250 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



the * granges' at the West. Already, monstrous as it 

 may seem, judiciary elections turn on railway against 

 anti-railway. Even Congress the other day, in its fury 

 over the Credit Mobilier, stopped but little short of con- 

 fiscation in its proceedings against the Union Pacific. 

 How long will it be before some party in this State 

 seriously proposes to tax the Central all it makes on its 

 watered stock? Is there no Ben Butler in the Western 

 counties to ride this magnificent hobby-horse into Al- 

 bany and Washington ? When the Central was bor- 

 rowing money to pay three per cent, half yearly, it 

 seemed mean to tax it. But now, with a revenue of 

 twenty-five millions, Aristides himself might vote to 

 confiscate. Idle to talk about measures being unconsti- 

 tutional. Constitutions can be changed as well as laws, 

 and when the day comes for the spoliation of the rail- 

 ways, neither vested rights nor common honesty are 

 likely to obtain a hearing." 



Now Commodore Vanderbilt is by no means a bad 

 man personally, but he is the representative of one of 

 the most perfect despotisms in existence, and he is 

 human enough to regard the interests of his roads before 

 those of the public. It is not safe to lodge such power 

 as he holds in the hands of any individual, and it is for 

 the people to decide how long such a state of affairs 

 shall continue. His power is exerted against them. His 

 despotism, in common with that of the other monopolies, 

 threatens them in every relation of their national life. 

 He exacts tribute from them in every act of his official 

 existence, and his great wealth is made up of the aggre- 

 gation of the sums he has wrung from them as a suc- 

 cessful leader of a grinding monopoly. 



Nor is he the only " dangerous character " before the 



