Weekly Chillicothe crisis. (Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Mo.) 1878-19??, 1883-03-15
The Power of Railroads.

Cor Indianapolis sun.
Surface Indications are not wanting
to show that the public are deeply
interestedin the movement against mo.
nOpoly, and also that the effort now
making to give it political significance
has the profOundest good will of q large
portion Of the American people. For
when great wrong is, little by little,
basted, warped and fastened upon the
institutions Of the country, like barna-
cles upon a ship, there springs up in
the course of time u counter movement
to antagoni2e ard throw off the dead
weight and restore the equilibrium and
thus secure anormal and healthy cOndi-
tion OF the body polite.
For some time the opinion has been
growing that railroad corporations are
not, in more senses than one, the same
public institutions they were Il score of
years ago. This opinion has been slow
to show itself because of Il survival of
the notion that monopoly was only an
other name for competition, which is
short way of speaking of the activity
of business or of the "life of trade
But people are beginning tounderstand
that competition is assuming more and
more the nature of an anachrOnism;
that, in its stead, they have something
that is wiping all just competition out
Of the account, and that this something
is callcd-mOnOpOy.
In order to make the idea clear and
luminous, will relate the story of a
Georgia man, who, suppOsing that com
petition was still the "life of trade,
came to the conclusion that he could
manufacture 4 cOrn-planter, for which
there was great demand, and make
fair profit. He built 4 factory, stocked
it with machinery, hired his workmen,
and turned out q number of machines,
but he found that it was utterly impos-
sible to get machine to customer
sixty miles away at a rate that would
enable him to sell it. He was ruled
out Of the market by the allies of the
railroads who sent their goods from
distance of one thousand miles. He
Shut up his shop, removed his machin
cry, discharged his employees who were
to be benefited by the protective
tariff, " and placed over the door of his
abandoned shop, this sign; CLOSED by |
order of the Georgia Railroad"
To quote the words Of an eminent
Judge, who, by the way. is not at pres
cnt, ON n judicial bench: "This was IN
act of atrocious cruelty. 1t was as
wrong and cruel to that man as it
would have been to shut down his facto-
ry, with all that it contained. Although |
facts like this one, 1t is only one of a |
thOusand-have never appeared in such |
partisan papers as the Cincinnati Com
mercial Gazette, Indianapolis Journal,
Nc, yet the people have got wind of
them through the columns of anti-mo-
nopOly newspapers, and also through
trades unions and labor organizations;
and a powerful public opinion is gath
ering head and will compel railroad
to stand from under some
of these days and mend their ways.
The national party has done Il great
deal toward educating the people rela-
tive to the extraordinary and danger
Gus power of railroad combinations.
Its leaders were the first to perceive
that railroad companies had transcend
ed the objects for which they were
and they had the courage to
tell the people the truth about the mat
ter. And it fell in good ground and the
public mind is alive to the dangers of
the railroad monopoly, and to other
forms of monopoly. j, b. c.