Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-05-04

tons with care, and on the all important
issue at stake, these selections should be
made.
The tyranny of monopoly is worse than
the tyranny of kings, one burns the sub
ject at the stake, the other when it
chooses frys both the fat and the lean
out Of him, year by year. When an at
tempt was made by the colonies to get
away from the king of England, those
who enjoyed the crumbs that fell from
the table of royalty insisted upon the
divine right of kings to rule, others in
sisted that government by the peo-
pie would be nothing less than a
failure, an6 denounced the experiment
as ar attack on vested rights. Still the
principle of popular rights and the
emancipation of the masses prevailed.
The courts decided that man who re-
sisted the royal prerogative by question:,
ing the justice of taxation was traitor,
and not revolutionist, still the resist
ance went on, and to a successful end.
When the people who toll think that
more than fair share of their substance
is being taken from them, they resist,
whether it be the king on his throne, the
thief on the highway or the combination
of monopoly to absorb the earnings of
LuS III ILLS hSo Oh
and country of popular government,
this resistance Is in the shape of con-
stitutional provision, or statutory enact
ment curing the evil and correcting the
injustice. The methods will be peaceful
but effective. What God Almighty didn It
create in this country the people did, and
none of it was created to be a curse to
them or their posterity. Railroad corpor-
ations were created, and franchises and
extraordinary privileges granted, that
the com bination of capital might be
facilitated TO carry on great enterprises
beyond the reach of individual effort
and thereby benefit the people and earn
for its promoters legitimate rate of in
terest. Why escape from the tyranny of
royalty if we have given ourselves, body
and soul, to a monopoly? Why object
to the tax on on tea levied by good King
George, and quietly submit to a greater
tax on every product of labor and enter
prise from king monopoly who has no
royal blood in his veins? The railroads
threaten, SO did the king. The Ameri-
can people asked from the king only
what was right, and they got 1t; they
will demand from the owners of rail-
roads as common carriers, only what is
fair, and the man who knows the people
of Texas will go broke on their getting
10. The king was our master, and we
petitioned the railroads as our servants
and we require it.
There are no influences shrewd enough,
or strong enough to keep the people from
getting their dues, and an honest people
want no more. There are no nicer gen.
tlemen than most of the railroad men 1
have met; they are socially and other
wise attractive, but it is the policy
showed out from headquarters for them
to execute that must be fought. Orders
must come to "let each product bear Its
fair share, instead of "put on all it
will bear. The king and many of his
officers were cultivated and honorable
gentlemen but wanted too much revenue
ana an unrestricted exercise of power.
The king owned the country, why
shouldn t he have all the fruits thereof?
Why don't we quit shipping freight on
railroads? Why didn't we quit drinking
tea? 1.-THE boys up IN the forks of the
creek' voted against allowing anybody
to say how much they should drink, and
they have changed, if they don't vote
against allowing anybody to say that
1.-THE toll shall be more than the -four
left in the sack.
WHAT RAILROADS HAVE DONE.
Hash t Texas doIe more for the rail :
roads than the railroads have for Texas,
or at least. ain t ''honors easy We
don It permit our citizens of flesh and
blood to take more than reasonable
rate OF interest from each other; shall
we permit our citizens of iron and steel,
with such powers as no individual ever
had, to do more? When l hear men in
an argument saying you oughtn't to
regulate railroads, for "think of the
ox-wagon DAYS and see what railroads
have done for Texas 1 think of the
man who dressed poor girl up in silks
aud satins and then betrayed her, and
when she wept and begged for honorable
he said. "Why weep, you
never had such fine clothes since you
were born.
The question is not what Texas was
before she had railroads. But what
would Texas be, if these same railroads
did business on a basis of reasonable
and actual cost? Never in
the history of the world were such sums
of money accumulated in so short time
as are now accumulated by rail-
road manipulators. Every producer
and consumer, every buyer and
seller pays an unjust proportion of
this. II individual energy and enter
prise could possibly do this, perhaps it
would be no business of the government
to interfere, and the doctrine of 'fsur-
vival of the fittest' might be allowed to
apply: but when corporations franchised
and subsidized by the state, are given a
monopoly of transportation, it is the
duty of the government creating to also
and supervise this monopoly.
II you don It like merchant IS or farm
err prices you can buy from some other
merchant or farmer. II merchant or
farmer can = pay railroads. freight his
goods must become mouidy in his store or
his crops rot in the field. Pirates on the
high seas are not allowed to prey upon
the worlds commerce. No one is al
lowed to obstruot a nsvigable stream,
why should railways be permitted TO ex-
ercise this power? During several years |
here were more miles OF railroad built in |
he small state of Georgia, with COM
mission, than in the great state OF Texas |
without q commission. Texas, of all |
states in this Union. needs railroad regu-
alton, for in nearly all the other states, |
With one-fifth the area of Texas, there |
s one or many navigable streams, |
hat TO some extent force the railroads to |
reasonable freight rates. Texas must
saDard ~, railroad