386 



Flagg, &quot; as well as others, is going on rapidly in partial oppo 

 sition to the organization of labor, and often with bad effects on 

 the State. Capital, in the hands of a few, is organized with 

 facility, handled rapidly, and used unscrupulously. It may 

 do more mischief in a democracy than elsewhere in corrupt 

 ing persons in power. In democracies, said De Tocqueville, 

 statesmen are poor, and have their fortunes to make. It 

 is inimical to the virtue of a democracy in aggregating 

 wealth in the hands of men who are uneducated, immoral, 

 and extravagant ; who bring upon us the vices and corrupt 

 ing influences of an aristocracy, without its culture or its 



vices. 



&quot;These evils, though general in the case of associated 

 capital, are more peculiarly and specially the result of our 

 railway corporations. They ask, and often by fraud obtain, 

 unwarrantable franchises. They are unscrupulous in extor 

 tion when they have the opportunity, and truckling under 

 competition; they consolidate and water stock, and compel the 

 traveling public to pay twenty-five per cent on the real cap 

 ital under the guise of eight or ten on the nominal capital ; 

 they violate even the rule of honor among thieves, and 

 stockholder cheats stockholder in the election of directors to 

 get control of the management.&quot; 



In an address on &quot; Our Bailways and Our Farmers,&quot; de 

 livered before the Pike County, Illinois, Farmers Conven 

 tion, in 1872, these views were elaborated and supplemented 

 with other matter. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FROM A SCHOLARS 

 STAND-POINT. 



In 1870, in an address on &quot; the Education of the Farmer,&quot; 

 before the St, Glair County, Illinois, Farmers and Fruit- 



