LABOR'S WRONGS. 53 



Not in the gaudy trappings of war, with flying banners 

 and martial music, and amid the boom of artillery, the 

 rattle of musketry and the clash of swords, accompanied 

 with all the horrors of physical contest; but silently, 

 peaceably, and by force of reason and the potent influence 

 of the ballot do they expect to accomplish this mighty 

 revolution in behalf of oppressed labor. 



It is useless for men to call attention to the many 

 railroads that have passed into the hands of receivers, or 

 been sold under mortgages, as evidence that the railroads 

 do not pay good dividends on the capital invested. 

 If it proves anything, it is the utter recklessness and 

 incapacity of some of those who engage in railroad 

 enterprises, and the criminal profligacy of their manage- 

 ment. If a wildcat railroad scheme is conceived and a 

 road built through a country where it is evident the traffic 

 will not support it, a business blunder has been committed 

 or a swindle perpetrated; either of which is no evidence 

 that railroads do not pay. The same failure might, and 

 does occur in all kinds of business. It would be unfair to 

 take such failures as evidence that the railroads of the 

 United States do not pay. A much graver question, 

 however, is the inevitable tendency of these grasping 

 monopolies that are springing up around and among us, 

 and the inexorable law which punishes corporate greed with 

 confiscation. No student of history, especially of the 

 history of the great corporations of the century, can fail 

 to discern the fate of many of our great railway companies. 

 One set of men after another growls and submits. One 

 Legislature after another threatens and is cajoled or bought 

 off. But the intolerable oppression continues to grow 

 worse, and year by year the instinct of rebellion grows 

 stronger and stronger, and it is to be hoped that the day 

 is not far distant, when it will have coherence enough to 

 make its demands with an emphasis that will brook no 



