Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 January 1880 — A National Grange Memorial. [ARTICLE]

A National Grange Memorial.

The National Grange of Patrons of Husbandry have memorialized Congress on the subject of grievances from which they pray for relief: 1. That transportation companies engaged in inter-State commerce of the United States have so far exceeded their chartered rights and franchises that to-day their management is without exception illegal and arbitrary. 2. That frequent and unreasonable fluctuations in their rates of transportation, both of freight and passengers, are whimsical and unnecessary. 3. Railroads are oommon carriers, built by the people for the oommon weal, and should not do tolerated as arbitrary and crushing monopolies. 4. Organized combination among these transportation companies destroys the possibility of legitimate competition andopprdßes the industrial classes of our country. 5. These monopolies, annually growing more powerful and defiant, have not been and are not restrained by effective Congressional legislation. The memorialists thersAre urgs the enactment of such laws as will relieve a burdened and oppressed people from these unlawful exactions.