Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1882 — WISE WORDS. [ARTICLE]

WISE WORDS.

Spoken bp Representative Democrat* at the Celebration of Jackson’s Birthday, In Chicago. HON. fiYMAN TRUMBULL, IN RESPONSE TO THE SENTIMENT, “ LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.” Mr. President : I suppose lam called upon to respond to this sentiment because of the somewhat independent coarse I have pursued in public life. I believe in the rights of man, his capacity to take care of himself, and that the less government interferes with his pursuits, his religion or his thoughts the better, so long as he neither encroaches upon the rights of others nor suffers'from their aggressions. The good old motto, “ The world is governed too much,” seems to be lost sight of in these modem times. We forget that all men are oreated equal, and have the same rights to liberty, life and happiness. Whatever system of government interferes with these rights further than it is necessary for man’s protection in their pursuit is opposed to nature's laws and nu j uat to the noblest of created beings. All special privileges, monopolies and class, legislation by which advantages are given to some over others aro so many unjust encroachments upon the freedom which by nature’s law belongs to aIL If all men would act justlv toward each other, and hand and hand go along together seeking the highest good of each and all, no human laws would be needed to guide them in the paths of bliss. But all men have not yet arrived at that state of perfection that they will always so govern their action as not to encroach on the rights of others, hence Governments are necessary to restrain the vicious and the wicked. The nearer these Governments approach to individual government, the less the encroachment upon natural liberty. As it would be best that each individual shoqjd act justly if he would, so it is best, since some will not, that the restraints which the peace and good order of society require to be imposed upon ail should approach as near individual government as possible. Let the family establish laws for the government of the household, the inhabitants of the village, city, State and nation for their respective localities, in matters pertaining to each. This is local self-government This is republicanism. To deny the right of the people in each subdivision to manage the domestic affairs pertaining to it and vest them in a central power is imperialism. Whenever the few have been intrusted by the people with certain powers the tendency has always been for them to claim mpre, hence the necessity for written constitutions defining with precision the powers to be exercised by officials, and for vigilance on the part of the people to seo that they do not overstep them. Our system, by which the powers of government are divided betweeli the States and the nation, and those again into different departments, is perhaps the wisest ever devised to secure to the people their liberties. Such a system is complicated and can only be maintained by a people intelligent and jealous of their rights. Whenever they become indifferent, any government, no mitter how liberal and free in its origin, will soon drift into a despotism. The tendency to centralization in our own country within the last twenty years has been alarming. This tendency had its origin in the War of the Rebellion, when to maintain the Union it became necessary for the Federal Government to put forth all its powers, and to exercise some of questionable constitutionality. It is an old saying that in the midst of arms laws are silent. While lam not willing to admit that, even in the midst of civil war, tho constitution is silont, it must be confessed that when flagrant war rages many of its provisions for the protection of individual liberty he dormant, but when peace returns a libertyloving people will seo to it that they are revived in all their vigor. Has this been done in our case, or have the people, iu their eagerness after wealth and ease, been so indifferent to the encroachments of the Federal Government npon the reserved rights of the people and the States that it has been permitted to assume powers never contemplated by the framers of the Government, and which have already well-nigh broken down that division of powers which is the great safeguard to liberty ? One has but to look at the proceedings of Congress, the President and the Federal judiciary to see that together they are claiming to exercise almost imperial powers. Vast amounts of money aro collected and squandered upon local improvements, in the erection of public buildings, and olherwise. Places of holding courts are increased, and Judges and other officials are multiplied. The present Congress bids fair from present indications to be the most extravagant that ever assembled. Already bills are introduced to appropriate annually some $60,000,000 for educational purposes, a larger sum than was expended by the Federal Government for all purposes twenty-five years ago. A committee of the Senate recommends an appropriation of some $50,000,000 to build a railway across the Isthmus. How many more million) will be appropriated for clearing out creeks and improving harbors unknown except to woodchoppers and mill-owners who fell the trees and saw the lumber that are floated upon their waters, and for erecting buildings in insignificant towns can not be known till the bills pass. Add to these the enormous sums voted for pensions, many of whom are undeserved, and you will even have but a faint conception of the vast amounts of money collected and expended for purposes never contemplated by the men who made the Government, and which, in connection with the official* who collet and disburse it, gives a power to the Government which is dangerous to liberty. We see the executive using the army to perform police duty iu the States. This will soon lead to its increase, and it can not be long under such a system before the liberty of the American citizen, like that of the citizen in most countries of the Old World, will be at the mercy of a hireling soldiery. We see the Federal courts overriding the State tribunals, and dragging citizens of the same State from their homes to litigate questions between themselves iuto the Federal courts, provided a citizen of some other State has the slightest interest in the controvert y, _

These are a few, of the assumptions of power bv the Federal Government on its march to impernlism. But this is not aIL Laws are passed by Congress confessedly for the benefit of one class of people, and that not the most numerous, at the expense of the many. This is done under the pretense of protection to American industry. Oh, industry, what wrongs are committed in thy name 1 Under the name of protection to thee, the laborer, the mechanic, the farmer and men engaged in every industry are denied the right to buy where they can buy cheapest, not for the purpose of raising revenue to support the Government, but for the avowed purpose of enabling a few favored manufacturers to exact more for their goods than they otherwise corrid. Every dollar paid by the purchaser of an American manufactured article above what the same would cost, if the purchaser was free to buy it in the markets of the world, is so much money paid as a bounty to the American manufacturer, not one penny or which goes to the support of the Government- What is to be thought of the law which compels the man who raises com to pay tribute to the one who makes salt, or the mechanic who uses lumber to pay tribute to the man who furnishes it ? This is exactly what a protective tariff is designed to do, and it is all done under the delusive name of protection to American industry. A revenue tariff is imposed for the support of Government; a protective tariff for the support of manufacturers. , There is another class of legislation not peculiar to Congress, but practiced by State Legislatures as well, that is dangerous to freedom and destructive to individual independence and liberty. I refer to the unlimited creation of corporations which become monopolies in the bands of those who wield them and are rapidly assuming control not only of the business of the oountrv bnt its politics also. Corporations are now created for almost all conceivable purposes, from the gigantic railroad corporation to those organized to sell paper bags. The great moneyed corporations combine together and lay tribute upon the people at will, while the small** corporations carry on businoss without ‘ the*responsibility that attaches to individuals similarly engaged, lrtne corporation is successful, its managers pocket the profits; if unsuccessful, its creditors Docket the loss, and its Scheming managers are left free to embark in new enterprises with fortunes but slightly if at alt impaired. How can individual enterprise compete with corporations possessed of such advantages ? Corporations for public or quasi-public purposes may sometimes be a necessity. In such cases they should always lie subject to public control; but why should corporations be allowed for purely privato purposes, the only effect of which is to relieve their managers from personal responsibility. The sentiment to which I am responding opens too wide a field to be discussed here, and I will conclude by asking what is to be done in

view of the alarming tendency to centralization and encroachment npon individual liberty to which I have alluded ? _ Shall we despair of the republic? By no mean*. The power of the Federal administration through its control of the money power, its collection and disbursement annually of $300,000,000 or $400,000,003, and its vast patronage Is very great, and, in the hands of an nnscrapaloas party which had the support of even one-third es the people, would perhaps be irresistible except by revolution. Bat not one-third or one-tenth of the people of this country, when aroused to the assertion of their right*, will consent to surrender them to the oontrol of a central despotism controlled by the money power. The people believe in their cgpacitv for self-government, in their ability to provide for education, the cultivation of the soil, their domestic peace, and local affairs without the supervision of a great central power, which imposes burdens for its own aggrand ; zement and by unjust and unequal laws compels the many to pay tribute to the few. We have only to sound the alarm, let the cry go forth that local self-government is in dan;,.., that vast moneved monopolies are exacting nnjtut tribute, that corporations created for purely private purposes are destroying individual liberty, and, like a fire-bell at night, it will awaken the people to their danger, will rouse them to a vindication of their rights, and to the establishment of oar political strnctore on the foundations where our fathers placed it, securing to the citizeus individual liberty, to the State the management of its domestio affairs, and to the nation all the powers necessary to preserve the Union and protect us as a people from foreign aggression. HON. I AMES R. DOOLITTLE, IN REPLY TO THB TOAST, “OPPOSITION TO MONOPOLIES." Mr. President and Gentlemen: I can respond to that toast with all my heart, for “Down with Monopoly” is the battle cry of freedom. It always has been. It always wil' be. The struggle against monopoly—the struggle for common right against special privilege —is no new warfare. It is as old as our Government; aye, older, in truth, our Government is bnt the outgrowth of that struggle—a struggle which began more than 1,800 years ago. At a time when Rome held the world in chains; when the high priests, scribes and pharisees claimod all the religion, learning, wealth and respectability of the Jews, a carpenter’s son, Jesus of Nazareth, began a warfare against monopoly in every form. In one sentence of seven words he laid the ax at the root of it: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Ever since he uttered it, it has been ringbfg through the ages.' It is ringing yet. It has changed ana is changing, hour by hour, the civilization and social and political condition of mankind. Tnose words, so simple of themselves, were more powerful than armies. They reached and inspired the souls of men, setting them on fire. The spiritual fires thus kindled have burned more and more brightly through all these centuries. The conflict of right against wrong, of equality against caste, of freedom against slavery, went right on in every form and everywhere ; in church and in state, in cabinet and assembly, in cloister and university, as well as upon many a bloody field of battle. In the midst of crumbling empires and rising and falling kingdoms the irrepressible conflict went right on from age to age. Though progress in a single generation was slow, still there was progress. Though often dofoated, humanity gained strength with every struggle, and at the end of sixteen centuries great progress, great victories, great triumphs had been achieved. Bnt there seemed not to be sufficient room in the Old World for a battlefield upon which the great and crowning victory for mankind coula be won. In the fullness of time, and in the providence of God, there was a change of base ; a change from the Old World to the New, which, it would seem, was reserved for that very purpose—reserved for tho holy experiment of a Government opposed to all monopoly—its corner-stone the equal rights of man. By that change, here to this New World, humanity gained the vantage ground. This great republic—the rej üblic of the ages—the outgrowth of this slruggle of the centuries, appeared in 1776. Our Declaration of Independence, the constitution of the United States, and of every State, in theory, are all right; are all pledged in favor of liberty, equality, fraternity—all pledged against monopoly and special privilege. And yet, in spite of all these, there have suddenly grown up in this country the most gigantic monopolies the world has ever seen in the form of railway and other moneyed corporations. For example: The Standard Oil Company, the extent of whose affairs has just come to light, started in 1868 with only $1,000,000 capital. In 1880, in twelve years only, it divided in profits over $10,800,000, and increased its capital from $1,000,000 to $25,000,000. It now holds an absolute monopoly of one of the four great staples of export To enable it to grasp such vast sums and to break down all its competitors, the four trunk-line railways from west to east paid back to it, in rebates on transportation, $10,151,218 within a period of eighteen months. What those four railway kings did for this corporation they can do for another, and give to it a monopoly of some other great staple. While our people have been fighting for the Unions and to put down one species of monopoly in the form of negro slavery, there has suddenly grown up in this republic an empire of confederated railways ; an empire of gigantic, and, a 3 they claim, of irresponsible powers, reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which threatens to revolutionize the Government and to enslave us all—East and West, North and South, white and black. The powers of that empire are so great and overshadowing that a distinguished Senator, late Secretary of the Treat-ury was forced to say: “There are in this country four men who, in the matter of taxation, possess and frequently exercise powers which neither Congress nor any State Legislature would dare to exert; powers winch, if exercised in Great Britain, would shake the throne to its very foundation. These men may at any time, and for any reason satisfactory to themselves, by a stroke of the pen, reduce the value of property in the United States by hundreds of millions. They [ mav at their own will and pleasure disarrange and embarrass business, depress one city or locality, and build up another, enrich one individual and ruin his competitors.” These confederated railways not only tax the commerce of the people “ all it will bear,” to enrich themselves, but spend large sums to control elections and influence legislation. In 1868 one railway alone spent more than $1,000,000 for that purpose, and charged it to the “India-rubber account” of “extra and legal services.” (Hepburne Rep. Watson’s testimonv, p. 336.)

They not only seem to control elections and judiciary appointments, but to oontrol improperly judicial decisions. A man of standing, before the Committee of Commerce at Washington, in January, 1880, said that he had heard the counsel of one great railway, in the Supreme Court of one of the old thirteen States, threaten the court with the displeasure of his clients if it decided against them. We do not wonder that he added : “ All the blood in my body tingled with shame at the humiliating spectacle.” Mr. President and gentlemen, the war for the Union is over. Negro slavery is gone forever. The foolish attempt to subject the heart, brain and manhood of the South to the ignorance of freedmen, and to the cupidity of carpet-bag plunderers, is at length abandoned. But let us nob be deceived. The struggle against monopoly, injustice and oppression is not ended—it is only taking on new form. The great and crowning struggle in the trial of man’s capacity -for self-government is yet to come. As 1 see it, and feel it coming, and that it may be very near, how I wish, sometimes, that youth would 'come again! Above all, how do I wish we had another Gen. Jackson to lead us in that straggle! Look where we will, the dangers of monopoly threaten us on every hand. The monopoly of coolie immigration by the Chinese Six Companies, with au its attendant vioea and degradation, threatens California and all the Pacific States. Polygamy, another Asiatic institution, founded upon the slavery and monopoly or women, holds Utah, and threatens all the mountain Territories. While dealing with these great questions, and leaving no duty undone to solve them, let us not forget that the groat question of the hour is this: Shall corporations bo our servants or our masters t Shall we, ourselves, be freemen or slaves ? Is this a Government of the people, by the people and for the people, or is this a Government of corporations, by the managers of corporations, to rob the people and enrich themselves ? I have not time, and this is not the oocasion, to say more than this: I trust we may be able to put forward a great, earnest and patriotic man—every inch a man—who, like Gen Jackson, may lead and inspire us *ta the coming straggle ; inspire os to do nothing which i* not clearly right, and to Bubmit to nothing wrong: and, when the battle waxes hot, to take good care to destroy nothing great, or good, or useful, but with firm purpose and steady hand to overcome, to restrain, to remove all the

evils of monopoly; to teach all corporations hat they, as creatures, are not above their creators ; that they were made by the people, and are bound to serve the people upon equal terms and for reasonable compensation: that railways, especially, are public highways and are common carriers for the people, and not their masters nor their oppressors. 1 conclude my response to this toast in the words of Gen. Jackson to the Senate, nearly fifty years ago, and none more eloqnent are to be round in the English tongue: “ I would persuade my countrymen, so far aa I may, that it is not in a splendid Government, supported by powerful monopolies and arlstocratioal establishments, that they will find happiness, or their liberties protection, but In a plain system, void of pomp, protecting all and granting favors to none: clinj>eusing its blessings like the dews of heaven, unseen and unfelt, save in the freshness ana beauty they contribute to produoe.” It is suoh a Government that the genius of our people requires ; such a one only, under which our States may remain, for ages to come, united, prosperous and free.