Year: 1873

SAN tRANCl8Co, august lf-lne
great speech Of Governor Booth upon
the railroad question has been the prin.
cipal topic Of conversation to-day, and
has created profound sensation. After
reviewing the question Of the disinteg-
ration of party ties. the growing ten.
dency to-day of the Capitalization of
power, and the aggregation of corpo-
rate wealth, to the corrupting influences
OF the Credit Mobilier, and the Contract
and Finance Company, he passed to an
illustration OF the absolute power Of
railways to monopolize the commercial
business OF the country and ruin all
competition by systems Of special and
discriminating rates for transportation.
When touching npon the subject OF the
Central Pacific railroad and its inter'
fereLce in political and mercantile at
fairs on the Pacific coast, he said that
this statement is not exaggerated or
emotional.


81 appeal to the experience Of every
business man in this community who
takes part or feels an interest in politi-
cal affairs, to get together a committee
for the purpose of considering a,ques-
ton of public Importance, and the mo-
ment it trenches upon railroad ground
how many will feel that it is dangerous
ground, full OF pitfalls for their personal
safety. Attempt an organization to re.
sist a railroad demand, no matter how
bold and unscrupulous how many will
tell you sould like to join you but it
will injure me IN business. The railroad
can take away specia! rate or give it
to my neighbor. They can give orders
all along the line that none OF
their employees shall deal with
me, and they can ruin merchants
who will not regard their orders,
and it may be a question OF ruin,
OF bankruptcy, OF bread to my family.
The struggle OF his manhood is earnest
and painful, but the yoke is upon his
neck, the iron in his soul.


The ballot boxes are stuffed or the rec
turns altered to carry some subsidy, and
another demand follows. Men will say,
l know it is wrong; it is an outrage;
but my property is all in the city, and
they could not affect its ultimate value,
but it is mortgaged, and they can un-
settle prices by their threats, and l
should have the sheriff at my door.


What interest is there which cannot
be made to feel this iron pressure.
But, as If it were too tedious to capture
these several interest in detail, they 60
to Congress and demand the possession
of Goat Island and still demand it.
They boast that they can get it if they
carry this election. Reserved for mill
tary purposes. they scarcely intend to
change its purpose, they only intend to
lombard the city, instead of its enemies,
when it resists their demands. God in
Heaven! You are one hundred thou
sand, they are three! Have they got
the hook in the jaws OF this levlathsn
to draw as they please? Down in
10 the country farmers will tell you that
heavy rates may be charged, their de-
pots moved, their accommodations re-
stricted, or that they are upon railroad
sections with imperfect titles and they
too are in the tolls. To one community
hopes are held out; threats are made to
another; 60 through the State, upon
every pulse OF industry there is an iron
finger counting its beats; upon every
throat there is an iron hand that
tightens or relaxes to grasp at the in-
tetests or caprice OF an iron will.


| have referred but incidentally to
that twin birth OF incestuo GUS shame
the Credit Mobilier and the Contract
and Finance Company. / have said
nothing Of the two hundred and twenty
four millions of acres OF public lands,
three times the area of Great Britain,
given to railroad companies; and at the
last session of Congress bills were in
troduce giving one hundred and eighty.
nine millions more, for the millions,
hundreds of millions OF which the
Southern States have been robbed, and
under the false pretense that the rail-
roads were to be built by the proper
companies. | have made no reference
to the three millions this State and lts
counties have been asked for railroad
companies through legislative action
and popular votes; nor TO the fact that
while the General Government is
paving two million dollars per
annum FOR the bonds OF the
Central Pacific, and the State about
one hundred and FIVE thousand dollars,
the Company can successfully defy the
State TO collect the taxes, and with an
effrontery that is sublime it makes the
gifts the larg;ss it has received one OF
the grounds OF the refusal to pay. 1t
is fact th at to-day there is rot piece
Of public property from China BASIN
and Goat Island TO oil the broad acres
of our national domain trop the remot-
est point in the mountains to the rolf
ing waters OF the rivers OF the plains,
upon which some incipent or full grown
monopoly has not fixed its covetous eye
and does not hope to obtain through
some kind Of political corruption in
bargain and sale"


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