THE FARMERS WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 37 



of the United States build roads for the benefit of the 

 stockholders. 



Very many of the railway enterprises of the present 

 day would not be undertaken, but for the hope of receiv- 

 ing Government aid. The men who organize them, 

 although they do so for their own private benefit, rely 

 upon using the property of the whole people rather 

 than their own. Their plan is veuy simple. If they 

 can secure a grant of land from the General Govern- 

 ment, the public property thus placed in their hands 

 will afford them the means of carrying out their 

 schemes. To be plainer their plan is simply to rob 

 the nation of its possessions, with the aid or connivance 

 of the august body to whose keeping the trust has 

 been confided. 



The people of the United States are not averse to 

 the granting of aid by the Government to enterprises 

 which are national in their character, which are for 

 the public good, and which will render, at some time, 

 an equivalent for the aid thus extended. The Amer- 

 ican people are decidedly, and very sensibly, averse to 

 giving their property away, for the benefit of a private 

 corporation, and are opposed to such a use of it by 

 Congress. Just now they are very sore over the im- 

 mense sums that have been squandered by Congress 

 in this way. The Honorable members are aware of 

 this, but they appear to entertain a lofty contempt 

 for the will of the people, fancying that they are 

 the masters rather than the servants of the nation. 

 The public feeling has been repeatedly expressed, but 

 the work of "subsidizing" by the Government still 

 goes on. 



Not long since, a leading New York journal gave 



