The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1891-05-01

ZION lmlU OF paper cufrency.-Em-
pOria Standard.
Farmers-forfeiture is the law of
the state for usury! Is capital leav-
ing the state! What about the in
famous lies of the plutes and their
heelers over the state.
The following article is taken from
"The Liberty Bell,'' the able reform
journal of Sioux City, 10.
Railroad Doodle.
In another column we republish a
communication from the columns of
that staunch and able defender of
reform, the GREAT WEST, of St.
Paul, Mimi, upon the subject of the
Pacific railroad management, which
is worthy of careful study by every
one who wants to know by what rea-
son the wealth of this country has
been centralized and collected into
the hands of a few hungry specula-
tors in two or three eastern cities.
When the band of public plumber
ers, led on by J. G.. Blaine, S. T.. & P.
Allison, Ditto Wilson and others of
that ilk, working under the auspices
OF constituencies lobby maintained
by Jay Gould, Tom Scott. C. 2. Hun
tington and VIM. 81. Vanderbilt,
dropped, for a moment, the threads
OF their financial conspiracy, in 1864,
it was to take up system of footing
under the guise OF railroad subsidies,
which they had been for some time
quietly maturing. Every leading
congressman who supported these
gigantic steals did so for Doodle on
ly. They got the Doodle, but the
job was so barefaced that, as soon
as the people were made aware of
the facts, the Republican party was
compelled, through it's leading poll
ticians, to promise a reform in the
management of those roads. They
have reiterated those promises dur
ing every presidential and congress
sional campaign for twenty-f
years past. For more than ten
years they have had a congressional
committee for the ostensible purpose
of devising some method of reform
that would at least compel those
roads to pay the government SUBJ
sidy. These committees have de-
vised and devised, but the reform is
not yet in sight.
The reports submitted by Reeds
committee to the Fifty first Congress
shows how far out of sight it is.
The statement OF those reports given
by the correspondent of our esteemed
contemporary is SO complete that
we desire to add to it only small
portion of the evidence upon which
portions of the reports are based.
Among other things, after finding
a portion of the fraudulent expenses
incurred in the building of these
roads, most of which was foisted d.
.rectly upon the people by legislative
Fundamentally law-Mr. Reeds
"devising' committee discovered
that there was no way of finding the
actual cost of building those roads.
They no doubt discovered that every
one connected with the Job suddenly
became enormously rich. The re-
port, as will be seen, even gives a
statement of few hundreds of the
millions which went to make up their
suddenly acquired wealth, and every
body knows that the people of the
United States, who had to foot the
bills, have at the same time become
poor, but the committee refused to
make any move toward securing the
people for the amount of the steal
which it is still possible to discover,
because they say they could not find
the books from which to find the act
ual cash cost Of the road. Had this
enterprising committee read the re-
port OF Hon. 0. Fl. Browning, Secre-
tary OF the Interior, submitted with
the presidents message to the third
session OF the Fortieth Congress, De-
cember z, 1858, they might have
found that out with .'devisino'' all
OF two sessions. Here is what Mr..
Browning says of the Union Pacific
road, and the other lines were in a
similar condition:
AS the actual cost of this road is a
matter of public interest | deem it
proper to present i'm condensed
form, the estimates submitted on the
18th inst. by Jesse L. Williams. ESQ.
He states that the cost of the road
as shown on the books of the rail-
road company is, of course, equiva-
lent to the contract price per
mile. The actual cost to the con-
tractors forming an association.
which embraces most of the larger
stockholders of the company. is
shown only by their private books,
to which the government directors
have no access. The calculations