Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 June 1882 — Republicanism Gone to Seed. [ARTICLE]

Republicanism Gone to Seed.

During the first ten years of its existence the Republican party created and endowed with princely wealth at the expense of the people two of the richest and most powerful monopolies the world ever produced. It gave these men absolute control over the two great agencies of exchange, money and transportation, clothing them with power to fix and determine the wages of every man’s labor and the price of every article of production. It not only clothed them with special powers and privileges to go forth and tax and toll the labor and production of the country, but to the legal powers thus granted it added the power of wealth which it gave outright with a lavish hand. To the money monopoly it not only gave exclusive control over the volume of circulating medium, but a bonus of $350,000,000 of national-bank currency for twenty years without interest, and now proposes to continue the loan and its privileges of monopoly for an indefinite period. To the transportation monopoly it gave as follows. Acres. Granted In 1862 to railroads 23,504,001.61 Granted in 1863 to railroads 3,915,200.00 Granted in 1864 to rai1r0ad546,848,600.00 Granted in 1865 to railroads 328,0 0.00 Granted in 1866 to railroads 34,061,297.77 Granted in 1870 to railroads 1,000,000.00 Granted in 1871 to railroads 17,903,218.00 Granted in 1872 to railroads 327,903.60 T0ta1127,688,221.07 This is an amount of land equal to the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania ; more land than is embraced in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and the republic of Switzerland. Not only this, but Congress has given $64,623,512 of its bonds to this monopoly, and bound the people to pay 6-per-cent. interest on them for thirty years, and, after that, the principal. Congress has not only given vast sums of wealth to these monopolies, but has exempted them from taxation, compelling the people who have been robbed by them to bear all the burdens of theif protection. They have also usurped the reins of government, have, in fact, become the governing power, while those who produce the wealth and bear the tax-bur-dens of the Government are compelled to spend their strength and devote their lives to the business of adding to the wealth of their oppressors.— Chicago Express.