MONOPOLY OF TRANSPORTATION. 561 



"There is forming on the face of the territory 

 comprised within the United States, a great confederacy 

 of railroads, whose ultimate power it is not easy to fore- 

 cast. However great the separate systems may be, and 

 however far they may be rivals in the business of 

 through transportation, they will have certain interests in 

 common. They will have a common interest in resisting 

 government control; in obtaining and maintaining laws 

 favorable to their purposes, and in strengthening and 

 guarding their power over the business of the country. 

 By compacts among themselves they may lay what tribute 

 they will upon the industries and commerce of the people. 

 They rest like one gigantic despotism of iron upon the 

 face of this land, and regulate the development of indus- 

 trial interests, direct the current of trade, and exercise a 

 control over all the energies of the people which they may 

 be powerless to resist. The public can work only through 

 legislation and the administration of laws, and the railroad 

 confederacy will vie with each other in making and con- 

 trolling legislatures and administrations. They have 

 already entered into the contest here and there, and at one 

 time and another, and not without remarkable instances 

 of success.' 7 



Senator Windom said: 



"The channels of thought and the channels of com- 

 merce, thus owned and controlled by one man, or by a few 

 men, and what is to restrain corporate power or to fix a 

 limit to its exactions upon the people ? What is then to 

 hinder these men from depressing or inflating the value of 

 all kinds of property to suit their caprice or avarice, and 

 thereby gathering into their own coffers the wealth of the 

 nation? Where is the limit to such a power as this? 

 What shall be said of the spirit of a free people who will 

 submit, without a protest, to be thus bound hand and foot?" 



