Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1887 — Senator Beck’s Denunciation Of Corporation Greed. [ARTICLE]

Senator Beck’s Denunciation Of Corporation Greed.

In the course of Senator Beck’s remarks On the inter-stHto commerce bill in tl e United States Sunateu fvw days ago, lie made use ot the following strong language; “I believe the oountry will aecept this bill as an honest, earnest effort to break up the favoritism, the extortion, the an warranted control over inter-state and foreign votnmerye which many of the railroad managers nave exercised and muiataiaed for the past twenty years It is only within the last few years that the railroad advocates would admit that congress could inteifcre to prevent JisetiiainaV tiuus in their tatei or extortions it; their charges, as the arguments filed before the committees of the senate '•nJ house shosv. It was only when the unjust charges and flagrant ex tuitions of the Pacific ruiireads on way freights were exposed and facts which the manager could not deny were made manifest—such as chargee of SBOO a car to Option, Virginia City or Reno, when a like ear, similarly laden, would be hauled on the same train past these places to San Francisco, many hundre Is of miles farther, for S3OO- that the railroad attorneys had to admit thm there must be a power somewhere to prevaat and pun ish such outrages on the people along the lines. They hud tc> abate the ai> rogance of their demands lor unlimited control over inter-state and fot\ eign eompercse when it was ptoved before state and congressional com- ' mittees, and admitted by their own' agents, that the leading railroudg ot t ie country, embracing the New York GUptrul, the Erie, aud the Pent.sylvarija system, had by their pools aud ■Otfcter illegal combinations distroyei: aU competition of the pro'iticprs of petroleum with the Standard OU and had buiit up that mon stfrr monopoly in fifteen yeais from •a,ti insignificant oiganisaitsn, with lesuthan $1,000,000 capital, to a mam moth monopoly with oversloo,ooo,ooo not less than SSOD(iO OCO of whiet was s olen- no milder word will express the truth by he railroa Is and Standard Oil ccuaspiratthrough their reels, by discriminations, rebates and eqtortlens, from the people of the country ajd their competitois in trade."

Representative Meagher, of Vigo county, before he was unseated bv ibe Rev übiicsn House of Representatives, to give (he Republicans the Legislature, made a speech in his own beuslf. He said lie was no hairspitting lawyer, but a poor laboring man with a wife and children to take care of, wi'h money earned ata puddling furnace. He bad never held an uffiee in his life until he took his seat in the house, and haa novt-r perform ed any official duty till then. He knew that his constituents had elected him fairly and honestly, and fee would rather be expelled from the house a hundred times than to take a- offloo once when the people sa d they didn't want nim to have it. Con eluding he said: “If I am turned out for the purpose of electing a man to the United States Senote who doesn’t know a Ipboring man when he meets him, I will be very much surprised When every man is compelled to ad< nit that I got an honest majority of the votes cast in my county tor repsesentative, I have a light to appeal to every honest man on this floor to see that the rights of that majority are protested. Espec ally do I appeal to the members who are here as the representatives of iaLor to stand by me in this fight, because this attempt to steal a seat from mo is bat one of the many outrages perpetrated by our enemies to dofraud t.e laboring people of their just dues. If you eau afford to turn mo out of this house upon what scheming politicians call a technicality of the law, I can go back to the furnace to evrn my daily bre-d, knowing that lam but another of the many victims of monop-> oly and the almighty dollar.” The unseating of Mr. Meagher was an infamous outrage, the commencement of a repetition of the gimeof 1877. and was only chocked by the prompt and proper action of t e Senate.

One of the most eloquent preachers of Mew York tells a good joke at l is own expense a* fobows: “When I was in Floi ida last winter, Ipreaehed to a neg’.o congregation one Sunday, excusing myself from saying much on account or my poor health The colored minister in hisclosing prayer, safd: “Ch, good Lawd, bless our brother L , who has preach d to us in hes pore, weak way.’” There are 6.038 Grand Army Posts in the United States.