The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-08-31
REBELLION AGAINST MONOPOLY

REBELLION AGAINST MONOPOLY.
1t is certainly not necessary to apprise peo-
pie, and politicians as we'll, of every shade OF
political opinion, that there is looming up in
the horizon of the very near future a storm
of no ordinary character which may disturb
the very foundations OF social and civil life
if it Is permitted to gather its full force.
Already it is much larger than mans hand,
and it requires no telescope to discern it.
1t is gathering simultaneously in the East
and the West, and there are unmistakable
portents of it everywhere. 1t is movement
against that form of social and financial OPP
more appropriate name, is called monopoly.
While there may be no monopoly in fact,
there are yet aggregations of capital in the
hands of individuals and corporations
which threaten a serious disturbance of the
social relations, and it is certain that the
wronged portions of the community will
unite in self-protection at no distant day.
Thoughtful men do not cry out against
rich men or rich corporations simply be-
cause in their hands there is large capital,
for many of the enterprises of the day can
when this concentration of wealth disre-
CARDS the rights of the millions in its greed
for gain, then it will find that the millions
will resist such oppression to the ultimate
1t is the certainty that this resistance Is
crystalizing that should fill the minds of
statesmen with wholesome apprehension.
If no steps are taken in time to correct the
evil while it may be corrected by wise legs-
lation, the storm may burst with uncontrol-
liable fury and sweep away, not only the OBJ
jects of legitimate hate but 1t may bear
remotely connected with the real cause OF
offense. Timely legislation to control these
accumulations of wealth. and curtAil their
influence and power, whether in the hands
of individuals or corporations, may avert
the DANGER if left to gather force by neglect
the storm may be beyond control
The American people believe that no man
can honestly acquire hundred millions, or
even the half of it, honestly in an ordinary
lifetime. If it be by railroading, everybody
knows that somebody has been wronged.
Either the public by extortionate rates, or
individuals, by being defrauded somehow
out of stock or out of whole roads, swallowed
by the system" The people are moving to
resent such wrongs.
recent railroad occurrence in southern
California is illustrative of one railroad
method that is not confined to California.
The Southern Pacific refused to pay taxes in
San Mateo county and when steps were
taken to collect the taxes, the rich corpora
tiop-the monopoly" to use the word in
its now popula sense-sued out an injunc-
ton in the United States Court and carried
the case to Washington, with such attorneys
as Edmunds, and Bayard, and Hoar, and.
Beck, and Conkling, and Evarts retained in
the interests of the road. The road could
afford to spend million dollars in defeating
taxation better than the county could thou
sand but it will cost the county a hundred
thousand, so that, even if it gained the case,
it will be so much the loser that other coun-
ties will not dare 10 try like experiment.
But we need not go to California for food
upon which this anti-monopoly sentiment
is made to grow. Take any volume of Indi-
ana reports for the past ten years. and you
will find probably twenty or thirty cases en-
it is an appeal from some lower court on
some trifing technicality. The offense WIS
probably killing COW or setting fire to a
fence. No matter how the case is decided
the plaintiff has spent five times the value
of his COW or fence. The intention and the
result of all this is to deter poor men from
suing the corporation and to compel the
sufferers of wrong to submit to the wrong
rather than to seek redress in court, and it
is manufacturing a hatred of monopolies
which, when organized, will be agrarian in
its assaults.
1t is not the purpose of the Journal, at
this time, to discuss the remedy for these
wrongs. 1t cannot be that the people are
powerless, and it certainly will not be that
they will forever tolerate a system which
places the material interests of the country
at the mercy of great corporations. The re-
sistance to taxation even by our exceptionally