18G MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



government tliat has ever existed the power of taxation was the high- 

 est attribute of sovereignty, the most obnoxious to abuse, and when 

 abused, the most intolerable and irritating of all burdens. Every 

 great convulsion, under every system of government, has had its rise 

 in some abuse or some necessity in the exercise of this power. And 

 of all the taxes ever derived by the ingenuity of man, that which is 

 laid upon production is the most hateful, the most impoverishing, the 

 most annoying. The charges that are placed upon the surplus products 

 of some five million agriculturalists of these States who are far from 

 market and the sole consumers of whose surplus are in Europe, is the 

 chief cause of the labor troubles in the United States. For what is 

 their surplus ? It is that which supplies to them not food, not fuel, not 

 capital to any great extent, but manufactured commodities and means 

 of paying direct taxes. 



They with their families and dependants are not less than twenty- 

 five million souls, ordinarily the heaviest consumers of manufactures 

 and largest patrons of the railways [not.as passengers but as producers 

 and consumers]. Here you have some twenty-five millions of your 

 best customers driven into an economy fatal to your manufactures. 



If, now, we expostulate with the railrway magnates, they point us 

 to their reports and show us they are not making money. Still, rail- 

 way improvement and extension seem to be the most thriving business 

 we have. There are two or tliree matters I wish to mention in this 

 connection and then leave the question for your reflection and discus- 

 sion, "for in the multitude of counsels there is wisdom." 



Let us then admit that the railroads are not making money. They 

 say so, and we will not be ungentlenjan like and dispute it. And then, 

 let us see if the business cannot be conducted so as to make money 

 and serve the public well at the the same time. 



First — Let me state that the Pullman company is a very wealthy 

 concern. It began poor; it paid six times more for its cars than the 

 roads; it hired one conductor for each car, one porter, two brakesmen* 

 It paid the roads to haul the cars a sum equal to its proportion of cost 

 of building the roads. It charged passengers from one-third to one- 

 fourth as much for hauling them as did the railroad companies. It 

 rarely had its cars one-half full, but grew to become enormously 

 wealthy very soon— so much so it now compels the roads to haul them 

 and pay for the privilege. It has become a giant. Do you understand 

 it ? You paid the railroad company $20 to carry you from Omaha, say,, 

 to Chicago. But the Pullman carried you for $5, gave some of it to 

 the company and got rich. The railway company did nothing, but it 



