MONOPOLY OF TRANSPORTATION. 603 



and discriminations, railroad corporations have created a 

 prejudice against themselves on the part of the public that 

 bodes them no good in the near future. As a means of 

 developing the resources of the country, to lighten labor 

 and add to the happiness of the human family, when used 

 legitimately, railroads stand at the head of the column in 

 the benefactions to the human race. 



But the avarice, the greed, the corruption and the 

 tyranny which has characterized the American railroad 

 corporations has known no bounds nor respected any rights 

 of either persons or property. Controlling the great high- 

 ways of the nation with all the multifarious network of 

 feeders, they have levied tribute on labor with all the 

 audacity and greater rigor than the lords and despots of 

 the feudal ages. Since the war Shylock, Wall street and 

 the devil has squeezed $2 worth of wheat and all other 

 products of labor into $i, and now this twin brother of 

 monopoly stands upon the public highways and demands 

 tithes five times greater than was paid to church and state 

 under the Mosaic dispensation, and the farmers are in a 

 worse condition than the man in the Scriptures who fell 

 among thieves between Jerusalem and Jericho. By a sys- 

 tem of rebates they have violated and set aside the operation 

 of the law. In this way they have assisted in the forma- 

 tion and growth of the giant monopolies of trade that have 

 become an incubus upon labor. In this way has the 

 Standard Oil company grown and prospered, its rebates 

 amounting to $10,000,000 in eighteen months. Under the 

 shadow of the protection of railroad monopoly exists the 

 greatest coal combination in the world, who have it in 

 their power to fix the limit of production and set a price 

 upon every ton of coal used in the cities of the Eastern* 

 States. 



It is nonsense to talk about competition regulating 

 transportation and insuring a just schedule of charges. 



