The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1885-06-04

utFdtCuCh uduRcIS WHICH, dlu Gull
Mess [ mistake the de- {
when states desiring to retain civil
liberty must go further, and not only
refuse to grant special privileges &c
an artificial MASK, to peddle in the or
binary private business avocdtions of
life, but repeat those grants already
made.
BAD INFLUENCE ON INDIVIDUAL IN
DEPENDENCE.
The continued success of a repubh
can 10 m of government must de-
pend On the moral and conscientit Us
rectltude, the high and general intel.
ligence, and the habitrai independ-
Whatever tends to diminish or impair |
the exercise of either Of these. condi-
lions threatens civil liberty. Private |
corporations, as existing in the l nited |
STATES, in the various pursuits of ma
terial development, IN enterprises |
within the compass of Individual eff
fort. and private aggrandiZement, are
inimical to all of them:-
1. They combine skill and labor
with the eanital of many, acting as
one, IN cooperation, and invade the
domain of individual enterprise,
individual self reliance, individual
responsibility, and individual aspirs-
ton.
2. Being artificial creations, invests
ed with authority to act as natural
persons. they are moved only by an
exhaustless greed for lucre, without
one human sympathy.
|. 3. They are permitted to acquire
lands, the great source and support of
life, and with the mighty power of the
capital which they coacentrate,' to
speculate in its price at the expense OF
| natural persons.
1. The continuation of their eXis>
tence. and their responsibility for their
| obligations, which is limited to capt.
tai Invested, gives them fearful adj
vantage over natural persons, pursuing
with them the same objects.
| 8. Being soulless, artificial and
Intangible, they act only through
| created agencies; thus, natural per
sons who own and move their power,
look to them only for an increase of
gain, and feed no personal concern
Tor the moral quality of the acts which
produce money.
6. Their power enables them to
render abortive the individual efforts
of labor for just remuneration, when
invested in competing enterprises.
Surely we should expect strong
reasons to authorize the continuance
and increase of such gigantic man
power, with soulless eXisteuce-mov-
ing, acting and dealing in the walks
of men.
WHY TIE MEN OF 1776 OVERLOOKED
TIE DANGER.
Though the American States early
repudiated the idea of property arts
tinctiOns of European monarchies,
they seem in the beginning of the
century never to have deemed it
necessary to guard against this power,
. which now threatens to overshadow
every other. The reason for this, we
must conclude, was because at that
time no one dreamed that the power
OF the Government would be ever
exercised to create corporations for
purposes purely private in their
nature Another reason, we discover,
in the fact that Just after the reVolu-
ton of 1776 the Government was in
the hands of the agricultural element,
which, in the whole history of the
American States, has rarely asked or
received special legislation.
WHERE POPULATIONS LIVED IN 1776.
In the beginning of the century, but
one of out of every twenty-five OF our
ancestors lived in an incorporated
city or town. Those were the men
who achieved our independence. The
comparative increase OF urban popu-
latIon is startling, for now, One-fourth
of all our people live in some city or
town; and this fact suggests retlec-
tios far from encouraging.
HOW OCCUPATIONS HAVE CHANGED
IN EIGHTY YEARS.
The statistics of what is termed our
progress reveal startling facts con-
corning the changed occupations of
our people. 1t is safe to assume that
in the beginning of the century, of
the twenty-four twenty-ffths of our
people who lived in the country, near
ly every one was engaged in agrlcul-
ture for his support. So great had
been the change, that in 1880 there
were in all the United States but
seven millions six hundred and sew
enty thousand farmers and farm
laborers, while in professional and
personal services, away from farms,
and in manufacturing, mechanical
and mining industries, and in trans
port alton, nine millions seven humid
red thousand people were engaged, or
1 over two millions more, OF the later
class, than all the agriculturalists of
| America combined. Thus, in the
United States, the farming element Is
a minority of the people.
| The farming element in the wealthy
States of Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Massachusetts and New York IS IN a
minority of 3,403,O0O.
Such is not the proportion in this
grand old State of my nurture. Here,
as in Texas, and in every State drained
by the western tributaries OF the
great father of waters, the agricultu-
raj element predominates over al,
others combined. Happy States
where those who till the soil own the
soil they till, and outnumber the host
dependant on the artificial creations
they serve.
TENDENCY TO CONCENTRATE POPU-
LATIONS TOO RAPIDLY.
One direct tendency Of the growth
of private corporations is to create
too rapid concentration of the people
in towns and cities to the detriment
of agricultural development. In these
crowded centers of trade, the extremes
of luxury and poverty meet, where an
honest government. controlled by IN
telligent electors. is now no longer
expected. Here, are found the corrupt
and dangerous influences which in
all ages have been fruitful of fierce
civil strife. A profound thinker,
forty years ago, said that civilization
itself might engender the barbarism.
that would destroy it; that it had
never {. occurred to Adam, Smith and
Gibbon, when they asserted that the
world could never go back to barbar-
ism, that in the heart of great cities
and in the neighbcrhood of splendid |
palaces and churches, theatres and |
libraries vice and ignorance might |