The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-01-10

4
the Coal Combine. The committee
met and looked them over and re.
talned the letter book, which they
thought sufficient, because it proved,
beyond the shadow of doubt, the
existence Of the combine; for there
hnodeS' letters to the retail coal
dealers, telling them that if they did
not sell coal, to their customers, at
the high price fixed by the wholesal-
ers, (Who were really the agents of
the Pennsylvania mine-owners,) they
could not get pound of coal In
deed one man was deprived of his
coal supply for offering to furnish it
at one cent ton less than the price fred
By the Ring.
There was the letter book, which
Rhodes swore did not exist, proving
that he got $1,000 a year from the
Ring which he swore had no exist
ence!
Here were the foundations laid for
sweeping reforms. In Europe the
guilty parties would have spent the
rest of their lives in the peneten-
tiary.
What was the result in this ring
ridden, corporation-cursed, rotten
state of Minnesota?
The combine was not broken up.
Not bit of it. 1t still exists. The
Ramsey county grand jury refused
to indict Rhodes for perjury, or the
members of the combine for criminal
conspiracy, as defined by the laws of
the state. And now Rhodes sues the
committee, and has been awarded
Judgement, by referee, for So, 500
against the members of the legisla-.
tive committee, Mers. Donnelly, p.
B. Winston, Richard A. Walsh,
James A. Boggs, Hiler H. Horton,
William Lockwood and Frank L.
Morse! He gets that as damages for
taking the book achich he saco,e did not
e1ist!! And he still has another suit
against Hon. H. p. Bjorge, in Otter
Tail county. We hope that if Rhodes
goes there, to try the case, the
farmers will turn out en- maasse, and
take good look at this worthy;
who is not only able to plunder a
whole state, by an illegal combina-
tion, but has the effrontery to seize
upon the very machinery of the law,
established and paid for, by the peo-
pie, to punish the members and the
officers of the legislature who labor
ed to break up his internal robbery.
Men who can do all this are deserv-
ing OF the highest admira tion; and
should be carried on the shoulders
of the people,-yea, with rails be-
tween their legs. Let the young
folks study them also,-for they are
types and figures and emblems of
this villainous age in which we live;
where theft is honorable and honest
industry something to be trampled
under foot and spit upon.
Fortunately for the committee the
legislature appropriated $4,000 to
pay any judgements that might be
obtained against them; SO that the
state will have to pay that $500 and
costs. Yes; the state, -you,-will
pay So, 500 for trying to protect the
taxpayers and stop the plunderers!
Good people of Minnesota, a,-how do
you like the dose you have received,
under the ear? Are you going to lie
down and say:-''let such things be
to the end of the chapter?" If this
is your purpose first 60 into your
schoOl-hOuses, and take the histories
of the United States, used by your
children, and tear out of them all
reference to the revolution of 1776
against British taxation; tear out of
the whole story Of Bunker Hill and
Lexington and Valley Forge and Con-
cord and YOrktOn; tear out, in short,
the marvellous history of three mil
lion poor men, in homespun, your
ancestors or predecessors, rising up
and fighting for eight years against
the greatest power in the world and
whipping. Don't let your children
read that record. Don't! For be-
holding how you have let their liber-
ties perish,-and turned them from
freemen to slaves,-they may curse
you in their graves.
Burn up the history of 1776. Id.