THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



never believe the actual proportions to which 

 railroad influence attained in the politics and 

 government of the West; only those that 

 have taken part in the long, bitter, savage, 

 and usually hopeless struggle against this 

 huge power can have any true idea of what 

 it was — and is. To men that dwell in settled 

 regions where the corporation has been awed 

 out of politics, the true story would seem like 

 flaming fiction; to the men of the West that 

 hungered and thirsted to be free it was rigid 

 fact and the absorbing interest of their lives. 

 One may say without the least exaggeration 

 that for many years in most of the Western 

 states popular government was abolished and 

 there was no ultimate authority but the will 

 of a railroad company. Every such company 

 maintained a political department in charge 

 of men that had developed political manipu- 

 lation beyond any known limits elsewhere, 

 for they had made of it expert and exhaust- 

 ive study. Having seen these gifted men at 

 work in their own field and the ablest men 

 of Tammany Hall at work in theirs, I unhesi- 

 tatingly give the palm for excellence to the 

 politician of the Western railroad. Compared 

 with his vast and marvelous operations the 

 work of the Sheehans and Crokers seems but 

 poor and crude. 



It has been urged in defense of these con- 

 ditions that the railroads needed in the begin- 



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