The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-10-16

of legislation to labor for The Road.
 Another Of these men, is the of ficfal head of the Republican party in Connecticut.
 'I refer to he whose opposition to the public utilities bill was most open and most effective through two ses- sions Of the general assembly.
 ftThe aids and understrappers of this man will be found In other DO
 And. as MT Roraback has said, some of them will be found in the
 gro this jibe say. Iris true and pity 'tiS 'tis true
 ''But I add, that so far as am concerned, every such servant of The cry will be scourged from the trust which he dishonors.
 'fIt is 9 sad picture am compelled to draw for you. It is a humiliat ing picture. It is picture to make freemen ashamed of themselves. But it is typical picture. It shows what Connecticut, though not so much now as little while back.
 tIt shows sorue of the means by which the people are constantly being made poorer, and the process by which the cost of living continually rises, for the. tariff is by no means all resp onsible for that evil condition.
 Now. my friends, I shall not talk to you much more, tonight, about the general conditions Everybody knows that they exist. Everybody road dominates Connecticut. The shadow of that hand falls as far the General Assembly shivers in the coolness of it, the courts take notice that it is strong to chastise those who offend.
 T shall deal briefly with a single act, or group of acts, committed un- der orders of The Road, by which more than $100.000,0 900 dollars worth of rights to dive into the pockets of the people was created almost in a night
 The Great Merger.
 T shall show you some of the princely profits to be taken from dom ination of state by the managers of a railroad.
 -I shall show you steam road property watered to it's hurt, and it's stock depressed in the market
 T shall show you step by step the process of a gigantic and dramatic conspiracy in frenzied finance which out a single speech of effective pro- test from anybody whom this stats has entrusted with power
 I shall show you the true, the con- cause, of the wreck of the Federal Express of the wreck of the four freights in between, and of the burning of the Springfield Express.
 ftI shall show you why injuries to life and person have doubled in Con- necticut by the operation of railroads and tro1lies,. within a few brief years.
 shall show you omething-not by which. in this state of ours, the General Assembly assisting, and the courts looking on, water has been turned into blood.
 T shall show you legal miracle of m netem mpsychosis by which The Road cast off all of its past, its honorable and dishonorab1e past-by which it ceased to be a steam railroad corpora tion, and became a street railway company, with general holding pow charters passed by a subservient and ignorant General Assemblies :. You will find the magic substitu- ton to which refer described in the report of the Railroad Commission CTS, and in precise language in the Act that appears on P. 489 of the Private Acts of 1907. which says:
 .t That the Consolidated Rail
 way Company, having merged
 with and in itself the New York, y
 New Haven and Hartford Rail
 of New York, New Haven and
 Hartford Railroad Company may
 do this that and the other in it's
 new personality disguised with
 tIet us grasp the true significance of the language which l have quoted from the Act
 Here stand l, owner let us say, of a few trolley lines and a few steam boats. A great property, but not gigantic.
 And here stands my friend, Town Chairman Bent, who owns a gigan- tic railroad system, which yields more than the revenues of Go1conda, from it's right to monopolize steam road over a great part of New England.
 Steam Road Absorbed By Trolley
 Monopoly.
 Let us suppose the General Assem- ply passes a law, or a series of laws, by which I would become my friend Bent, and he would utterly disap- pear, and in his place would be me, with my body, my mind and my soul, and in my possession all the proper ty which had stood in the names of both of us.
 Let us then suppose that by 1egis- latIve act, this new creature, compos- ed of the merging of two and the dis appearance of one, should be inpow- cred to carry the name of Bent.
 What a deception would that be!
 EFYet the symbol accurately de- scribes what took place when the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company was permitted to be merged into the Consolidated Rail- way Company, under the name New York, New Haven and Hartford Rail Toad Company.
 'And what, my friends, was the ob- feet of this miracle working. this jug ging with names, this destruction of l 1ne corporation and the substitution 1f another, with the name of the nur- 1ered corporation?
 Tt was transaction in frenzieG f. nance. It was such a tran action as the high swind1ers of money work upon states that are of the inteJIec- -ual grade of come oILs', so far as