St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-03-20
a. POWER THAT MUST BE THROT-
TTEn

The Pennsylvania legislature is wrestling
with an INSTRUMENTATION railroad bill, and
If a measure designed to clip the wings of
corporate power can be put through in that
CAMERoN-ridden state, then indeed is there
hope that the day of monopolistic rule is at
an end. The Pennsylvania bill was pre-
pared by Senator WALLACE. 1t requires pub
licity of rates; it forces railroads to carry
freight without undue or unreasonable dis
elimination; it provides that charge for a
short haul shall not be greater than a charge
for aslong haul in the same direction; it
avoids all impracticable or untried theories
OF railroad management; it gives treble
damages for injuries sustained, and imposes
criminal penalties when the law is violated.
Some idea of the control of corporations
over the business of the state may be had
from statement made in the Erie Dispatch,
which affirms that the entire anthracite coal
field of Pennsylvania is owned by six rail-
road companies. The coke product is in the
hands of a syndicate. The oil fields Of
Western Pennsylvania are in the
clutch of that gigantic monopoly, the
Standard Oil company. The iron business
has been contracted into very few large es-
Establishments. The entire political machinery
OF the state is in the hands of the CANERoNs,
who run it exclusively in the interests of the
Pennsylvania road ana the Standard Oil
company.
The growth of corporate power within the
last twenty years has been wonderful, and its
strength so often exerted in way to be det-
rimental to the public good has at length
aroused the people of the country to sense
OF the danger with which they are menaced.
The result is that the people are organizing
in all of the states to make battle with mo-
nopoly. They realize the magnitude of the
task, for it is only through legislation that
this gigantic power can be checked and con-
trolled, and the fact that every public man
who has yet antagonized their interests has
been made to bite the dust is discouraging to
politicians. Consequently the people are dis
covering that they cannot rely upon the ordi-
nary party machinery to secure protection
against monopolstic aggression, and are
compelled to seek new political methods to
accomplish their work. The election of Mr..
CLEVELAND to the presidency gave hope to
the masses that the Democratic party would
present nucleus for an anti
monopoly organization, and so far
it looks as if their expectations would
not be disappointed in this respect
The promptness with which Secretary LAMAR
took the land grant syndicate by the throat
is an encouraging sign. And now that the
president and his secretary of the treasury
have made display of frmness in resistiA g
the assault of the whisky ring in the matter
Of appointments, it begins to look as if this
administration can be relied upon to stand
between the people and the entertainments
of the monopolistic power. President
CLEVELAND and his advisers have it within
their power to make the Democratic party the
instrument by which corporations can be
dethroned from the position of arrogant
and merciless power to which they were
elevated by Republican in fuences and re-
duced to proper subsection to law. 1t is
necessary that the present administration
shall do this in order to restore the country
to the status it occupied when the Demo
cratic party went out of power in 1861. And
that it will do so is the confident hope of the
great mass of the American people.