In sympathy with his friends; and these great interests, anxious that he should make no mistake, that he should appoint a safe man, a man with whom they (the trusts and mo nopolies) would be safe, present to him the attorney and confidential adviser of l'ullman, the man who ad vised Pullman during the great Pull man strike. And another element presents Governor Griggs, of New Jersey. And who stands sponsor for Griggs? The Associated Press in forms us that Griggs was likely to be appointed, as the railroad interests and Vice President Hobart were pressing iur his appointment, llobart, who occupies the dual posi tion of president of the Joint Traffic Association of the Railroads and Vice President of the people! Hobart, who acted as lobbyist for the Stand ard Oil Company and the railroads against the passage of the Free Pipe Rill by the New .Jersey Legis lature! And Hobart and the railroad interests press for the appointment of Griggs, and McKinley, like a puppet in their hands, appointed Griggs; ap pointed him, not to protect the people in their rights, but to protect the monopolies and trusts in their rob bery of the people. Think of it, fel low citizens! Think of it, Americans! The government of this great Repub lic organized in the interests of the trusts and monopolies, and against the rights of the people! Rut how is this robbery of the people perpe trated? Let me tell you? A monopoly or a trust creates no wealth. Wealth can only be created by the labor pf men's hands; by the application of brain and muscle upon the resources of nature. A monopoly creates no wealth. A monopoly is a scheme to absorb the wealth created by other men's labor. To illustrate. All of the men, women and children in America that work, work, and as a result of that labor for one j'ear a certain enormous amount of wealth is created. Now mark, the trusts and monopolies created none of this wealth. It was the labor of the peo ple that created it. Rut, if under this system of combination, the Standard Oil Company can come in, and scoop out of this pile of wealth, that the people have created, forty or fifty millions of dollars worth of this wealth n ore than a fair competi tive profit; and, if the railways of the country, under this scheme of .Joint Traffic Associations; if the Sugar Trust, the Reef Trust, the White Lead Trust, the great Steel Combine, and every oue of the trusts that now control the resources of the country, can come in and take from this pile of wealth, which the people have pro duced. from one to two hundred mil lions more, annually, than a fair com petitive profit, 1 say to you, that, by the time these trusts have taken what they are able to take under this system there is nothing left for the people and the people who produce this wealth are becoming poorer and poorer as the years roll round, and all the magnificent wealth and resources of the country are being absorbed by a few men. The men who control the highways of the lie public have got up a com bine or tru-t in the anthracite coal of the land. In 1*1)2, a committee was appointed by Congress to investigate this coal trust. This committee re ported. "That the combine had .raised the price of coal $1.25 and $1.35 a ton. and that the extortion" (now mark my words: I use the exact words of the committee ("the extortion was SUPPLEMENT. considerably more than a dollar a ton, or from $40,000,000 to $41,000,000 a year." Now, mark, for*y-one millions of the wealth produced by the people in one year swept from them into the capacious maw of this coal combine at one fell swoop. The committee further reported that, 4i froiu 1873 to 1880, two hundred millions mo. ® than a fair market price was taken from the public by this combination," (see Report of Committee of Congress, 1893, pp. 3, 4, fi.) and the judicial de partment of the government, under both Cleveland and McKinley's admin istrations, were and are organized to make the people stand it. How many millions more are being taken from the people, above a fair profit, by the Rituminous Coal Combine, a combination organized by the men who control the highways of the Republic, and the government, orga nized to make the people stand it? The Standard Oil Company, which owes its power to the rebates given it by the men who control the highways of the Republic, today is squeezing, bankrupting and impoverishing the oil producers of Pennsylvania, in order to pay a forty per cent, divi dend upon a three-time \yatered stock. The wealth pioduced by the people is being absorbed by the monopolies and combines, and the monopolies and combines have been created and maintained by the favors granted to them by the inen who con trol the highways of the Republic. You give me the highways over which yon must go to the markets, and let me fix the charges of trans portation, and I can make you my slave. The highways are being gradually organized into one mighty and stu penduous trust. The Rothschilds, through J. P. Morgan & Co., of New York City, have already absorbed, and have under their control, over 50,00(1 milts, or nearly one-third of the highways of the Republic. Traffic Associations, organized to fix the rates, and prohibit competition be tween the railways, now control the freight and passenger rates on nearly all of the 170,401 miles of the high ways of the Republic, and this gigantic combination is run in* sym pathy with the monopolies, trusts and combines that are sapping the wealth produced by the people. Aye, and destroying that great principle of e juality which was once the pride and boast of American citizenship. This system is creating classes. It is creating millionaires on one end of society, and paupers upon the other end of society. Where is this evil to end? is this system to go on, until it can be said of America as of ancient Rome, as she tottered to her fall, that six per cent, of her citizen ship owned all the wealth, and ninety four per cent, of her citizenship had been turned into a cowering, cring ing, dependent population. Patriot ism gone. No property rights to defend, and a government that they despised. Mr. President, we are going the same way that Rome went, and it is our duty to find the remedy and apply it. The officers of these railways of the Republic represent a capitalization of $10,50(5,365,412. They have grown so great that they threaten and defy the Inter-State Commerce Commis sion. Yes, and the Courts them selves. Aye, and the politicians cower before them. They can make or unmake, politically, almost any uian. They are gradually packing the United States Courts and the Inter-State Commerce Commission with men whom they have moulded to their will. THESE ARE SERIOUS CHARGES, fellow citizens, BUT THEY are true. The Supreme Court pf the United States reversed its own deci sion, in order to do the bidt'ng of this power, when they decided that the income tax law was unconstitu tional. Bear with me while I (five you some facts that will satisfy you that the men who control the highways of the Republic are riding rough shod the the Constitution and the laws, and that they are using the highways of the Republic to create and maintain trusts, monopolies and combines, in defiance of the Constitution, and in detiance of the laws. In 1873, the people of Pennsylvania adopted a constitution which pro vided that no railroad or common car rier should mine or manufacture arti cles for transportation over their lines. This provision of the Constitu tion has been disobeyed and defied, both in the bituminous and anthra cite coal regions. The railroad com panies have deliantly gone on. acquir ing hundreds of thousands of actes of coal lands. In 1878, Congress passed the Inter- State Commerce Law, and created an inter-State Commerce Commission. The Commission decided that the rates that railroads charged on coal for outside shippers was unjust and unreasonable, and ordered them to be reduced. This decision has remained unenforced, and cannot be enforced. The railroad officials treat the Com mission with the same contempt that they regard the Constitution of Penn sylvania. For two years after the decision of the Commission, Congress (in 1803, by its Committee) found the rates to be fifty per cent, per ton higher than those which the Commis sion had declared to be unjust and inequitable. [These facts will be found in the Cox < lase, before the inter-State Commerce Commission, Congress of 1803, page 183.] The Inter-State Commerce Commission provides for the imprisonment in the penitentiary of those guilty of the crimes it covers. But no railway president has ever been tried under its provisions, in the matter of the "Big Four" Beef Combine, of Chi cago, the committee of the Fifty lirst Congress, whose report is num bered 820, 1800, page 2, found that it had its origin in the evening arrange ments, in 1873, by the railroads with preferred shippers, on the ostensible ground that these shippers could equalize or even the cattle traffic of the roads. They received sls on every car load of cattle shipped from the West to New York, no matter by whom shipped. This enabled the eveners to monopolize the cattle traffic, and when they had completed the monopoly, they organized the Dressed Beef Combination. The report of the Committee shows that under the influence of this combine, the price of cattle had gone steadily down to the producers of cattle; that in 1884 the best grade of beef cattle sold at Chicago for $7.15 per hundred pounds. In January, 1881), they had gone down to $5.40 per hundred pounds. Northwestern range and Texas cattle sold in January, 1884, at $5.00, and in January, of 18811, at $3.75. Texas and Indian cattle sold in 1884 at $4.75, and in 18811 at $2.50. By virtue of the control of railroad rates, by the "Big Four" Combine, they dictated who should, and who should not. do the business of the country. The butcher who would not do their bidding, and handle their meat, was denied transportation over the highways of the country. [These facts you will find set forth in the testimony before the < 'omnrttee of Congress 011 Meat Products, Tnited States Senate, IWK), pp. 4u4, 4b5.] It was further shown that the profits of one of the companies composing the "Big Four," was twenty-nine per cent, upon its capital stock, and it was not the biggest of these compa nies either. This Beef Combine forces the producers of cattle, hogs and sheep, to take a small price for them, aud they force the consumers of meat to pay a big price for it, and thereby take from the people hun dreds of millions of dollars worth of the wealth produced by their labor. And the government is organized in such a manner as to force the people to submit to the rule of the meat trust. And now I want to quote you some facts, to show you that it was th favors granted it by the men who controlled the highways of the Republic, that created and has main tained the .Standard Oil Company. In Will, the New York Assembly appointed a committee, known as the Hepburn Committee, to investigate the trusts and the management ol the railroads. A Cleveland reliner testi lied beiore the committee. He said to the committee, "that upon his application to the Erie and New York Central Railroad tor freight rates, he got no satisfaction at all. A rep resentative of the New York Central itaitruad told him that he was too good a friend of his to advise him to have anything further to do with the oil trade." He says, "Do you pretend to say that you won't carry for u.e at as cheap a rate as you will for any body else?" The freight agent answered, "I am but human." This reliner testiiied further tuat be got no satisfaction except, "You had bet ter sell." "Better got clear." (kind of suorusaj "Better sell out." "No help for it." He was linally iorced to sell to the parties of the .Standard Oil Company, as he says, at fifty cents on the dollar. He told the Legislature that he would not have sold if ho could have got a fair show with the railway. [See Report of the Hepburn Committee, pages 2>20, 2527, 2.1.1;").| The old south Improvement Com pany contract, by which the railways gave to the parties of the Standard Oil Company exclusive con trol of the oil trade, is a matter of ancient history. in 1878, the Standard Oil Company purchased the pipe lines of the Em pire Transportation Company. After that time, the Pennsylvania Railroad became the tool of the Standard Oil Company. Prom 1872 up to this time, there were a few of the independent reiiners who had been shipping over the Pennsylvania Railroad, but now the Pennsylvania railroad sent word to the independent shippers that they could not give them equal rates any longer. The Pennsylvania railroad was the highway over which these independent reiiners must go to mar ket or not go at all. The Inde pendents asked to be heard, and so the Third Vice President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Mr. Cossett, met them, and this conversation took place. The independents told him that they were the largest shippers of petroleum over the Pennsylvania Railroad. tie acknowledged that.
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