Year: 1873




gigantic frauds of the Credit Mobilier,
drawing the veil from corruption 30
vast that it laid its Briarean hands upon
the Senators, the Representatives, and
the Judges. OF the scores of
guilty men whose offenses were made
potent, but few are punished. Unfor-
tunate scapegoats The hands Of the
high priests of the party are laid upon
them, and they pass into the wilder
ness of political oblivion, and then the
very Congress that was to unearth those
monstrous wrongs compensates itself
for its services in the cause of honesty
by an increase of salary. Let the in
dignation of an outraged people fall
upon those who are engaged in those
and similar transactions. Let it be
heaped upon them in immortal measure.
Let the character Of our American
statesman again represent integrity, and
his station command the regard of his
fellow-citizens.


The other great problem your arc
to solve is now to check the
assumptions or consolidated capital,
not by fierce attack upon monied
institutions, for many of these are
benefcent in designated results, but by
giving them their true place in ocr
social system. that Of subservience to
the good Of the people. Determine
that nothing which is inimical to the
rights of the people can continue. To
make this good, we must reverse
certain propositions which have hereto
fore been considered as fundamental
truths, but which in re-
ality are fundamental errors
Time should be allowed to
examine into each step by which laws
are created, and, if fraud be found in
the creation of the body of bill, it
should be taken to vi.iate the whole.
Good men will not fear an examination;
bad men should be made to fear it.


Another error is, that any portion
Of sovereignty can, by statute, be per-
manently vested in private hands,
and then protected, under the pretext
of contract between legislature and
citizens. Up against this doctrine
rises the inaIienable rights of men
Our Government was created to pre-
serve these rights, not to destroy them.
The generations which preceded them-
selves the projectors Of slavery or
polygamY, or crime of any grade
could give from their possessions to any
corporation, but not from ours. They
only held life estate, and could dele-
gate but life estate.


We may if We choose grant franchi.
ses and create powers that override our
liberties, but the children that follow
as cannot be bound by our acts
Mans interest in his Government
should be lasting his rights are but
for his age. It is not compatible with
the republican idea Of the greatest
good for the greatest number, that
million of them fifty years ago should
have had the power to barter away the
Government at the expense of the forty
millions Of to-day. But, says some
timid soul, you are talking radical and
revolutionary doctrine. That ID what
the Tories Of I776 Of the four-score
rebels who, in Independence Hall, pro-
claimed the truths you have so often to
this day listened to.
Great truths are radical
and revolutionary In their character.
They do not come as q dawn on
peaceful world. waiting for the light
They come by the earthquake stroke,
bursting the crusted errors of centuries.
They flame like the sword Of tho tempest
when storms are abroad in tho land.
They are elemental. and they rage
with elemental power. Bnt, says
another. capital is our best friend.
See how it has developed our resources,
built up our waste places. and made
onr deserts to blossom as the rose.
What of itY Why did capital seek us
From law, from patriotism, from PHI
lanthropyl No; but for ten per