THE FARMER S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 51 



audacity of these railroad jobs and jobbers positively 

 sublime ? Some of these schemes are in successful 

 operation, but many of them are still in the caterpillar, 

 or chrysalis, state, and there is a prospect that very few 

 of this class will come out as the full-blown butterfly." 



Well might the eloquent Illinois Congressman, who 

 now so ably represents the Republic in France, exclaim 

 in indignant rebuke of these schemes of plunder, as he 

 denounced them from his place in the House of Repre- 

 sentatives : 



" While the restless and unpausing energies of a 

 patriotic and incorruptible people were devoted to the 

 salvation of their Government, and were pouring out 

 their blood and treasure in its defence, there was the 

 vast army of the base, the venal and unpatriotic, who 

 rushed in to take advantage of the misfortunes of the 

 country and to plunder its treasury. The statute-books 

 are loaded with legislation which will impose burdens 

 on future generations. Public land enough to make 

 empires has been voted to private railroad corporations ; 

 subsidies of untold millions of bonds, for the same pur- 

 poses, have become a charge upon the people, while the 

 fetters of vast monopolies have been fastened still closer 

 and closer upon the public. It is time that the repre- 

 sentatives of the people were admonished that they are 

 the servants of the people and are paid by the people ; 

 that their constituents have confided to them the great 

 trust of guarding their rights and protecting their in- 

 terests ; that their position and their power are to be 

 used for the benefit of the people whom they represent, 

 and not for their own benefit and the benefit of the 

 lobbyists, the gamblers, and the speculators who have 

 come to Washington to make a raid upon the Treasury." 



