Part 11 (1/2)

The same identical gate has been in use for thirty years in various parts of the Union. With the addition of ”friction wheels” or ”rollers,”

or ”pivot wheels” (as they are indifferently called), this gate was on exhibition and sale in many of the western states in 1863. In fact, the patent for the friction wheels obtained in that year was attached to the gate and publicly exhibited, no claim being made for a patent upon the gate, but only upon the attachment. The gate itself consists of battens nailed upon the ends and near the center of four or five boards which forms the gate, with the posts so placed that after it is pushed a sufficient distance to make it balance on its center, it can be opened, its center acting as the pivotal point. The balancing principle for which the patent was obtained was first discovered by two of the descendants of Father Adam, in their youthful days, when they balanced a pole or board across a log or a fence, and, seated, one on each end, enjoyed a game of seesaw. The little boy who built a pig-pen years before the great intellect of Teel forged the idea, made the same kind of a balance gate for it. The man or boy of past generations who desired to make a cheap gate, instinctively made a _Teel Gate_. Yet some ten years ago the mighty intellect of Teel forged the idea, produced a model and forwarded it to the patent office. The _Scientific_ (?) _Examiner_, who decides upon the merits of all inventions, who, if he had traveled and observed the common farm gate in many parts of the country, must have seen the gate in actual public use, issued to Teel letters patent, which are safely and securely held until the new western country is settled and this cheap gate is in general use, when he and his agents and a.s.signees appear and demand _royalty_. He has been given an exclusive monopoly for the making, selling, and using a gate that is not new in any of its principles. By this fraud of the applicant and the incompetence of the examiner, the farmer is forbidden to use the old invention of a cheap gate until he pays a bounty to a patentee. The law for the protection of discoverers and inventors is prost.i.tuted, and the people compelled to pay out their money without consideration.

The same state of facts exists with respect to many other patents. Men travel over the country, examine all machinery and farming implements, not for the purpose of making new or useful discoveries or improvements, but for the purpose of learning whether they cannot so contrive as to collect royalty from others for an invention long in use, but for which the inventor had not asked or received a patent. Add this monopoly of patent rights to the other monopolies now cursing the country, and the need of a speedy reform, or the alternative of poverty and bankruptcy among the producing cla.s.ses, becomes still more apparent.

This patent right monopoly is, in a great measure, owing to the want of proper care and knowledge in the department of the patent office, where the only pre-requisite for the granting of letters patent for almost anything, where the application is not contested, is a model and the patent office fee. The effect of this free and easy course in the department is to bring into disrepute the really valuable invention and discovery, and to impose upon the people useless burdens.

CONCLUSION.

REFORMATION OR REVOLUTION.--A RADICAL CHANGE DEMANDED IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS.--CONCLUSIONS OF THE AUTHOR.

FIRST. We have sought to call the reader's attention to some of the monopolies existing in our land, and to show their power and influence with the government, and their control of the commercial and agricultural interests of the country. It now remains for us to direct his attention to the effect of these monopolies upon the people and prosperity of the country. No country in the world has been as bountifully supplied by the Creator with all the means to make a nation prosperous and happy as ours. It is vast in extent of territory. Its soil is rich, and most of it new. Lying in all lat.i.tudes, it produces fruits of every climate. The husbandman is a.s.sured of an abundant crop.

All agricultural and horticultural pursuits are rewarded with large growths and bounteous harvests. Our sh.o.r.es are washed by oceans, which afford us highways, over which we can avail ourselves of the markets of the world; while flowing through the agricultural portions of our common country are our great rivers, upon whose waters the produce and manufactures of the land are transported to market. Our great lakes furnish us an outlet for the surplus product of the great west. Our sixty or seventy thousand miles of railroad traverse our country in all directions, reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and spreading like a net-work from the lakes to the gulf. Our mines produce immense yields of the precious metals, while our hills and mountains are full of iron, coal, and lead. Petroleum flows in quant.i.ties which should add largely to the wealth of our common country. Our timber is not excelled by that of any growth in the world. Our lands are rich in fertility, and poor only in price. The Creator has done for us all that could be desired to make us prosperous and contented. Our government is, or was intended to be, based upon the will of the people. Our const.i.tution recognizes no royal rulers, no lords, no t.i.tled gentry. Under it we are all equal. They who administer the laws are selected by the people. In contemplation of law, all are equal--all are free and independent. With all these blessings and advantages we ought to be the happiest and most prosperous people on the earth. Peace, plenty, and contentment should reign supreme throughout the land. What are the facts?

Throughout the entire length and breadth of our land, mutterings and complainings are heard. From the farmers, the mechanics, and laborers alike, the complaint is heard, ”We cannot pay our taxes and support our families;” ”Our wages will not enable us to buy the necessaries of life, because of the large duties laid upon them;” ”Our farm products will not pay taxes, charges for transportation, and other burdens imposed upon us, and leave us any margin;” ”We had better let our lands lie idle than to attempt to cultivate them.” These and like complaints are heard from the laboring and producing cla.s.ses. Nor are their complaints without cause. Another interest has arisen in the land--it has become all-powerful. This interest penetrates the remotest portions of the country. It calls upon the laborer, the operative, the mechanic, the farmer, and all private citizens, for a division of the products of their labor. It enters the halls of legislatures and of congress, and demands, and not unfrequently purchases, special privileges and powers.

It visits the executive department of the government, and there secures special favors. It stalks boldly into the courts of the country, and _there_ procures unjust decisions in its interest. It indeed places its own men upon these _seats of justice_, that the judiciary of the country may not fail to support its aims. It has already obtained complete control of the finances of the country. It has corrupted legislatures and congressmen, until the law-making power has become a party to schemes of robbery and plunder. By corrupt legislation and _ex parte_ judicial decisions, it has destroyed all the old republican landmarks, overridden the provisions of the const.i.tution, and subst.i.tuted for the government prepared for us by our forefathers an oligarchy that rules the land and holds the people at its mercy, and their property as its lawful booty. This great oppressor of the people is the railroad corporations and their a.s.sociates, of which we have been treating.

Railroad and other corporations, brokers, and stock-jobbers, have obtained such complete control over the government, the people, and the financial and commercial interests of the country, that they who depend upon agricultural pursuits, or upon their labor, for a support, are deprived of those G.o.d-given rights which formed the base of our political superstructure.

Formerly, the people, through the ballot box, governed the country; they were sovereign. In this republic no rival power existed, and it was our boast that our people were free and independent. Our fundamental law is still the same. In theory, our people are still sovereign; in fact, most of their sovereignty has been legislated from them. Statutes are enacted compelling the people to divide their hard-earned substance with private corporations without any consideration; and the highest courts of the country have affirmed the const.i.tutionality of these laws. The freedom and equality which was our national boast have disappeared, and instead thereof the people are ruled by cruel and oppressive task-masters, who are fostered and supported by legislatures and courts in their united purpose of controlling the country. These oppressions have been endured by the people, with but feeble efforts to regain their rights, until the alternative is presented of organized resistance or absolute ruin.

Throughout the length and breadth of our common country, the laboring and producing cla.s.ses are struggling for the necessaries of life, whilst those who own and manage the corporations of the country have firmly grasped and now control the financial and commercial interests of the country, and are ama.s.sing princely fortunes and rolling in wealth. To stay the course of their oppressors, and get back some of their rights, the laboring cla.s.ses are organizing, and demanding of their employers such compensation as will enable them to supply the common necessaries of life. They demand that their wages shall be increased in proportion to the increased cost of living, occasioned by special grants and privileges bestowed upon corporations and monopolies; that instead of being treated as va.s.sals of the despots who now rule the country and control the government, that their rights as freemen shall be recognized.

The operatives and mechanics are banding together for the same purpose.

They are all seeking, in the same degree, to counteract the evil effects of the grants and privileges conferred upon monopolies. The farmers, who, as a cla.s.s, have always been deemed the most independent in the country, are so impoverished by these monopolies that they have been compelled to band together for mutual protection. No choice was left them. The bestowal of such great powers and special privileges upon corporations presented the alternative of utter financial ruin, or united and combined efforts on the part of the people, to check the great and growing power which now is fattening upon their toil and industry. While under ordinary circ.u.mstances, all cla.s.s organizations are attended with some bad results, yet when any interest becomes so powerful as to oppress all others, when it has such strength that it can defy all ordinary attempts at reform, then any and all organizations having for their object the correction of abuses, the restoration of the rights of the people, the destruction of an oligarchy that has already obtained such power in the land as to subvert the very nature of free inst.i.tutions, is not only right, but its objects are patriotic. Though the organization may have for its object the protection of a single interest, the correction of a single abuse, the restoration of a single right, it benefits all cla.s.ses who suffer like oppressions. It is fortunate that while the grants of great bounties and special privileges to corporations have resulted in great wrongs and oppressions to the people generally, they have also been the means of effecting organizations that will eventually restore to the people those rights which in our government are considered as inalienable. When the agriculturalists of the whole country become united in their demands for redress, neither the state legislatures, the congress of the nation, or the courts, will dare to disregard their demands. Numbering more than all who are engaged in other pursuits, being a majority of the whole people, when their united voice is heard it will not be an ”uncertain sound.” It will command obedience. Grants of bounties and privileges to corporations have depressed and sometimes destroyed other great interests to the injury of the people, and divided the people into cla.s.ses, one cla.s.s representing the capital and corporate interests of the country, and the other, comprised of the laboring and producing cla.s.ses; but this special legislation has also resulted in bringing to the front the great agricultural population, who possess the power, by united action, of restoring to the people their lost rights, while corporations shall enjoy equal rights with other interests, shorn of their power granted to them by corrupt and interested legislation and partial decisions of courts. This legislation and these decisions we have reviewed in preceding pages. It now remains for us to express our views upon the policy rendered necessary by the grave situation of the country.

SECOND.--_The Const.i.tutional Right and Duty Resting upon the People to Repeal all Cla.s.s Legislation._--While we do not claim to possess more knowledge than other men, and while our views as to the means to be employed for remedying the evils under which we now suffer may be erroneous, we shall venture to present them with the hope of aiding the efforts now being made to arrest the rapid concentration of the whole political, commercial, and financial interests of the country, in corporations and other monopolies. We must not lose sight of the fact that under our const.i.tution the people are sovereign; that the will of the majority expressed as provided by the fundamental law is supreme; that all the rights, privileges, and powers possessed by man in his normal state, are retained by the people, save such as they have transferred to the different departments of the government, state and national; that these rights, not so transferred, can be a.s.serted and enforced as occasion requires; that when those entrusted with the administration of the government transcend or abuse the powers delegated to them, and by so doing deprive the people of the rights they possess under the const.i.tution, the people are fully justified in resorting to whatever means may be necessary for the restoration and protection of those rights. In pursuing these necessary measures of relief, no injury is done to a minority, or to any individual, for the foundation on which our republic rests is equal and exact justice to all men, and the equality of all men before the law. All acts of legislatures, and all decisions of courts, which deny to the citizen, or to any cla.s.s of citizens, or to a particular trade, occupation, business, or profession, the same privileges and protection granted to others, or which grant to any cla.s.s of citizens or to corporations privileges which infringe upon the rights of others, are abuses of power and a.s.sumptions of authority not delegated by the people to the government, or to any department of it. It follows that any attempts of congress or legislatures to confer upon any corporations grants of power which enable them to override the rights reserved by the people, transcend the authority with which such legislatures are clothed, and are not binding upon the public. As agents, they have exceeded their power, and their acts do not bind their princ.i.p.als. If an agent acts under special authority, his acts, within the scope of his authority, are binding upon his princ.i.p.al; but if he violates his instructions, and attempts to make a contract not warranted by his letter of attorney, his acts have no binding force upon his princ.i.p.al. The same is true of those men who are elected and appointed to fill the different offices in the government. The const.i.tution is their letter of attorney. They are bound by it. When they act outside of their instructions, as contained in that instrument, their acts are void. This will be conceded. Even members of railroad companies will not controvert this proposition. The real point is, Who is to decide when an act is in conflict with the const.i.tution? The answer is, the courts, for such is the law. When complaint is made of usurpations of corporations, we are told that they are only exercising the privileges conferred upon them by law; that the courts have decided in their favor, and that from these decisions there is no appeal; nor can any redress be obtained, because the question has been settled in their favor by the highest power in the land--the supreme court of the United States.

To this general rule of determining controverted questions there must be some exceptions, unless we concede that supreme power is vested in the courts, and that the const.i.tution clothes them with all the attributes of despotic governments. We have shown that judges of courts are governed and controlled by the same influences which influence other men; that they are not infallible; that their decisions are influenced by surrounding circ.u.mstances; that education, a.s.sociation, and habits of life, have an important bearing upon their minds, and not unfrequently warp their judgments, and it is not treason to say that decisions of state and federal courts prove that they are as liable to change their views as are the majority of the people. The supreme power must have a permanent lodgment somewhere. If it remains with the people, it does not vest in the supreme court, and that court is but the agent of the people, and acts for them when it decides upon the validity of a statute, or defines the rights and duties of the people. Under our form of government, certain rights and powers are conferred upon the general government; these are all such as are necessary for our existence as a nation; they are limited, and should be strictly construed, because all powers and rights not expressly conferred upon the general government, ”are reserved to the states or to the people.” The states being sovereign, their power is superior to that of the general government, save in those matters surrendered to it. Hence, the state governments have a general, expressed, and implied jurisdiction in all matters not surrendered, and state const.i.tutions are to be liberally construed.

But over and above the powers vested in the general and state governments, that G.o.d-given right of self-protection remains with the people. This right they have never surrendered to legislatures or to courts. If by the action of the legislature, or of congress, or of the courts, the rights reserved to the people can be abridged, denied, or destroyed, then we do not live under a republican, but are the subjects of a despotic, government. If congress were to enact a law providing that one-tenth of the annual income of each inhabitant in the land should be paid to railroad corporations, and the supreme court of the United States should decide the act to be const.i.tutional, if it be true that there is no appeal from these decisions, and that as good citizens of the government we are obliged to accept them as valid and binding, there could be no redress. This doctrine of submission we do not indorse. Such a decision would cause the people to resort to the powers and rights retained by them, and to make use of whatever means they possessed to reverse or destroy the force and effect of such a decision.

They would be justified in resorting to nature's first law to rid themselves of so unjust a decision. While no such law has been pa.s.sed, and no such decision has been made, laws have been enacted, and their validity affirmed by the courts, which are paving the way for the destruction of the civil and political rights of the people, and the centralization of all power in the general government. By a series of legislative enactments and decisions of courts, special privileges have been conferred upon railroad companies antagonistic to, and destructive of, the rights of the people. How are these rights to be restored? These questions will now claim our attention.

All laws granting to railroad or other corporations organized for pecuniary profit, special and exclusive privileges, which encroach upon the rights of the public, should be repealed. The most prominent argument against repeal exists in the doctrine that railroads are public highways, and that a charter granted to a railroad corporation by the legislature is in the nature of a contract, and is therefore irrepealable. By the constant and persistent a.s.sertion of these propositions, and by frequent adjudication of the questions, candor compels us to admit that the current of judicial decisions supports this doctrine. Yet as the ancient dogma of tyrants, ”The king can do no wrong,” does not obtain in this country, we beg leave to call in question the soundness of this doctrine. If railroads are public highways, there can be no question as to the right of legislatures to exercise the same control over them that they a.s.sert in regard to common public roads. If they are public, private parties cannot have the exclusive control of them; nor can the legislature grant away the rights of the public by exclusive charters to private parties, for the reason that the legislature (the department of government that enacts all statutes) cannot, by the enactment of a statute, take from the whole people one of the rights belonging to them and confer it upon a private corporation. The legislature has no power to enact a statute declaring a foundry, or mill, built by an individual or a company with private capital (the absolute t.i.tle vesting in such party) to be a public foundry or mill. If such a statute were enacted, it would not change the t.i.tle to the property, nor would it prevent the owner from using and enjoying it as his own, exclusively. Whether it be called public or private would not change the nature of the owners.h.i.+p or convert the interest into public property. No matter by what name it might be called, it is still private property. The same is true of railroads.

They are built and owned by private corporations; are under the control of their owners, who retain for their own use the earnings of their roads. If these roads are public highways, then the legislature, acting for the public good, occupies the anomalous position of granting charters to private parties to construct public highways, and to own them after their construction. The supreme court of the United States, and the courts of some of the states, have decided that they are public highways, and, according to the usual custom, these decisions are to be received as final.

The courts having declared them public corporations does not change the facts in the case. The facts still remain. The roads are owned and controlled by private corporations. The t.i.tle cannot be taken from them arbitrarily. The companies receive the earnings of the roads, and every fact contradicts the decision of the courts. If the courts were to decide that a crow was white and _not_ black, we would acknowledge the binding force of the decision, and admit, that by virtue of the decision, the crow _is_ white. But when we look at the _fact_, we would still insist that, notwithstanding the decision of the courts, the crow is as black as it was before the decision was made. If the courts were to decide that common highways were railroads, as a matter of law we would accept the decision as final; but as a matter of fact we would know that they were common highways. Railroads, owned and controlled by private parties, are not public highways. If railroads are public highways, then the other position, that the charters granted to railroad companies are irrepealable, is not tenable--for the reason that the legislature possesses full power to alter, amend, or repeal all laws enacted for the benefit of the public. Public highways are public property as much as public buildings, court-houses, school houses, asylums, and other inst.i.tutions created for the use and benefit of the public. The legislature does not possess the power to vest in a company the exclusive right to build and own any of these public buildings. If a charter were granted for any such purpose, it could not be claimed that it was in the nature of a contract between the state and the company, absolutely binding upon all future legislation; that the company had acquired, by virtue of its charter, rights that neither courts nor future legislatures could disturb. Or suppose that a private company should obtain a charter for constructing and owning all the highways within a certain towns.h.i.+p or county, would it be contended that future legislatures could not alter or repeal the charter? If railroads are public highways, the companies constructing them must be subject to the same laws and decisions that apply to all other matters of like public character. Their charters are at all times under the control of the legislative authority, and subject to be altered, amended, or repealed.

Being the component part of the government, of a public nature, the doctrine that private parties can acquire rights in the nature of a contract that cannot be disturbed without their consent is not tenable.

Whether railroads are to be considered as private property, or as public highways, they are subject to the control of the legislature--because, under the const.i.tution, the power to create corporations by charter, with absolute powers, does not exist. If the converse of this is true, then legislatures could, by conferring special privileges upon individuals and corporations, deprive the public of all attributes of sovereignty, and place the entire government in the hands of individuals and companies. The const.i.tution has conferred no such power upon any department of the government. If such power is conferred, the const.i.tution, instead of being the paramount law as intended--establis.h.i.+ng the rights of the people, controlling legislative enactments, defining the powers of the different departments of the government, and guaranteeing protection from unjust and oppressive laws, and decisions of courts--is instead but an instrument to be used for the enslavement of the people. The power to grant to private parties a monopoly of any of the rights belonging to the whole people, or to confer upon these private parties such exclusive privileges as will infringe upon or take from the public, the rights that naturally attach, or belong to, the whole people, was never conferred upon the legislature of the state or nation. If legislatures have entered into contracts with corporations, under which the rights belonging to the people are transferred to such corporations, they have exceeded the power vested in them, and the charters granted, so far as they infringe upon the rights of the public, are null and void. The plea, that a repeal or amendment of such charters would destroy vested rights, has no force, because the power to make such grants or contracts is wanting.

Nor does the plea, that innocent third parties would suffer, add any strength to the position. The corporations are the parties with whom these innocent parties contract, and to whom they must look for the fulfillment of their contracts. All acts of legislatures, granting to railroad or other corporations, rights belonging to the whole people, are subject to the control of future legislatures, and are repealable.

The only purpose for which a railroad charter should be granted is to subserve the public interest. For this purpose the legislatures possess the power to confer upon corporations such rights and privileges as are necessary to enable them to have continued being, and to transact business, but reserving at all times the right to control them and reform abuses. Good faith on the part of railroad companies requires of them fair and honest dealing with the people. Adopting the idea that the public was to receive great benefit from the construction of railroads, large grants of lands, subsidy bonds, local munic.i.p.al subscriptions, donations of money, and direct taxation, in different localities, have been afforded the different companies for the purpose of aiding in the construction of their roads. The benefit the public was to receive, and which the companies agreed to afford, was the only consideration expected by the people. This consideration the public has never received. We have shown the course pursued by railroad companies, in constructing their roads, watering their stock, and selling their bonds, and the oppressions practiced by them to force from the people the means for declaring dividends on fict.i.tious stock, and to pay the interest on the immense amounts of bonds issued and sold to the different corporations. a.s.suming that their charters are contracts between themselves and the states, they defy all efforts made by the people to arrest their extortions. Our government being inst.i.tuted for the protection and benefit of the whole people, they possess the power, and it is their right, to amend or repeal all laws that deny or abridge their own rights. Railroad companies should be compelled to reduce their stock to the actual cost of constructing their roads, and the rates of charges for the transportation of freights and pa.s.sengers should be fixed by statute at such rates as would afford a fair dividend upon the capital actually invested. The public should not be compelled to pay interest or dividends on stock or bonds issued in excess of the actual cost of the roads. The property of railroad companies should be taxed by the same rules, and at the same rate, as the property of individuals. A general supervision of all railroad corporations throughout the country should be exercised by the respective state authorities. It may be said: ”All this is proper, but how will you accomplish it? All efforts heretofore made in that direction have been defeated in the different legislative bodies, or by the decisions of the courts.” We are compelled to admit that if future attempts at reform are to be measured by past efforts, the prospect is not flattering. When relief bills have been introduced into legislative bodies they have generally failed. Railroad men have been able to defeat almost every attempt at reform. The idea seems to have obtained in all legislative bodies that the men who built railroads were self-denying; that they were philanthropists; that for the purpose of developing the country, of affording speedy and cheap transportation to the eastern markets of the products of the west, they were sacrificing their personal comfort and wealth; and that the least the people could do was to extend to them a helping hand--to grant them local aid, to exempt them from taxes, to a.s.sist them in procuring the right of way, and, instead of enacting laws to protect the people from the abuses of railroad corporations, statutes should be enacted to prevent any interference with the corporations, and allowing them extraordinary privileges. Men who were elected to the legislature under pledges to favor the pa.s.sage of statutes for the protection of the people against the encroachments of corporations, were found enlisted in their favor, and these monopolies, instead of being restricted in their powers, have continually received additional favors and privileges.