CHAPTER II 

 LABOR'S WRONGS. 



IT is not proposed in this chapter to enter into a de- 

 tailed discussion of the many ills to which the laborer, and 

 more especially the farmer, has been subjected for many 

 years. The more important among these have received 

 due attention in the second part of this volume. To deny 

 that these evils exist and to an alarming extent is to 

 commit a folly that is nothing less than criminal; and to 

 universally ignore, is a national crime. Whatever may be 

 said of trade and commerce and the professions, it has long 

 been evident to earnest thinkers that the farmers were the 

 most cruelly oppressed class of our community. It is cer- 

 tainly a very unfortunate and unnatural condition of society 

 that dooms the principal and the most useful portion of the 

 producing class to the greatest amount of oppression; but 

 such is the evil that is upon us. For many years the 

 country has been suffering from evils of which all have 

 been conscious, but which it would seem none have had 

 the courage or wisdom to correct. Prominent among these 

 are the burdens that have been fastened upon the people 

 by the reckless and unscrupulous course of the great rail- 

 road monopolies that have sprung up in our midst. These 

 vast and powerful corporations have established a series of 

 abuses which have gradually and almost effectually 

 undermined the solid basis upon which our internal com- 

 merce was supposed to rest. They have debauched and 

 demoralized our Courts and Legislatures; have bribed and 



