless, careless, idle man would
be entitled to the same blessings that
the thrifty and virtuOus man ought to
secure himself and which God has Or
dained that such q man should enjoy.
1t was not, the speaker considered, the
intention of the founders of this gov.
ernment to interfere with the rights of
property; but if he understood this
idea Alright it was their purpose to SO
organize our institutions that no set of
men might ever be organized to accu-
mulate wealth in undue proportions,
and thus enable the opulent to put
sacrilegious hands into the pockets OF
the poor and robbing them of every
blessing. If the speaker understood
the objects of the league Alright, it was
not to interfere with the rights OF
property; it was not to inaugurate a
movement of a socialistic character
but it was to prevent the improper &C.
cumulation of wealth and the undue
assumption of power by its aid and by
combinations. With the discovery and
introduction of steam, forces were at
once introduced which were entirely new
elements, and which, as such, required