The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1886-04-15

can wealth. The demands of class legis
lation are always increased by conces
sions. So it was with these infant indus
tries. When the pretense that they wer
infants had grown threadbare, those in
fants began to love the manufacturing la
borer, and with CHASTITY hypocracy wante
a tariff for his protection. For while un
der pretense on reproduction, the
were running their machinery on hal
time, or half pay, or BOTH they kept tn
American laborer in subsection by Eu
ropean contract system for importing
cheap pauper labor, under long time con
tracts, to take his place
| have neither time nor inclination {,
discuss tariff laws, but their operation OF
Texas farmers should concern us. OF tn,
forty millions of cotton values Texas pro
duced last year, what has become of the
money! Much of it went in freight
charges to pay interest on watered rail
road bonds to New York gentlemen. AL
/ your freight charges went there, except
what was used for axle grease
and to pay railroad labor
The rest Of your cotton values
went through the pocket of your mer-
chant into the pocket of the northern and
New England manufacturer, or has been
paid cut for whisky and left the state.
If the tariff bars which force the streams
of wealth into the factory pockets were
knocked down, the same goods that cost
S4O,OOO,OOO could be bought in Texas for
S25,0OO,OOO, and you would have at home
Sl5,OOO,OOO in circulation, to represent the
gains of labor for the past year. If,
under some other form of taxation, your
government demanded it, you would at
least know that you were not robbed by
partial laws for favored classes.
CAPITAL COMBINED IN CORPORATIONS.
Capital up there has combined every
where in corporations, and, as surplus
capital increased, new fields of enterprise
were sought in the south and west, and
new pretenses were invented to induce
government, both national and state, to
sustain the few in grand enterprises at
the expense of the common property and
general treasure. Men seemed almost,
without regard to party, to forget that
this was government of the people, made
by them, and for their benefit. Thus it
happened that during the late war, when
all things were demoralized, over two
hundred millions of acres of public land,
obtained by war and treaty, by and for
the whole people, was granted to incor-
porated capitalists to build railroads.
Texas also joined in this crusade to build
steam roads into the wilderness, and gave
away forty-six millions of acres. Enough
land was given by national and state gov
ernments to furnish five acres to every
man, woman and child in Amer
lea, more land than there
is i'll Great Britain, Ireland and
France combined, and nearly twice as
much as in New York and all New Eng
land combined.
Only three years ago Secretary Teller
that 2l5,0000O0 acres of land
mad been given to railway owners, vast
portion of which was tied up in unearned
grants to roads chartered twenty years
ago, on which not spike had been driven,
md that the people were prohibited from
prompting ON those lands. When you
'emember, my fellow citizens, that this |
)rohigate waste of the choice lands from
he foot of the Rocky mountains to the |
Missouri river, and from the Gulf of Mex
co north, was done under the pretense
hat government aid was necessity, the |
ank hypocracy will stand revealed when |
tell you that more miles of railroad |
we're built in the United States in 1882 |
han ever before in one year, and that, too
Without land grant or subsidy. This con-
Iressional larceny OF peoples heritage,
his rape on the rights of landless mil
ions, was not born of the genius of true
emocracy, whose principles are eternal,
al wi inhn fIn Sos q, I.
towing on them from the public treasure,
nder any pretense. No matter who were
arties to the robbery, the spirit of de-
locracy, which means the greatest good
D the greatest number,was disregarded or
Orgotten.
But corporate greed did not stop there
asked and obtained the aid of govern
lent to the extent of one hundred and
wenty-three millions of dollars in bonds,
} build their roads to the Pacific ocean.
IN these roads, az shown by Mr.Bayard, in
he American senate in 1873, was Melted in
lear stealage of government bonds to their
Drportiors S43,96O,000, under the credit
lobilier villany. Pause here for a mo.
lent and answer me: whose money was
nat? The government has no money
kept that received from the people in
sxes, direct or indirect, and so, that
honey which represented the labor of
lillions of American citizens was loaned
} capitalists, who were already enriched
y protected enterprises, to build rail '
Dads, to be owned and operated by them {
lives. |
RAILWAY KINGS.
Thus has the race OF manufacturing
rinces, pampered by partial laws, de- I
,loped into new breed of men in Am :
'ica, called railroad kings, who dominate 8
lie great thoroughfares of trade, the pub Y
c highways of the people, and who trans q
1T their orders from New York over tele- /;
raph wires, also owned by them, to their q
at national and state capitals, 4
nd have thus far defied control. Does
ny man doubt this? Then listen to the p
ords of Allen G. Thurman, that grand =
Id tribune of the people. On April 2.
SIS, he said: Il have seen this senate l.
lamber filed with the railroad lobby; | !,
ave seen the galleries filled; have seen
lie corridors filled; l have seen the com
ittee room besieged; have seen sena-
RS besieged at their houses by a railroad Il
bby, but never did l see one man, or 5
'ar of one man, here urging legislation a
,stile to these companies And for 1
ying that, a railroad lobby of Ohio de- f
ated him for the United States senate. C
Let no man deceive himself; the grand G