Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-04-08
A Vast Evil which Requires Radical
Remedy.

EDITOR HERALD:-The great rail-
road strike which is still, while | write,
paralyzing the commerce of a large
region of country, vast and deplorable
as is the public damage it causes, is
but slight symptom of terrible dis
ease which is eating into the vitals. oil
our public economy; it is no more than
a pimple on the face is to tho unseen
liberation which is permeating all the
great internal organs. This disease is
the monopoly of vast system of pub
lie highways by a few corporations. and
the yielding by those corporations of
the supreme directing power into the
hands OF a few-a very few men-thus
dragging us back into imperialism in
spite of our constitution and popular
forms of government. For it is becom-
ing more and more evident that Jay
| Gould and two of the Vanderbilts are
| the joint emperors of the vast, populous
and wealthy region which stretches
from the Lakes to the Gulf and from
the Atlantic to the Pacific. 1t is true
| they have many subordinate satraps-
some of whom are partly independent
| aud some at times rebellious but all
the same the supreme power rests in
the hands of these three men. They
are emperors in fact, if not in form and
name. And their power is rapidly in-
creasing, and even now before this
substantial power the authority of our
President, Congress, legislatures, gov
errors and judges is shaiowy and for
NAL.
1t is vast, dangerous and radi-
cal evil aud the remedy must De equal
ly radical. All which has yet been
done or proposed in legislatures or in
Congress is no better than barrier of
loose straw against pine-woods con-
flagration. ONeil's arbitration bill
which is now before Congress. il it had
been law before this strike occurred,
could no more have bound Jay Gould
than the command of serf could bind
au emperor. State commissioners
and United States commissioners can
be no more than junketing committees
of excursionists, drawing big salaries,
with a lot of clerks to prepare volumes
of statistics which are of no more avail
than table of logarithms. There is
only one remedy which will be of any
avail, which can save US from imperial
despotism and industrial serfdom.
That remedy is step of vast response
bility. 1t is that the public--the peo-
ple-shall, through their public manag-
ers, the government take possession and
control of those public highways. the
railroads, and run them at the expense
and for the benefit and profit of the
public-the whole people mot little
fraction of the people, or three imper-
ial bosses and their few score satraps.
The strongest argument against this
remedy is the vast increase of govern
ment patronage it would causezand tie
consequent corruption Thafs would
be undisputably great evil. but great
as it would be it shrinks to pgmy d.
mansions beside the stupendous evil
which is already upon us-an evil
which thraafans IN roh rS nr,4 orI,. IS
money, but of our liberties themselves.
1t is DIES perate disease and if need be
desperate remedies must be used The
same argument of patronage aud cor
ruption might be used against the car
rying of the mail by the government.
Of all that vast army of Federal Of
ticers. four-lifths at the very least be-
long to the post-oflice department
Corruption has been rife in that de-
partment. The Star Route steals are
notable example. But with all this cor
ruption. who would wish to see this de-
partment taken from the government
and given over to the tender mercies Of
corporation with that snaky specu-
lator, Jay Gould. ut its head, where the
people could not dislodge him, where
he could cynically say Tin actions if not
in words) .'the public be damned''p
Our mail matter is now carried with
wonderful cheapness, promptness and
accommodation, and yet the department
is nearly self-sustaining, in spite of the
vast Western wilderness, slightly peo-
pied, over which the mail must be car
ried at great expense at the same rates
as in thickly peopled districts The
representatives of the people fix the
rates of postage at what the people
think is for their benefit. But if the
matter were controlled by a big cor
poration with Wall Street shark at
its head, who can suppose that we
could get letter carried any distance
whatever for less than twenty-five
cents? There would be immense prof
it in this. but the profit would 60. not
to the people from il came, not
| even to the stockholders of the corpor-
alton, but to the little gang of directors
in Wall Street. That is tho way in
which our public highways, the rail-
roads, are now operated.
/ have been in communities in which
all the wagon roads were owned and
controlled by private corporations
called "toll road companies" and the
people (most of whom had never been
out of sight of their native hills) would
regard plan to have the public own
and control all the roads as wild and
chimerical. In Grant County, on the
other hand, the people would scout the
idea of giving up the ownership and
control of all the wagon roads to pri-
vate corporations. Why then, should
those more important public highways,
the railroads, be owned and controlled
by private corporationsp
The sa me argument of s.too big :
job and too many employees for the gov
eminent TO manage" might have beer
made during the war of the rebellion
when the government Ehad to employ
ho,,t f,vo p,fll;o., MGR, b,,t me, f~,,x,.s =. .