Winter Meeting. 211 



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compliance with that request, our society appointed a committee foi 

 that purpose. Your committee after due reflection and after con- 

 sulting- several of our ablest lawyers, approach this question with a 

 great deal of hesitation. It is like David going forth to battle with 

 Goliath. Nevertheless, knowing our cause is just, we will cast our 

 pebble and let time declare the effect of our throw. It is admitted 

 by all that express charges are exorbitantly high, and when the com- 

 panies are appealed to they tell us plainly to go to Texas or some 

 other warm climate, and the holding up continues for all the traffic 

 will bear. It has been suggested that we seek redress through the 

 Legislature of our State. While it is admitted that the Legislature has 

 a perfect right to pass a law regulating express charges, but past ex- 

 periences has certainly taught us that such a course would prove 

 abortive ; for all laws of that character, both State and National, have 

 proven to be ineffectual, either from the defect of the law itself, or 

 from their non-enforcement. Again, a State law would be futile for 

 other reasons. A large part of our products go to other states, and 

 where a road crosses its line and returns to the State, that according 

 to the decision of our Railroad Commissioners, nullifies the law, and 

 we would still be left to the mercy of the rapacious greed of the 

 express monopoly. No, gentlemen, the day for patch-work and reme- 

 dial measures has past, the case is a desperate one and needs heroic 

 treatment. Must we then sit supinely still and let this legalized bandit 

 continue to rob us in the future as it has in the past and acknowledge 

 ourselves incompetent to deal with our OAvn servant and say to them 

 thus far shalt thou go and no farther? There is a remedy, a sure and 

 effectual one. One that will be universal in its application, founded 

 in absolute justice, and one that will meet every emergency. It can 

 be expressed in one short sentence, two words, "Government Owner- 

 ship." Your committee are fully conscious that we may be treading 

 on forbidden ground, but notwithstanding the sign, "Keep off the 

 grass," we boldly take the step. Going into politics, are you? No, 

 we are always in politics. Politics means the science of g-ovemment 

 and if we are to be denied the right of exercising our prerogative as 

 American citizens, we had far better abandon our organization at 

 once. Almost every question with which we have to deal is either 

 directly or indirectly a political question. The temperance question, 

 the subject of good roads and the education of our children are one 

 and all political questions. It is passing strange that all other classes, 

 except the producers of wealth, can and do seek government aid. But 

 the producers and wage-workers must lay like Lazarus.and be thank- 



