Morris tribune., 1886-03-10
CLASS LEGISLATION.

country has been class legislation and
Ill we demand IN fact, now is that we
all be placed upon an ccnai footingN
before the law. Give the tarner. just |
rs good chance as the banker or the |
railroad manager, or anyhody else is
given. One family has made 5000, ,000,-
900 through class legislation; Jay |
Gould has made 800, ,00o, 900; the Cal
millionaires have made, say
$500, 200, 900; the Standard Oil Compa-
hy crowd may be set down easily at
$l00, 100000 and we may lump the
railroad managers of the country not
included above, at 800, ,000, 900 more.
AS matter of fact these figures show
but very small proportion of the
money that has been made as the re-
suit of the partiality of our law MAX
ers to the interests of the few, and
their treachery to the lawful interest
of the many. But here is $500, 900 900
now in the hands of a few men, who
never could have accumulated it if
the rights Of our entire people had
been sacredly guarded by the laws of
the nation. If a man will sit down
and calmly review the history of the
monstrous crimes which our moGopo-
lies have perpetrated against the
American people, in the very name of
law, and does not rise determined
opponent of the causes of these evils
and of the evils themselves, he is ut
terly unworthy free citizenship and is
thoroughly incompetent to manage
his own business. But there are men
who will not thus calmly reflect.
They feel that they are pinched lit
tie, but their contribution to the fund
of which these millions are made,
may be comparatively trifiing, and
they hardly think it worth their while
to make much of stir about it.
These men usually compose the class
that can live comfortably even if they
are. being robbed. But it is diff
erent with the man who has moth
ing left to pay his debts and his mort
gage, after he has made his forced
contribution to monopolies. Ten
cents cXtortion upon Il gallo" OF the
STANDARD Oil Company oil is not
much. But how much oil do you buy
in week? A gallon? Well, that is
s.. 20 Il year. How long have you been
burning oil? Fen years? That is fif-
| tS-two dollars every ten years for no
purpose whatever. And if there are
hundred families in your township
paying that assessment, the township
| is contributing over five thousand
dollars every ten years to concern
| that has no right to it, but gets it bt.
cause it is a monopoly and is protect
ed by class legislation To start with
such all estimate of the contribution
of Il township-loosely made and ri
diculously small the Standard Oil
Company, anybody can make some
calculation us to the amount of mon
ey that an ordinary man or family
pays to the aggregate OF monopolies
with which we have to deal.
And now is it not an astounding
thing that fifty millions of people will
submit to such an extortion? Few of
these fifty millions of people are rich.
Three-quarters of our grown popula-
ton are laboring for their bread.
Thousands of us cannot provide as we
would like to for our children, thous-
ands of whom cannot hope to be any
thing but hewers of wood and draw
ers, of water, in land where any in
dustrious man can get rich if he is
given fair chance. And yet year af-
ter year we are contributing, without
the slightest consideration in return,
to the fortunes of men who never has
earned dollar in their lives and new
er will. What would you do? asks
some one. We would bring every
producer in the country INTO some
sort OF an organization through which
producers could act as unit. We
would do the same thing with the con-
sumner if possible, and unite both pro-
ducer and consumer in well direct
ed effort to remedy the evils which
we suffer under the grinding rule OF
monopoly. Then 1t would elect con-
gress and legislatures that would re-
peal every class law on the statute
books. It would deprive railroad cor
porations of the public land that they
have no right to; it would compel
those corporations that are debtors to
the government to pay their indebt-
edness; it would enact laws that
should prevent public institutions
like the railroads, from charging
more than service was worth, and
it would close up and dam up all such
cesspools of rottenness and corruption
as Wall street is and always has been
and always will be while it's people
are outside If the penetentiary.