State convention—Mutual dependence. 235 
have been made up, by a large majority, of railroad men; with gen¬ 
erally a railroad king as chairman. It is as if the people had said 
to them, gentlemen, we must have railroads at any cost. We will 
vote state bonds, county bonds, city bonds and town bonds. And 
we did it. We will mortgage our farms and our homes, city, vil¬ 
lage and country. And we did it* And besides you may make 
your own railroad laws. And they did that. And now Isay go 
to law with them under such circumstances, we have not the ghost 
of a chance for anything only to get whipped. 
Tear up the track, says another. Do that, I answer, and we 
shall find ourselves just where we were a quarter of a century 
* 
ago; and, most likely, would travel the same road that we have 
traveled and gladly grant the same exclusive privileges and im¬ 
munities that we have granted to arrive again at our present po¬ 
sition. I judge so from the fact that we to-day, together with 
Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota, and all the country west and south 
of us, are building railroads on substantially the same plan and 
by the same means that we always have built them. 
Railroads are a necessity. We must have them, more or less. 
And we had better keep what we have, than to destroy them, that 
our children may have to build them over again. 
Then are we completely at the mercy of this transportation 
monopoly—this crushing incubus? We are not. Is there a 
remedy? There is. Is it consistent with justice and the rights 
of our neighbors, the railroad men ? It is. What is it? Flank 
them. 
It is no part of my purpose in this short paper to discuss all the 
details of this flank movement, but I will briefly consider a few of 
the leading points, and trust we shall all come to see by and by, 
eye to eye, that it is practical, consistent and fair. 
It is the opinion of many of our ablest jurists and statesmen, 
that it is competent, under the constitution of the United States, 
for the people to enter the list of competitors for the transpotation 
business, as well by rail as otherwise, through the general govern¬ 
ment. 
The authority is found in the reserved right to “regulate com¬ 
merce with foreign powers and between the States,” and “ to make 
all laws for the general welfare.” The idea is gaining strength in 
