The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1892-03-17
NUMBER E Is.
represented, I quietly withdrew the

represented, quietly Withdrew the
bill"
On, Hompe! Hompe! How can you?
! You know very well that you never
Withdrew that bill; you cannot with
draw bill without the vote of the SEN
ate, and no such vote was ever given.
1t was battered to pieces and stamped
into the dirt in the judiciary commit
tee, despite all your efforts to secure
its passage. And you thought you
could have induced the railroad corpor-
atlons to have traded off one-third of
their vast revenues, derived from the
transportation of passengers, as the
price of crushing out the poor ''scalp-
ers?' Why, my dear Hompe, why did
you not say so? Never once did such a
proposition peep from you at any stage
of the battle. And who made YOU
minister plenipotentiary and envoy ex-
traordinary to make such a trade on
behalf of the railroad corporations?
How came your relations to be so init
mate with those bodies-you, a plain
farmer and honest granger? And Fish
and Donnelly stopped you from cutting
down the rates of travel, in all this
great State, one-third! God help US,
Did we muzzle you, Hompe? Did we
gag you? Why didn't you apply the
great energy you have lately shown in
digging up the votes on all those
momentous adjournments to introduce
ing and pressing bill to reduce rates
OF travel to two cents mile?
Fish and. Donnelly couldn't have
stopped you there-nobody could stop.
you when you get your mouth open. p
And why didn't you tell the legislature
that the bill you introduced against the
''scalpers" was drawn in the Northern
Pacific railroad Office, and that the
company esteemed it so highly that
they had not only selected you, as the
one ''altogether lovely among ten
thousand,'' to introduce it, but that
they were willing to give up one-third
of their vast revenues, derived from
passenger travel, to secure it's passage?
All, Hompe, the whole thing is, to
use an expressive phrase of our day,
too thin, too thin.''
But where would your poor constitu-
ents be to-day if that bill of yours had
passed?
Now, if a citizen Of Otter Tail county
buys ticket at Fergus Falls for New
York, and gets as far as Minneapolis
or Winona, and is then recalled home
by sickness OF death in his family. or is
obliged to switch off on business to St.
Louis or San Francisco, he can sell the
unused part of his ticket to New York
to a S'scalper," for nearly what he
paid for it; and some poor man going
to New York can buy that ticket, and
save perhaps a dollar or two from the
grasp of the greedy corporations.
But, under your bill, there would be
no ''scalper''-he would be in prison.
And why shouldn't that Otter Tail con-
stituent of yours have the same right
to sell what was his-what he had
bought and paid for with his own
money-as the railroad prince has to
sell his stocks and bonds?
And why, above all, should an Ali
ance senator-observe, an Alliance SEN
ator-from Otter Tail county-be the
instrument to deprive his constituents
of that RIGHT and do it. in the intarast
of great corporation whose exactions
he had been sent to the State senate to
resist?
Withdraw your ponderous intellect,
oh Hompe, from the contemplation of
votes on those immensely important
adjOurnments and answer me that
question.
IGNATIUS DONNELLY.