CALL TO ACTION AN INTERPRETATION OF THE GREAT UPRISING. ITS SOURCE AND CHUSES. BY JAMES B. WEAVER. " you take my house when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house; you take my life When you do take tlie means whereby I live." —Shakespeare. 'The enemy comes on in gallant sliow; Their bloody sign of battle is hung out. And something to be done immediately." —Exclamatuj)i of the Messenger to Octavitis and Anthony on Uie Plains of Phillippi. DES MOINES: IOWA PRrNTINO CO., PRINTERS. BINDERS & LITHOGRAPHEUS. COPYRIGHTED. 1892. BY JAMES B. WEAVER. LIBRARY .UNWERSITY OF CALTFOItNlA . SANTA BARBARA CONTENTS. PAGE. I. Th3 Senate 9 II. The Speaker of the House 49 III. Supreme Court 67 IV. Improvident Disposal of Public Lands 136 V. Finance in War and Peace 184 "VI. Evolution In Crime, or Improved Methods of Piracy 228. VII. A Comparison— Rome, Britain, and the United States 269 — VIII. The Silver Problem 297 IX. National Debts 333 X. Finance and Ownership of Land 345 XI. The Gerry-Mander, with original Caricature 353 XII. Dives and Lazarus— Contrasts ,362 XIII. The Pinkertons 379 - XIV. Trusts 387 —-XV. National Banks ,395 XVI. Transportation Problem 409 - XVII. The Sub-Treasury. 424 XVIII. Remedies Considered 432 XIX. The Great Uprising— Its Interpretation— The Country's call to Action 438 XX. Danger and Duty 441 PREFACE. The author's object in publishing this book is to call at- tention to some of the more serious evils which now disturb the repose of American society and threaten the overthrow of free institutions. We are nearing a serious crisis. If the present strained relations between wealth owners and wealth producers con- tinue much longer they will ripen into frightful disaster. This universal discontent must be quickly interpreted and its causes removed. It is the country's imperative Call to Action, and can not be longer disregarded with impunity. The sovereign right to regulate commerce among our magnificent union of States, and to control the instruments of commerce, the right to issue the currency and to deter- mine the money supply for sixty-three million people and their posterity, have been leased to associated speculators. The brightest lights of the legal profession have been lured from their honorable relation to the people in the administration of justice, and through evolution in crime the corporation has taken the place of the pirate; and finally a bold and aggressive plutocracy has usurped the Govern- ment and is using it as a policeman to enforce its insolent decrees. It has filled the Senate with its adherents, it con- trols the popular branch of the National Legislature by cunningly filling the Speaker's chair with its representa- tives, and it has not hesitated to tamper with our Court of last resort. The public domain has been squandered, our coal fields bartered away, our forests denuded, our people impoverished, and we are attempting to build a prosperous O PKEFACE. commonwealth among people who are being robbed of their homes — a task as futile and impossible as it would be to attempt to cultivate a thrifty forest without soil to sustain it. The corporation has been placed above the individual and an armed body of cruel mercenaries permitted, in times of public peril, to discharge police duties which clearly be- long to the State. Wall Street has become the Western extension of Threadneedle and Lombard streets, and the wealthy classes of England and America have been brought into touch. They are no longer twain, but one, and have restored to Great Britain all the dominion she desires over her long lost colonies. We have in late years become an important prop to the British throne and the hope pf her dominant classes. We are careful not to act in monetary affairs without her consent; and if not in monetary affairs, then in none other, for money has become the Alpha and Omega of modern life. The aristocratic classes in the old country constantly point their turbulent starving masses to the United States, in proof that republics afford no refuge or hope to the oppressed millions of mankind. But the present stupendous uprising among the industrial people of the new world confounds them. It is the second revolt of the colonies. It required seven years for our fathers to overthrow the outward manifestations of tyranny in colonial days. But our weapons now are not carnal, but mighty to the pulling down of strongholds. Their children can vanquish the American and British plutocracy combined in a single day — at the ballot-box. They have resolved to do it. If this book can in the least aid in the mighty work, we shall be content. The few haughty millionaires who are gathering up the riches of the new world, make use of certain instruments to accomplish their selfish purposes. The DeoDle are PREFACE. 7 beginning to understand what these instrumentaKties arc. and are preparing to resist their destructive force. The purpose of this book is to make clear the great work which lies before us. It must be thorough and complete in order to be permanent. The magnitude of our task will appear as we advance in the struggle. We have made no attack upon individuals, but have con- fined our criticisms to evil systems and baleful legislation. We have endeavored to be accurate, but claim no literary merit for our effort. We submit the work to the criticism of our co-temporaries and the candid consideration of patriotic people. The Authok. R CALL TO ACTION. .^^. CHAPTKR I. THE SENATE. The English Parliament was copied after the Saxon National Assemblies. The Gemot, as it was called, con- sisted of a single body and was composed of the great and powerful supporters and defenders of the King. The Magna Charta provided for the addition of a certain num- ber of Lords and church dignitaries, to be selected from the spiritual hierarchy, such as Arch- bishops. Bishops and Abbots. To these theocratic law makers were referred, among other important matters, all questions relating to taxation. From the remotest period in the history of the Saxons it had been the settled policy never to submit to the imposition of taxes unless the subject had consented thereto either personally or through some authorized representative. So scant were the royal revenues at this remote period, as compared with the extravagant expenditures, that it was with extreme difficulty that the wants of the crown and the nobility could be supplied at all; and history shows that in nearly every instance the taxes were voted only in return for some new concession of liberty to the people. During the fitful intervals of peace, wealth accumulated and centers of population and commerce multiplied. Naturally enough these communities, in course of time, asked for representation in the great council. The prince and his barons consented — for a price. The purchase was made and in this way the great body of the English people, who were neither clerical nor noble and who were simply organ- 10 A CALL TO ACTION. ized into "communities," and shires, secured a hearing and gradually acquired a foothold among the law makers of the realm. With the lapse of time and the increase of popula tion and wealth, came the extension of suffrage. Wlien the crown was powerful and the unrepresented people weak, the right of representation was sold for so much money paid directly into the royal treasur}'. When the electors became numerous and had the power of electing members of Parliament within their own hands, they in turn sold their votes to the highest bidder. Mr. May, in his excellent work on the British constitution, informs us that up to within a very recent period, it was a common thing for candidates for Parliament to visit the locality of their can- didacy and with ready cash purchase the votes necessary to elect them, and then close the negotiations with an agree- ment properly signed and witnessed. But thanks to the extension of suffrage, and cognate reforms, England of to-day is comparatively free from this abuse. There is virtue in the people, and the plague spots of the world have often been healed by jostling against the multitude — by reaching out and touching the hem of their garments. For many years the Commons occupied the same hall with the Barons and Lords. As they incl-eased in numbers the Lords consented that these plebeian intruders might occupy a separate hall. The Commons represented those who paid the taxes and fought the battles, and soon after the separation into the two houses or halls, they took the question of taxes exclusively into their own hands. The power of the Commons has increased through all its his- tory, while that of the Lords has constantly waned. -These manifestations of decay on the one hand and of growth on the other, are both natural and philosophic. The functions of the House are normal and legitimate, while those of the Lords are imposed by law and are purely arbitrary and THE SENATE. 11 artificial. Hence the tendency among enlightened people is to cherish the one and reject the other. Mr. Gladstone, in a speech delivered at ISTewcastle, in October of this year, favors the utter abolition of the House of Lords. He struck a popular chord which was already vibrating in America. The revolt which brought on the American revolution was not so much against British institutions as against the tyranny of", administration. England, except under Cromwell's Commonwealth, had a House of Lords, there- fore, it was argued, the young repubHc must have a similar body; the Lords were men of great wealth and represented the aristocracy of the realm, therefore our senators should be selected because of their holdings in order that they might represent the wealth of this country; the Lords were not compelled to look to the people for their positions, but either inherited them from their ancestors or received them at the hands of the sovereign; therefore there should be some intervening select body of men in this country who should designate and select our Senators. It might be safe, they thought, to intrust the commonalty to select their State Legislators and national Representatives, but here their power must cease. It is^ould be positively dangerous to go farther. Alexander Hamilton likened the method decided upon to a filter. The State Legislatures were ''filtered" through the people. This refined and purified them, of course. The Senators, in turn, were to be " filtered " through the Legislatures. This removed them, with great prudence, far enough from the common herd to enable the wealthy classes to repose confidence in them. It was argued that this would afford a safe retreat from the excesses of the multitude and the follies of democracy. Hence they sev- ered the legislative department and relegated the House to the vote holders and the Senate to the wealth holders. 12 A CALL TO ACTION. When they reached the Executive, it was, of course, pre- posterous to think of electing that officer directly by the people. If the upper house of the National Legislature ■was too exalted to admit of popular selection, of course it would be shocking to think of electing a President by that method. "Whoever heard of a British king being chosen by the multitude? Did he not wear his crown by divine authority? Our President could not hope to derive his office from so high a source, and yet it would never do to intrust his selection directly to the common people. Who so rash as to think of cutting loose from the doctrine oijure divino and deferring to the opinions and wishes of the vulgar majority? No, if we were not to have divine selection, it were rash to go to the other extreme and adopt direct plebe- ian election; and so, with great solemnity, the middle ground was taken — that of selection by the Hamiltonian process of infiltration. Hence the Electoral College was constructed. The Constitution does not contemplate, nor did its founders ever dream of great national nominating conventions and Presidential campaigns such as are common in our day. All that the law requires is for the people in the several states to repair to the polls every four years, at the stated time, and quietly vote for Presidential Electors, corres- ponding in number to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress. The persons thus or- dained and consecrated in turn select the chief magis- trate. So far as the law is concerned it is not necessary that a single name shall be designated by anybody in con- nection with that high office prior to the day upon which the electors cast their votes. Everything in connection with our Presidential elections which is outside of this pre- scribed formula is extra-constitutional. The electors may select whomsoever they please for President and Yice- President, provided they be native-born citizens of the THE SENATE. 13 United States, thirty-five years of age, and do not both reside in the same state. Prior to the year 1824, even the Electors were chosen by the State Legislatures instead of by the people, the State Legislatures having the power to desig- nate the manner of their selection. At present the practice is for a few clever manipulators and party managers to select their favorite for the Presidential office and designate him in National convention. Following this, usually, some- times before, the same men select the electors in the state conventions. The multitude, having no alternative left, may then be safely entrusted with the work of carrying the torches, doing the voting and footing the bills. The Sen- ators, having been chosen by practically the same process of transudation, recognize in the Vice-President the shadow of the Executive and their natural presiding officer. This brings the Executive and the upper house en rapport, and the two combined are at once prepared to resist with lordly and platonic firmness all radical innovations threatened by the multitude. "We call this government by the people. If it were not for the label it would never be so recognized. The controversy which took place in the Federal Con- stitutional Convention concerning the method of choosing United States Senators, is a most interesting study. Among other things to be prominently noticed therein are the con- fused and contradictory opinions entertained by the fathers relating to this important subject. Some were in favor of their appointment for life by the Executive; others wished them to be chosen by the House of Eepresentatives; a strong minority thought they should be selected by the people in the several States; a few were of the opinion that they should be chosen from districts composed of more than one State, and should be restricted to a very small number. Some members of the Convention thought they should consist of persons of wealth and influence, and be 14 A CALL TO ACTION. chosen to represent the property rather than the people, and be empowered to choose the President and Yice-Presi- dent of the United States. After protracted delaj^ and much discussion, however, the present method of selection by the State Legislatures was adopted by the vote of ten States, on the Tth day of June, 1787, on m.otion of Mr. Dickinson, of Delaware. Mr. Dickinson stated that he had two reasons for his motion: "First, because the sense of the States would be better collected through their governments, than immedi- ately from the people at large; secondly, because he wished the Senate to consist of the most distinguished characters, distinguished for their rank in life and their weight of prop- erty, and bearing as strong a likeness to the British House of Lords as possible, and he thought such characters more likely to be selected by the State Legislatures, than in any other mode." (Madison papers, page 813.) The operation of this method of selection during the latter half of the century, at least, has fully met the expec- tations of its author. That Mr. Dickinson was fervently attached to the British monarchy is abundantly shown by his repeated eulogiums upon the British Constitution during the sessions of the Convention, and by the further fact that eleven years prior to the meeting of the Federal Con- vention, and while he was a member of the Continental Congress, he was the only member of that body who declined to sign the Declaration of Independence. THE EAELT SENATE. The first twenty years after the adoption of the Constitu- tion were spent in adjusting the machinery of the new government. Then came the controvers}'- with Great Britain which culminated in the war of 1812. Following the successful issue of that struggle came the questions of THE SENATE. 15 re-chartering the United States bank, internal improve- ment, the boundary line between the treaty making and the legislative power, the troubles growing out of the cele- brated Hartford Convention, the compromise measure of 1820, which established the line of 36-30, nullification in South Carolina, the Indian wars, and the Mexican war. Then followed a wide-spread slavery agitation which shook the country from center to circumference, and which finally resulted in civil war. These, and other important ques- tions engaged public attention for about seventy years. The chief characters who figured from 1Y89 to 1850 would have adorned any age. As a rule, the Senate was filled with men justly distinguished for their tal- ent—not wealth — and whether, as judged by the pres- ent generation, they entertained correct or incorrect opinions of public policy, they were selected because they were known by the whole body of the people to repre- sent some idea — some policy — and they retained their positions for that reason. This brought together a body of strong men and made the Senate the theater of great intel- lectual conflicts. A glance at some of the great names who made the Senate illustrious during the first half century under the constitution, will be of interest. From Massachusetts we had John Quincy Adams, Daniel Web- ster, Timothy Pickering and Kufus Choate, From Con- necticut, Koger Sherman, Oliver Ellsworth and Jonathan Trumbull. From New York, Gouveneur Morris, Martin Yan Buren, Daniel S. Dickinson, Kufus King, Silas Wright and John A. Dix. From New Jersey, William L. Dayton, Theodore Frelinghuysen. From Pennsylvania, James Buchanan and Simon Cameron. From Delaware, Caesar A. Rodney, James Bayard, John M. and Charles Clayton and Richard H. Bayard. From Maryland, Charles Car- roll, of Carrollton, William Pinkney and Reverdy Johnson. 16 A CALL TO ACTION. From Yirginia, James Monroe, John Randolph and Richard Henry Lee. From North Carolina, "W. P. Man- gum. South Carolina, Charles Pinkney, Robert Young Haine and John C. Calhoun. Kentucky, Henry Clay, John J. Crittenden, Humphrey Marshall, John Brecken- ridge and Phelix Grundy. Ohio, Thomas Corwin, Thomas Ewing and William Allen. Indiana, William Hendricks, Edward A. Hannegan and Albert S. White. Mississippi, George Poindexter and Robert J. Walker. Maine, John Chandler and John Ruggles. Missouri, Thomas H. Ben- ton. Michigan, Lewis Cass. Florida, David L. Yulee. Texas, Sam Houston. Iowa, A. C. Dodge and Geo. W. Jones. Almost every State within the Union was repre- sented at this time by statesmen possessing national fame and inj&uence. They did not rise above criticism, of course. Indeed, they were subject to that infirmity or perversity of judgment which caused them to transmit to posterity a solemn duty which they should have discharged themselves and which, in after years, had to be atoned for in blood. Some one has well said that if a man would properly esti- mate public questions and foresee public crises, he must lay aside personal ambition and stubbornly and persistently decline official position. The suggestion is full of wisdom. With but few exceptions the official managers of public affairs and the law-makers, in periods of public tranquility, have been deaf to the wrongs and blind to the signs of the times in which they lived. They have generally failed even to comprehend the tremendous fact of impending revolu- tion when it was just ready to burst upon them in devasta- ting fury. The Magna Charta was extorted from a ruler who was blind to the march of events; Cromwell became Lord Protector of England because of another obdurate prince; George III and his ministry understood neither the THE SENATE. 17 character of the colonists whom they were oppressing nor the manifest destiny of the new world. Louis XVI, of France, and his ministers, had they comprehended the march of ideas and the consequences likely to follow their own corrupt and oppressive reijjn and that of their imme- diate and profligate predecessors, could easily have averted the French Revolution, saved their heads and withheld from history the most tragic chapter in the blood-stained annals of mankind. But they could not comprehend the situation. Neither would they listen to those who did. Sins of omission are bad enough and lead to fearful conse- quences. But how frightful the result when aggressive wrong doing takes the place of duty omitted. Dut}' omitted sits idle and waits for calamity to overtake it. The aggressive wrong-doer turns round and starts in quest of the avenger, meets him half way and hastens the catas- trophe. As a rule, men and women in the private walks of life — the sufferers — are first to apprehend impending dan- ger, and it is their sleepless energies which finally arouse the drowsy conscience of the nations. The renewal of the anti-slavery controvers3% which occurred immediately preceding and following the com- promise measures of 1850, developed and inducted into official life a new group of men, who represented the great forces which made up the irrepressible conflict destined to burst upon the nation at the end of that decade. Illustri ous among these were Seward, of New York, Hamlin and Fessenden, of Maine, James Harlan, of Iowa, Hunter and Mason, of Virginia, Wade and Chase, of Ohio, Hale, of. New Hampshire, Sumner and Wilson, of Massachusetts, Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, Bell, of Tennessee, Crit- tenden, of Kentucky, Robert Toombs, of Georgia, and Jndah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana. 18 A CALL TO ACTION. When hostilities began between the two sections, many of the southern Senators withdrew, and within a brief period the Senate was re-inforced by Grimes, of Iowa, Trumbull, of Illinois, Sherman, of Ohio, Boutwell, Mor- rill, Doolittle, and others, all men of distinguished ability. But when hostilities were at their heighth the following gentlemen were among the most distinguished of the WAK GKODP OF SENATORS. Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, B. F. Wade and John Sherman, of Ohio, James Harlan and James W. Grimes, of Iowa, John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, William Pitt Fessenden, of Maine, Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, Lot M. Morrill, of Maine, James R. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, and Foote, of Vermont. These were all men of extraordinary intellectual strength. They passed to their positions through struggles which tested their capacity and developed their transcendent powers. At the appointed time they sprang into the arena like gladiators and challenged the world to intellectual combat. There were giants in those days. Mr. Douglas closed his eyes upon life just as the curtain rose upon the great drama. Most of the others tilled their places until the curtain fell over the last scene and then joined the silent majority. A few — Sherman, Morrill, Trumbull and Harlan — still survive and are in the enjoyment of robust and serene old age. Sumner was the diplomat of the group — the scholarly evangel of liberty and the flaming tongue of fire; Chase, the fiscal manager and stately jurist; Wade, the rugged, intellectual athlete; Harlan, the logician, the resistless orator, practical legislator and unerring interpretor oi international law; Sherman, the adroit financier, while THE SENATE. IS Grrimes, Trumbull and Doolittle were the great law- yers of the body. All were thoroughly schooled in practical affairs, accomplished legislators and filled their places with matchless ability. With but few exceptions all of these great characters have passed from the theater of action, and a THIKD GKOUP, the immediate successors of the second, now briefly claims our attention. A few of the second are found also in the third. Among the most distinguished characters of the third group were Roscoe Conkling, Matthew H. Carpenter, Oliver P. Morton, John Sherman, George F. Hoar, George F. Edmunds, Henry L. Daws, David Davis, John A. Logan, William B. Allison, James Beck, James G. Blaine, John J. Ingalls, Daniel Yorhees, Preston B. Plumb, Joseph E. Brown, L- Q- C. Lamar, Benjamin H. Hill, Thomas F. Bayard, John P. Jones, Francis Kernan and Allan G. Thurman. Fifteen have disappeared from this group. Nine have died and six others are not now in the Senate. The Senate of 1861-5 was called upon to legislate amid the perils of civil war. To the third group was given the task of reconstructing and readjusting civil government after the conflict was over. If peace hath her victories no less renowned than war, it must be that she hath her foes and perils also. The courage which can successfully meet and foil the tempter is superior to that required in the shock of battle. The former besieges the spirit, the latter assails only the body. The one is an enchantress and lures us to destruction, while the other is a mailed warrior and smites only with the sword. It seems strange that the legislators of the war and reconstruction periods failed to comprehend that those who 20 A CALL TO ACTION. drove hard bargains and exacted cruel concessions when the Republic was in peril, were as hostile to the. spirit oi liberty, though not so brave, as the armed Confederate. The motto of the Confederate leader was, "Give us oui slaves and a dissevered Union or we will take them by force;" while that of the money shark was, "If you dc not give us our price you can perish." The slaveholder lost his human chattels and the Confederacy perished. Bui the tyranny of capital was not broken by the war. On the contrary it was augmented beyond measure. The money power gained all that the slaveholder lost. It conquered the whole country and chained the children of toil, both black and white, to its chariot wheels. They threw the husk of liberty to the newly emancipated slave and appro- priated to themselves the corn. All that liberty gained in that struggle was the extension of its nominal area far enough to include the black man. Surrounded by the perils of battle, the statesman of the war period made con- cessions which strengthened the tyranny of capital beyond the power of the imagination to conceive. In the days of reconstruction our leaders surrendered to it without a struggle. The battle for substantial and real emancipation has yet to be fought and it is but just ahead. AN ALSATIAN DEN. The leading members of the United States Senate during the war and reconstruction periods are chiefly responsible for the unconscionable acts of legislation which have cursed the Nation for over a quarter of a century and which, if not speedily corrected, are likely to precipitate a tragic revolution. This chain of legislation began in the early days of the war and was finished during the period of reconstruction. The following were enacted during the war period: THE SENATE- 21 First. The exception clause of the Lesfal Tender ad which placed a premium on gold for the benefit of gold gamblers, and at the same time depreciated the pay of the soldier fully one-half and greatly increased public expen ditures. It in fact placed the country at the mercy of the New York and European speculators and stock jobbers during the whole period of the war. The exception clause was not in the bill when it passed the House. It was inserted in the Senate. Second. The law which authorized the issue of bonds. The exigencies of war never called for the issae of a sinsfle* bond. Those who framed the law simply intended to pro-* vide an opportunity for speculators whereby they could dis- pose of, at its face value in United States bonds, the paper which they had purposely depreciated and afterward pur- chased. They procured one law which enabled them to purchase Greenbacks at less than their face value, and another which empowered them to realize in gold the face value of the Greenbacks. They induced Congress to liter- ally legislate hundreds of millions of wealth into their coffers. Third. The National bank act. This act authorizes the bond holder to deposit his gold bearing bonds and secure from the treasury ninety per cent of his investment, and Btill draw quarterly from the people interest on the whole amount, of the bond. It further invested the associated banks with -the power which belongs to the Government — the power to issue the money of the people and regulate its volume. Fourth. The Land Grant acts. By these acts the Home- stead law was made a nullity and the Public domain given away to corporations, syndicates, and foreign nabobs. Fifth. The act whic^ surrendered the first mortgage lien of the government, on the Pacific railroads, and com- 22 A CALL TO ACTION. pelled the people to pay interest on the money which they advanced to construct the roads. These bonds amounted to $64,623,512. We have paid on them, in interest, up to August, 1891, the sum of $65,350,008.64, and the end is Qot yet. The company now defies the government and laughs at the helplessness of the people. Sixth. The contraction act of 1866, which authorized the destruction of our currency and its conversion into interest-bearing, non-circulating, and non-taxable debt. Under this act more than one billion of the currency was taken from circulation and destroyed. All these acts were passed under the supervision of the war group of Senators. The following acts were passed during the reign of the third, or reconstruction group: The Credit Strengthening act of 1869. The act of 1873, demonetizing silver. The Resumption act of 1875. The object of the first was to pledge the payment of the entire public debt in gold. It looked to changing the con- tract in the interest of the grasping public creditor, long after the perils of war had passed and after our brave soldiers had abundantly strengthened the public credit by their valor and blood. The war was over and the bonds were selling at a premium at the time the act was passed. The second stealthily struck down one-half of our coin money, doubled the value of gold and converted the coin bonds into gold obligations. The third, under the guise of resuming specie payments, in fact provided for the utter destruction of our legal tender currency and the increase of the bonded debt. The calamity was in part averted by subsequent legislation which stopped the destruction of the greenback and par- tially remonetized silver. Public sentiment came to the THE SENATE. 23 rescue, but the conspirators yielded with manifest and dogged reluctance. Various degrees of responsibility attach, of course, to the public servants concerned in the passage of these accursed laws. Charity, if not absolute regard for truth, requires us all to conclude that most of these legislators were at the time unadvised concerning the motives of those who forced this pitiless legislation upon the- country. The majority, perhaps, were as clay in the hands of the potter. A few cruel and skillful schemers moulded them at will. Honest men had their eyes on the salvation of the Union. Bad men took advantage of the situation. It was even sc at the very foundation of our government. Our fathers were forced, by professed friends of liberty, to make choice of evils. Posterity had to atone for it. So, many of our legislators, during the periods of war and recon- struction, fell short of their duty. A few were willfully vicious. We are now suffering the penalty. It is to be hoped that the next generation may not have occasion to accuse those who shall legislate amid the tergiversations oi the new revolution. GKEATER PEKIL. The slave holding aristocracy, restricted both as to local- ity and influence, was destroyed by the war only to be sue ceeded by an infinitely more dangerous and powerful aris- tocracy of wealth, which now pervades every State and aspires to universal dominion. Its first conquest was the subjugation of the dominant political party of the nation, while it required the other to keep the peace, under the threat that if it did not succumb it should never come intc power. Next it secured control of State politics, and finally found expression in a vast net work of corporations which have 24 A CALL TO ACTION. seized upon almost every field of labor aud every depart ment of human ejffort. Neither the military achievements of Caesar, the exploits of Cyrus, Hannibal, Alexander, nor the dazzling conquests of Napoleon in the fields of war, can compare with the stupendous victories of organized capital in this country during the past twenty-five years. They have outstripped the imagination, rendered fiction dull and uninteresting, and robbed romance of its charms. The chief spirits through whose agency all these things have been accomplished are not unmindful that they are in conflict with both private right and the public welfare. They, above all others, know the extent of their wrong doing, and they fear reprisals at the hands of the people. To prevent remedial legislation they have filled the Senate of the United States with men who represent the corpora- tions and the various phases of organized greed. The ideal Senate, longed for by Mr. Dickinson — a Senate com- posed of men of wealth and resembling the British House of Lords — has been realized and has long been in full operation. The method of selection was found to be pecul- iarly well fitted to their scheme. There is one characteris- tic common to all wrong doers — they work in the dark and conceal their motives. You know nothing of their purpose until the stab is inflicted. Like the cat, they walk in quest of prey with velvet feet; and like the assassin, they lie in wait and spring upon you without warning. The corpora- tions never make public their purpose. They hold no pub- lic meetings. Their plans are laid in the counting room, around the lunch table, and in the secret meetings of their directors away from the public. When the plan is matured, a skillful agent is employed to carry it out, and a check is drawn to cover expenses. The people at large are abou t their daily toil in the field and the workshop. They are honest, unsuspecting, patriotic, aud devoted to their respec- THE SENATE. tive parties. The work that is to rob and ruin them is bein^ done under cover. The corporations — apparently wholly indifferent — having determined whom they wish to elect to the United States Senate, the next thing in order is to secure the nomination of suitable Legislative candidates — men who can be trusted to do their bidding. Secure in this, no effort or expense is spared to insure a triumph at the polls. Usually the name of the man whom they intend to elect to the Senate is kept in the background. The can- vass is made wholly with reference to other issues. But as soon as the election is over, a venal subsidized press which has been party to the concealment during the campaign, suddenly throws off the mask and discovers that the sena- torial question is all important and you then hear of noth- ing else. They suddenly discover that Mr. A or B is just the right man for the position, and the one above all others whom the party and the State should delight to honor. At the proper time headquarters are opened at the State Capi- tal, and a lavish expenditure of money begins, while the people look on with amazement and wonder where the money comes from. The local manipulators, many of whom were parties to the conspiracy from the beginning, are sent for and kept upon the ground as a guaranty that the various bargains made throughout the State, shall be carried out. Then comes the party caucus, which all must attend and to whose decrees all must submit or lose theii party standing. Finally the majority of the caucus, which is usually a minority of the Legislature, nominates the cor poration candidate and the drunken brawl that has rendered the State Capital disorderly for a fortnight or more, is at an end and the people are betrayed. 26 A CALL TO ACTION. CONTKOLLING POWER OF THE SENATE. In Great Britain the Commons control the politics of the realm. The Lords follow, and hence rarely originate a measure. There have been but three instances of conflict between ;he two houses of Parliament for sixty years. In 1860 a conflict arose concerning the abolition of the paper duty. The lower house had voted it and the Lords wished to >bject. Both the Commons and the Ministry of Lord Palmerston disputed the right of the Lords to make any ihange in a bill relating to taxation, and the Lords were rorced to yield. In 1868 and in 1874 similar conflicts con- 3erning the Irish Church Bill and the jurisdiction of the English bishops, resulted in signal victories for the Com- mons. But it is a common thing, at every session of our Congress, for the Senate to strike out all after the enacting clause of bills relating to revenue, and insert an entirely new bill of their own. This course was pursued in the case of the Mills Tariff Bill, in the Fiftieth Congress, and in the Forty-ninth Congress the Morrison Bill was rejected altogether. In vain did the House plead for an observance of the Constitution, which requires that Kevenue Bills shall originate in the House. The Senate haughtily persisted in according to the House the right to simply originate the formal title: "Be it enacted," but the right to originate the vital portions of the bill they stubbornly arrogated to themselves — thus trampling under foot both the Constitu- tion and popular sentiment at one and the same time. Theoretically the sovereign of Great Britain can with- hold assent from any measure which may be passed b}'' Parliament, but since the days when Queen Anne refused to sanction the Scotch Militia Bill, in 1707, the royal approval has never been withheld. THE SENATE. )H A vote in the House of Commons, in opposition to the policy of the ministry, hurls every minister from his posi- tion and compels a reorganization in harmony with pubKc opinion. In democratic America, strange to say, the Senate is all powerful. To an alarming extent they can, and do, control both the House and the Executive, through the power lodged in them to confirm Executive appoint- ments, and in various other ways. To illustrate: The present Senate has a Republican majority. During the administration of President Cleveland, the writer knew of instances where Democratic Secretaries of the Treasurj^^ and of the Interior, before making appointments requiring confirmation by the Senate, requested a friend to consult with prominent EepubKcan Senators and try to ascertain whether the appointments would be confirmed if made. This is of frequent occurrence in other departments within the knowledge of the writer. It is equivalent to giving the Senate, or still worse, the Senators consulted, the power to select, in addition to the power to confirm. Any- one at all acquainted with the manner of doing business in the House of Representatives is aware of the fact that measures are frequently framed with a view to their accept- ability in the Senate, rather than with reference to the pressing wants of the public, even when the two bodies diflEer* in politics; and, as to important measures, it is almost universally true when they are in political accord. "let us ALONE." The corporations and special interests of every class created during the past twenty-five years by various species of class legislation and favoritism, have grown rich and powerful. They are now pleading to be let alone. They cry out, "You will disturb the peace, unsettle business and violate our vested constitutional rights."' The world has 28 A CALL TO ACTION. heard similar lamentations before. The same spirit haa lurked in the pathway of progress and hissed its sinister protests from behind the Constitution and from beneath the very altars of our holy religion, from the beginning until now. The same argument was urged against the intro- duction of the gospel in the early days of Christianity. Alexander, the coppersmith, found that the new doctrine would interfere with his sale of the images of Diana, and therefore concluded the gospel should not be tolerated. And the Good Book tells us that the evil spirit that was caught torturing a poor unfortunate victim, upon beholding the Savior besought him to depart and not to interfere with his vested rights — not to cast him out before his time. This is perhaps the earliest enunciation of the salutary doctrine of vested rights. And it is a noteworthy fact that most of those who have occasion to plead it in modern times are engaged in the business of torturing somebody. But the preaching of the gospel did not cease, the sale of images disappeared and the Devil had to go. This old plea is now urged, however, in behalf of corpora- tion usurpers and tyrants. They have nothing to gain by change. On the contrary everything to lose. Their Juff- gernaut must move and the car of progress stand still. They would not have the situation otherwise than it is, and as the most effectual method of enforcing this policy they have quietly filled the Senate with their friends. The punishment meted out by the corporations to Judge Thurman, of Ohio, for the faithful discharge of his duty concerning the Pacific railroads, while a member of the Senate, and the defeat of General Van Wyck, in Nebraska, after the people had expressed a desire for his re-election — these and a score of similar instances— attest only too accurately the extent and the deadly character of corporate influence in this body. THE SENATE. i 29 The Senate, as we have seen, was incorporated into oui legislative system as a check upon the rashness and appre- hended extremes of the popular branch of Congress. Bui it was not contemplated, even by Dickinson and Hamilton, that it should become the stronghold of monopoly, noi that it should hedge up the way to all reform and make impossible the peaceful overthrow of conceded abuses. In fact no tendency in this direction was observable until within the past thirty years. But of late this body has come to represent both the evil and the inertia of govern- ment. When you visit the Senate chamber you are at once reminded of antiquity. You feel that you are not far removed from that period when the changeless laws of the Medes and Persians were in force. If, without diverting your attention, you could be suddenly transported to an Egyptian charnel-house filled with mummies, you would be likely to mistake it for a Senate cloak- room. The very foot-falls of the Senators, as they walk across the tessellated floors sound like a constant iteration of statu quo! statu quo! statu quo! THE SILVER EPISODE. Kecent occurances have caused many persons to doubt the correctness of public sentiment concerning the Senate. The whole country was taken aback and the majority of the people agreeably surprised, during the session of the Fifty- first Congress, by the passage through the Senate of a bill providing for the free coinage of silver. It was strangled in the House of Representatives and the people were amazed. Many thought that this called at least for a sus- pension, if not for a revision of public sentiment concerning the upper house of our Congress. A moment's reflection will explain it all. The Republican majority in the Senate 30 A CALL TO ACTION. is not large. There are a few Republican Senators like Mr. Jones and Mr. Stewart of Nevada, Mr. Teller of Colorado, and Mr. Stanford of California, who really favor free coin- age; and so of a few Democratic Senators, like Mr. Daniela of Virginia, Mr. Yorhees, of Indiana, and others. But the great body of Democratic Senators voted for free coinage with no higher motive than to embarrass the Republican speaker, the leaders of the House and the administration, who were known to be hostile to such legislation. For ex- ample. Senator Carlisle voted for the bill in the Senate, and yet while he was Speaker of the House in the preced- ing Congress, he was known to be uncompromisingly hostile to the free coinage of silver; and although he always appointed Mr. Bland chairman of the Committee on Coin- age, Weights and Measures, he invariably filled the com- mittee with anti-silver men, and thus made legislation in that direction impossible. No, with a sort of feline cruelty they were only playing with the free coinage mouse. It could be allowed to escape from the Senate, but they felt certain that the presiding officer at the other end of the Capitol could be relied upon to slay it at first sight. And if, unhap- pily, it should run successfully the gauntlet of the House, there was a trap at ithe other end of the avenue already waiting for the intruder, and it could be relied upon to do Its work — an Executive veto was in waiting. Had there been the slightest probability, or even possibility, that the bill would become a law it could never have been reported for consideration. This view of the silver episode is in strict accord with the history of the Senate for fully a quarter of acentury, and it is in harmony with the personal biography of a large majority of its members regardless of party. THE SENATE. 31 INFLUENCE OF WEALTHY SENATORS. The opinion expressed by Mr. Dickinson, in the constitu- tional convention, that men of wealth would be more likely to be selected for the Senate by State legislatures than by the people themselves, has been justified by the experience of the last thirty years. A large number of Senators are men of great wealth. Many of them have been the bene- ficiaries of class legislation which of late years has marked our history, and have acquired fabulous fortunes. A few have grown rich by superior business energy and enter- prise. A small number inherited their riches. But with- out regard to the methods by which their wealth was acquired, the over-shadowing influence of the wealth^' members over their less fortunate colleagues is a fact beyond dispute. It is still true that knowledge is power, but its processes are often tedious and its rewards tardy. Accumulated wealth is also power and it can exercise its strength at a moment's notice and often, for the time being, drives knowledge ignominiously from the field. But the latter generally returns re-enforced by experience. Ready cash is the storage battery of social and business influence. When directed in legitimate channels its ener- gies are helpful and safe; but it also possesses a death- deaHng current and the world is full of its victims. Under our present method of electing Senators it is an easy matter for an unscrupulous man of wealth to secure the position. When elected it is extremelj^ difficult to displace him. Length of service affords opportunity to become established socially and official^- When a new Senator makes his appearance he is duly estimated and every courtesy and clever attention is extended to him. If the new member is a man of wealth, his status is fixed at once. If he is poor, it will not be long, unless he be unusually alert, before he is 32 A CALL TO ACTION. likely to find himself under some obligation to his wealthy colleagues which tends to greatly circumscribe his power and limit his independence. If wealthy Senators were few in number they would still wield a dangerous influence over legislation. But when you add numbers to wealth, the danger is frightfully increased. At least a score of our Senators are millionaires. Another score are worth each a hundred thousand or more. Half a score are men of very considerable wealth. The remainder range from twenty thousand down to near the value of their salaries. COKPOEATION ATTOKNEYS IN THE SENATE. The immense volume of legislation relating to land grants, internal and external commerce, railway subsidies, excise taxes and import duties, contracts for carrying the mails, purchase of Indian lands, private land grants, steam ship subsidies, and a thousand and one other matters, have given rise to a flood tide of litigation unequaled in any age or clime. A large number of the contentions rising out of this legislation involve the construction of acts of congress, and not unfrequently their constitutionality also. In many cases the collection and proper disbursement of public moneys are called directly in question, and as long as Sen- ators stand in the relation of law makers to the public, a proper appreciation of their high ofiice should restrain them from appearing as attorneys, either for corporations or individuals, in cases involving the proper interpretation of statutes which they themselves have made. The practice, however, is just the reverse. When the Supreme Court is in session it is a common thing to see the leading Senators leave their seats and pass into the court room, there to act as counsel for the leading corporations. Many Senators are annually retained by corporations and other moneyed interests. Such things are incompatible with the faithful THE SENATE. 33 discharge of public duty. It is true that the salaries and lawful emoluments of Senatorial life are meagre and unin- viting; but no one is compelled to accept them. When once accepted, however, the privileges of the lawyer should cease just where the duties of the public servant begin. At this point his relation to the public changes entirely. The Nation then becomes his client and he should appear in his place and plead the cause of the whole people without mental reservation or self-evasion. No other rule is com- patible with public duty or private honor. Public senti- ment which will knowingly tolerate the infraction of such rule is utterly demoralized, and law makers who insist upon such indulgence should at once be permitted to return to the practice of their profession and to private life. THE DECLmE OF THE SENATE. There is not a single great leader in the Senate of to-day, not one who is abreast of the times, or who can be truth- fully said to be the exponent of American civilization or the active champion of the reforms made necessary by the growth and changed relations of a century, and which are now struggling for recognition. John P. Jones, of Nevada, is the ripest philosopher, and by all odds the greatest thinker now in the Senate. We doubt, indeed, whether he has ever had an equal, along the line of eco- nomic thought, in all the history of that distinguished bodj . The versatility and scope of his genius make him a matchless teacher and he will forever rank as one of the great men of his day. He is full of forceful, original thought, and expresses himself in proverbs, but he lacks that singleness of purpose which marks the great leader. He has, in his mental armory, sufficient munitions of war to equip a whole legion, but he waits for others to recruit the forces and lead them to battle. There are other Sen- 34 A CALL TO AOTIOX. ators who have a clear conception of duty, but this con- ception never ripens into action. They are stifled by their surroundings and dwarfed by their parties. One and all, they stand dumb and aimless in the presence of the mighty problems of the age. The situation reminds one of the era in the histor}' of our planet mentioned in the book of Genesis, when it is said: "There was not a man to till the ground." This august body is literally filled with splendid speci- mens of a by-gone epoch — men whose only mission is to preserve the old order of things — to guard the embalmed corpse of the past from the touch of the profane reformer. They are the lineal descendents of the fellows who skulked in the camp of Israel when Joshua insisted on crossing the Jordan into the promised land. They are as much out of place in this pulsating age of reform as a mastodon or a megatherium would be among a herd of our modern well bred domestic animals. They are fit only to adorn museums and musty cabinets. If their commissions could be recalled to-day and the question of their return referred to an open vote of their constituents, there is not one in ten who would stand a ghost of a show for re-election. They are not in touch with the people. Their strength lies in their entrenched position — not in their achierements nor the principles which they represent. If dislodged, they would be powerless to make another stand. We, of course, do not include in this criticism the two or three prophets of the new order of things, who have but recently been commissioned to go unto Ninevah, that great cit}^, and to preach unto it the preaching whereunto they have been called. It will be time enough to speak of them when they shall have had opportunity to obey those who sent them. THE SENATE. 35 Every great movement and struggle of the race develops its own leaders, who are forced to assault fortified positions and fight against great odds. Some positions have to be carried by storm, while others can only be taken by regular approaches which sorely try the endurance and resourcea of the besieging columns. Such were the characteristics of the great struggle of the 60's. Their storming parties were hurled forward with dash and power, and their sieges were stubborn and successful. To change the figure, the pion- eers in the movement doubtless had a clear vision of the land to be ultimately possessed, but they quickly passed away and were succeeded by an inferior order of leaders who felt that they had done their whole duty when they had driven out the wild beasts, cleared away the forest and prepared the ground for the reception of good seed. They then rested upon their laurels and allowed the enemy to sow the field with tares. The seed has grown, the harvest has ripened, and the reapers are under orders to burn the tares. The moral, intellectual and political leaders during the twenty years immediately following the war, with the sin- gle exception of Wendell Phillips, failed to comprehend the problems which confronted them. They stopped with the overthrow of the outward form of slavery. Through the strength and suffering of the great army of the people they succeeded in breaking the chains of chattel slavery and prepared the way for the complete triumph of man over those who lived by the enslavement of labor. All that was necessary was one more forward movement of the column, and the victory would have been complete. But they failed to make it and surrendered to a handful of task masters of another type, whose triumphs in the slave trade have never, in all the ages, been limited b}^ distinctions of race or com- plexions of skin. This class of slave drivers have never yet been routed or permanently crippled. They have plied 36 A. CALL TO ACTION. their cruel vocation among all the families of men. To overthrow them is the grand work of the new crusade. Con- federated labor has proclaimed the new emancipation. Now let the great army of toilers move on the enemy's works and enforce the decree. A CHARITABLE RULE AND HOW IT WORKS. The Constitution makes each house of Congress the judge of the qualification and election of its own members. They can, and do, prescribe their own codes of procedure, and the rules which shall govern the production of testimony in proceedings looking to the expulsion of a member. If a Senator is charged with the corrupt use of money in secur- ing his election, it is quite natural that the other Senators, many of whom are under the same cloud, should at least be disposed to take a very charitable view of the rules which should govern the investigation and their own final action. There is a deep-seated conviction among the people, which in some way is strengthened by each recurring Senatorial election, that such positions are secured by open and shame- less bribery and the criminal expenditure of money. In- deed, it has become of late the custom to inform the public, in a general way, that it cost the successful candidate from $50,000 to perhaps four times that sum to secure his elec- tion, and that the rival and defeated candidate — well, he was a little too coarse to pass through the Hamiltonian filter. His purse gave out, and the glittering prize eluded his grasp. In the month of January, 1884, Henry B. Payne was elected to the Senate by the Legislature of the State of Ohio, having been nominated previously by the Democratic caucus, in which he received 45 votes, Durbin Ward 17, George H. Pendleton 15. The result was unexpected, as it was sup- THE SENATE. 37 posed the sitting member, the Hon. George H. Pendleton, and Mr. Durbin Ward, had secured the pledges of a safe majority of those who would constitute the caucus of the dominant party, and the chances were largely in favor of Mr. Pendleton as against the field. No one had been so rash as to anticipate the election of Mr. Payne, nor had his candidacy even been mentioned prior to the election of the Legislature. The result was so unexpected that the large majority of the Democratic newspapers of the State openly charged that Payne's election had been secured by the cor- rupt use of money. Judge McKemy, of Butler county; Judge Coryell, of Adams; Allen G. Thurman and Gen. A. J. Warner, Democrats of national fame, all charged that the election of Payne was the result of corrupt purchase. Finally, the succeeding General Assembly of the State of Ohio, Republican in politics, proceeded to investigate the case. A large amount of very damaging and startling tes- timony was taken and reported by the committee. The Ohio Senate and House, each acting separately, passed the following resolutions, and transmitted them, along with the testimony adduced, to the Senate of the United States: Whereas, by common report, suggested and corrobo- rated by the public press of the State without respect to party, and by a recent investigation of the House of Repre- sentatives, the title of Henry B. Payne to a seat in the United States Senate is vitiated by corrupt practices and the corrupt use of money in procuring his election; and Whereas, it is deemed expedient, in order to secure a thorough investigation of his said election as Senator by the United States Senate, that the belief of the General Assembly in this regard be formulated in a specific charge: Therefore, be it Jiesolvedy'That in the opinion of the General Assembly, and it so charges, the election of Henry B. Payne as Sen- ator of the United States from Ohio, in January, 1884, was 38 A CALL TO ACTION. procured and brought about by the corrupt use of money, paid to or for the benefit of divers and sundry members of the Sixty-sixth General Assembly of Ohio, and by other corrupt means and practices, a more particular statement of which cannot now be given. Resolved^ That the Senate of the United States be, and the same is hereb}^, requested to make a full investigation into the facts of such election" so far as pertains to corrupt means used in that behalf. Resolved^ That the governor be, and is hereby, requested to forward a copy thereof to the president of the Senate ot the United States. I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true and correct copy of said resolution, as the same appears upon the Senate journal of Friday, May 14, 1886, after being changed from a "joint" to a "Senate" resolution, and adopted by the Senate. C. N. Yallandigham, Clerk Ohio Senate. [H. R. No. 89.— Mr. Brumbaek.] Whereas, it is the precedent in the United States Senate that charges of briber}'" must be directly made to warrant a committee of said body in proceeding to investigate the title of any United States Senator to his seat: Therefore, Be it resolved hy the Ho^ise of Representatives of Ohio., That in the investigation made under House resolution No. 28, ample testimony was adduced to warrant the belief that the charges heretofore made by the Democratic press of Ohio are true, to-wit: That the seat of Henry B. Payne, in the United States Senate, was purchased by the corrupt use of money ; and Further resolved., That the honor of Ohio demands, and this House of Representatives requests, that the said title of Henry B. Pa3me to a seat in the United States Senate be rigidly investigated by said Senate; and Further resolved., That the governor of Ohio be requested to forward a copy of this resolution to the president of the United States Senate. In House of Representatives. Adopted May 18, 1886. Attest: David Lanning, Clet^h. THT': SENATE. 39 In addition to tliis charge of corruption and request for investigation by the Legislature of Ohio, ten of the Repre- sentatives in Congress from that State, headed by the Hon. Benjamin Butterworth and the Hon. Mr. Little, also made formal charges and requested investigation. The names of witnesses, and a fearful syuopsis of what could be proven by them, accompanied the request. It must be remem- bered that the Senate was the only body then having com- plete jurisdiction over both the accused and the subject matter under controversy. The moment that the certificate of election was delivered to Mr. Payne, the Senate became the sole judge of his qualification and election. April 27th, 1886, the Senate of the United States referred these resolutions, together with the accompanying testi- mony, to the Committee on Privileges and Elections, com- posed of nine members, five Republicans and four Demo- crats, to- wit : AVm. M. Evarts, H. M. Teller, John A. Logan, Geo. F. Hoar, Wm. P. Frye, James L. Pugh, Eli Saulsbury, Z. B. Yance and J. B. Eustis. In addition to the mass of printed testimony referred to this committee, Mr. Butterworth and Mr. Little appeared in person and gave the names of additional witnesses by whom the charges could be sustained, if the nonimittee wished to be informed. The evidence taken before the committee of the Ohio Legislature, and submitted to the Senate committee, estab- lished by creditable witnesses the following facts : One member, after the caucus, deposited $2,500 in two amounts, and being charged that it was the price of his vote, did not persist in denial. Another who changed to Payne, just before the caucus, stated to a colleague that he was oft'ered $5,000 to vote for Payne, and intended to accept it, and tried to induce his colleague to do the same. That this person's wife, just afterward, deposited $2,500 in a 40 A CALL TO ACTION, Toledo bank, took a certificate therefor, which she trans- ferred to her husband. Another, who is claimed to have changed suddenly from Pendleton to Payne, is found making, soon after, expendi- tures amounting to $1,600 with his own money on land, the title to which was taken in the name of his father, who paid $2,000 for it about the same time. The father and son lived together in the same house. The son testified that he did not know where the father got the money to pay the $2,000. The father refused to state where he got his $2,000, and said he did not know where the son got the $1,600, and if he did he would not tell. The same member also made other large payments of money about the same time. Another, who had to borrow money when he went to Columbus, and changed suddenly from Pendleton to Payne, was shown just after the election to be in possession of money to purchase property, refurnish his house, etc. He was denounced by another member as having sold his vote. He turned exceedingly sick, made no denial, and was taken away. Two others, elected as anti-monopolists, became supporters of Mr. Payne, and were heard discussing to- gether the amount of money each had received. Another, who had before bee a for another candidate, but voted for Mr. Payne, received from Oliver B. Payne $3,500, which he said was a loan. Another, according to affidavits pro- duced by Mr. Little, was declared by a fellow member to be claiming $3, 500 for his vote. Another, who had been very earnest in support of Pendleton, visited the room of Mr. Payne's managers, where the large sums of money are alleged to have been seen, and immediately afterward voted for Mr. Payne. Sixty-five thousand dollars was taken to Columbus, as stated to a witness by D. R. Paige, Payne's friend. The room of Paige, immediately preceding the caucus, presented THE SENATE. 41 the appearance of a hanh^ as stated by Governor Mueller and Paige's friend. There were, in Paige's private room, coin sacks, empty sacks, and cases for greenbacks, scattered about on the floor and table, according to Paige's friend, who called to see him, and a few moments afterwards told Colonel Russell, saying, also, that Pa3me would get there. It appears that the conversions from Pendleton to Pajnoe were largely the result of a visit to the Paige rooms. It appears, also, that those who had been pledged to Pendleton were immediately thereafter flush, could dis- charge debts, lift mortgages, and buy property for cash. With these facts before them, the committee reported that there was not suflScient evidence to justify the Senate in further investigation ! The following is taken from the majority report : Your committee are of the opinion that, to deprive a sitting member of the Senate of his seat, the Senate must be satisfied by legal evidence that he was personally guilty of bribery, or that he was joersonally connected with the bribery or the corrupt use of money to secure his election, or that he had personal knowledge of such corrupt use of money, and personally sanctioned or encouraged such use thereof to insure his election. The legal effect of such personal guilt of the sitting member on his election your committee do not decide, some members being of opinion that whether it extended to the corruption of the majorit}^ of the nominating caucus or the majority of the Legislature of the State which secured his election is immaterial. The trial of the validity of his title or on the question of his expulsion, as the single personal act of bribery or other corrupt use of money by the sitting member, as stated, to procure his election, would be sutiicient, in the opinion of some of us, to invalidate the title he claims to have acquired, and would justify his expulsion from the Senate. Your committee are also of the opinion that, if the evi- dence failti to show that the sitting member was guilty of the bribery of any member of the caucus or the Legislature, 42 A CALL TO ACTION. or had any personal knowledge or agency in the bribery, or the corrupt use of money to secure his election, then the Senate must be satisfied by legal evidence that a suflicienl number of the members of the Legislature were bribed by the friends of the sitting member to secure the votes oi enough members of the Legislature to insure his election, and that without the votes thus corruptly obtained the sit- ting member could not have been declared elected. ^ * -ii ^ ^ -A ^ That Henry B. Payne has not been charged with having anything to do personally, or with having any personal knowledge of, connection with, or participation in any act, or anything that may have been done, or charged as having been done, that was wrong, criminal, immoral, or repre- hensible in his election; that no member of your commit- tee, and no witness, Representative, or other person, has expressed the opinion or intimated any belief or suspicion that Henry B. Payne is or was connected in the remotest degree, by act or knowledge, with anything that was or may have been wrong, or criminal, or immoral in his election, A majority of your committee report that on the whole case, as presented to them, they recommend that the Senate make no further investigation of the charge involving the right of Henry B. Payne to his seat. Seven of the committee, four Democrats and three Repub- licans, concurred in this report. Senators Hoar and Frye made a minority report, in which they sa}^ : The Ohio Senate of 1883-'S4 contained 33 members. Of these 22 were Democrats and 11 Republicans. The House contained 105 members, of which 60 were Democrats and i5 Republicans. The members entitled to vote on joint ballot were 138 in all, 82 Democrats, and 50 Republicans. Eighty-two persons were entitled to vote in the Democratic caucus, of whom 42 were a majority. Seventy-nine per- sons actually attended that caucus, of which 40 were a ma- jority. Is there fair reason for instituting an inquiry whether the result of the election was procured by bribery? We think that the character of the persons making the THE SENATE. 43 charge is of itself sufficient to require the Senate to listen to it. But they produce a great body of evidence, all pointing in the same direction. We are not now to consider whether the case is proved, or even whether there be a ^;»r/«i« facie case. There has as yet been no evidence laid before us addressed to either of these considerations. That cannot be done without the issue of process for the attendance of witnesses. Messrs. Little and Butterworth now offer, on their personal respon- sibility, to establish to the satisfaction of the Senate, largely by witnesses who were not within the reach of the Ohio committee, and partly by evidence which strengthens, sup- plements and confirms that which was before that commit- tee, the following among other propositions: First. Tliat of the Democratic members elected to the Sixty-sixth General Assembly more than three-fourths were positively pledged to Mr. Pendleton and General Ward, and more than a majority pledged to Mr. Pendleton. This they offer to prove by Mr. Pendletom himself, by Col. W. A. Taylor, and others. Second. That in these pledges these members repre- sented the opinion and desire of their constituents. Third. That Mr. Payne was nowhere spoken of or known as a candidate during the popular election or until a very short time before the appointment of Senator. Fourth. That just before the legislative caucus, where the nomination was made, which was one week before the election, large sums of money were placed by Mr. Payne's son, and other near friends of his, at the control of the active managers of his canvass in Columbus. This they allege can be shown b}' the books of one or more banks. Fifth. Mr. Payne's near friends declare that his election has cost very large sums. A gentleman whose name is offered to be given will testify that David K. Paige declared to him that he had handled $65,000. Oliver B. Paine stated to the same person that it had cost him $100,000 to elect his father. Sixth. That the members of the Legislature whc changed from Pendleton to Payne, did so after secret and 44r A CALL TO ACTION. confidential interviews with the agents who had the dis- bursement of these moneys. Seventh. That members of the Legislature who sc suddenly changed their attitude can be proved to have, at about the time of the change, acquired large sums of money, of which they give no satisfactory account. Eighth. Bespectable Ohio Democrats aflarm that just before the caucus the room of Mr. Payne's manager, Mr. Paige, "was like a banking house," the "evidence of large sums of money was abundant and conclusive," that Paige's clerk declared in the presence of a gentleman of integrity that "he had never seen so much money handled in his life." Ninth. That the public belief that the choice of Senator was procured by the corrupt use of money prevails almost universally in Ohio among persons of both parties, which finds very general expression in the press. Tenth. That there is specific proof leading with great force to the conclusion that each of ten members will be shown to have changed their votes corruptly, and thereby that the result was changed. The Senate has also recently referred to the committee certain resolutions adopted b\ a convention of the Repub- lican editors of Ohio, held at Columbus, July 8, 1886, praying the Senate to investigate these charges. The newspaper reports of the convention show that the Gover- nor of the State was present at the convention, and declared his concurrence in said prayer. There have also been communicated to us extracts from the Democratic newspapers of Ohio, showing that a majority of those papers have declared their opinion that the election was procured by corruption. Copies of these extracts are appended. What is the effect upon an election of Senator by bribery of voters in a caucus of Legislators who are to make the choice, is a question upon which we prefer not to form an opinion until the evidence is before us. The members of a caucus ordinarily deem themselves bound in honor to vote in the election for the person whom it nominates, by the vote of a majority, on condition that such person belong THE SENATE. 45 to their party, and is fit for the office in point of character and ability. Bribery, therefore, which changes the result in the caucus, would ordinarily determine the election. li B, C, and D have promised to vote as A shall vote, if A be corrupted, four votes are gained by the process, although B, C, and D be innocent. In looking, therefore, to see whether an election by the Legislature was procured or effected by bribery, it may be very important to discover whether that bribery procured the nomination of a caucus, whose action a majority of the Legislature were bound in honor to support. Seventy-nine persons attended the Sen- atorial caucus and voted on the first ballot. Of these Mr. Payne had the votes of 46, Ward 17, Pendleton 15, Booth 1. If six only of Mr. Payne's votes in the caucus were pro- cured by briber}'-, the result oi the election of Senator was clearly brought about by that means. Now, Messrs. Little and Butterworth tander specific proof, part of which was before the Ohio committee and part here offered for the first time, directly and very strongly tending to create the belief as to each of ten of the members of the Ohio Legis- lature that his vote for Mr. Payne was purchased, and that proper process and inquiry will establish the fact by com- petent and sufficient evidence. One member, after the caucus, deposited $2,500 in two amounts, and being charged that it was the price of his vote did not persist in a denial. In submitting their views the minority urged the follow- ing with great force : It will hardly be doubted that cases of purchase of seats in the Senate will multiply rapidly under the decision pro- posed by the majority of the committee. The first great precedent to constitute the rule under this branch of law is to be this: Held^ By the Senate of the United States, that a charge made by the Legislature of a State, and by the committee of the political party to which the larger number of its citizens belong, and by ten of its Representatives in Con- gress, that an election of Senator was procured by bribery, accompanied by the offer to prove the fact, does not deserve the attention of the Senate. 4:6 A CALL TO ACTION. The Senate, controlled by the Republican party, adopted the majority report and refused to proceed further with the matter. There seems to have been no dispute between the majority and the minority of the committee as to the facts in the case. They differed solely as to the proprietj^ of farther investigation and action. It is amazing to think that the rule laid down and its application in this particular case, has the deliberate .sanction of a majority of both Republican and Democratic Senators. Should we be surprised that popular confidence has been shaken in the integrity of this body? The Ohio case does not stand alone. Almost every state in the Union has been cursed by the same shameless and corrupt use of money in Senatorial elections, and hence the now almost universal demand tliat the Senate shall be made elec- tive by popular vote. The disinclination of the Senate to l)roceed with this case was well understood by the people, and the rule upon whicli the committee based its report was felt to be abhorrent to honesty, decency and common-sense. When it is once established by reliable evidence, that a single member who voted for the successful candidate, re- ceived or was offered money to cast his vote or use his influ- ence, it should vitiate the election. Theie is neither safety nor propriety in any other rule. The position of the com- mittee offers immunity to crime and bribery. It openly points out a way by which elections to the Senate can be secured by crime without the disagreeable apprehension of punishment. Even under the abominable rule of the commit- tee, Mr. Payne should have been put upon his trial. It is clear that members were paid large sums to vote for him in the Ohio Legislative caucus; and both he and his managers were too smart to have expended the money if the votes were not necessary to nominate in the caucus and elect in the Legisla- ture. Whatever may have been the doubts entertained by the Senate committee two years after the transaction, it is THE SENATE. 47 certain that Mr. Payne's managers thought that they needed the votes at the time. For the complete history of this shameful case the reader is referred to Senate Keport No. 1490, First Session, Forty-ninth Congress. But shocking and disgraceful as it is, it can be matched and duplicated in almost every state in this Union. We have selected this as a representative case. It taints both of the old parties. The Democratic as committing the felony and the Republican as concealing the crime. The present constitutional method of election is a lamentable failure and the situation cries aloud for reform. The time has come when the people should plat a whip of cords and scourge the promotors of bribery from the temple. Thej^ who buy will also sell, and the punish- ment for such betrayal of duty should be swift and relentless. Such is the present status of the American Senate. Its fallen condition was not reached b}^ a single bound. It is the result of growth, nurtured by an aristocratic and undem- ocratic method of selecting this class of public servants — a method which invites corruption and destroys in the person elected all sense of responsibility to the people. THE REMEDY. The cure for this frightful public affliction cannot be ap- plied too quickly. It should consist of a plain amendment to the Constitution which shall provide for the election of the United States Senators by the direct vote of the people of the respective States. The writer had the honor to introduce into the Forty-sixth, Forty-ninth and Fiftieth congresses joint resolutions which provided for this method of selection. They were referred to the judiciary committee but were never reported to the House, In the Fiftieth Congress, Mr. Gates, from the Committee on the Revision of the Laws, re- ported favorably a joint resolution of this character but it was not acted upon. The machine managers of the decrepit old party organizations view every suggestion of change 48 A CALL TO ACTION. with alarm. Like the worn out sluggard who is unwilling to rise with the dawn, they darken the windows of their hab- itations, draw down the curtains and shut out the light of day. Let them slumber. The chastisement of their sins is upon them and their dim eyes are turned toward the stygian shore. But the sun still shines, and a newer and more vig- orous civilization will inhabit the land. We can expect nothing from the old, but should trust confidingly for many good things from the new. It was the youthful shepherd boy and not the rheumatic, jealous-hearted old Saul, who slew the Mighty Man of Gath. We may never expect a paralytic to compete for the first prize as an athlete. Truth always chooses its own champions. It is ever stronger than its defenders and more powerful than its foes. Pending the tedious operation of amending the Constitu- tion, the people can readily secure practical control over the election of their Senators by publicly nominating in each State, from time to time, the man of their choice, and by pubKcly pledging the Legislative candidates to vote for such nominees. In the tremendous crisis which witnessed the dissolution and transformation of political parties in 1858-60, the people of Illinois flew to this method as to a rock of defense. Lincoln and Douglass were nominated for the Senate by their respective parties, and they met in joint debate before the people. Their audience was the civilized world. The people were mentally and morally equipped by that debate for the unprecedented and dreadful drama upon which the curtain was then destined soon to rise. The world lost nothing by that struggle of the giants. Civilization gained much. One of the parties of Illinois recently returned to this praiseworthy example. It should be the rule at all times in all the states. The industrial movement has taken up this reform as one of its cardinal tenets, and with unabated zeal will press it to a successful conclusion. CHAPTKR II. THE SPEAKER. The presiding oflScer of the British House of Commons is styled the Speaker — so called because he speaks in tlie name of the House; and hence the title was adopted here by the framers of the Government who had long been familiar with the organization of the English Commons. In Great Britain, under the Tudors and Stuarts, the Speaker was chosen by the King and was the main instrument in his equipment of tyranny. For many years, however, this officer has been chosen by the House. At the opening of Parlia- ment the Queen graciously invites the Commons to select a Speaker and they accordingly proceed to carry out the regal request. When the selection is made it is submitted to Her Majesty for approval. The royal assent has never been withheld, but the formality proves that it could be and hence in the mutation of human affairs, at some time it may be. The Speaker of the House of Commons receives a salary of iJ5,000 per annum, isex-officio a Privy Councilor, and resides in a palace provided by the Government. When he retires from office he is supplied with an annuity of £4,000 during two lives. The Speaker has, of course, very great power, but his authority is circumscribed by the over- shadowing influence of the Premier, who represents the the Ministry and hence the policy of the Government for the time being. The Speaker of the Commons cannot declare the House adjourned. This can only be done by a Member. In the matter of recognition when several Members rise at once and it becomes difficult to determine who shall proceed, the House decides who shall be recognized. The sequence 50 A CALL TO ACTION. in debate is usually determined by the "Whips" rather than by the Speaker. This will strike the American reader as being peculiar. But the Whip has grown to be a ver}- important adjunct of Parliamentary authority. He is n Member who has been empowered by his political friends to assemble or warn them at critical moments in legislative procedure. The Ministry have three Whips and the Oppo- sition two. From the organization of the First Congress of the United States, April 1, 1789. to the close of the Fifty-first Congress, March 4, 1891, thirty-one different persons filled the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives. The first incumbent was Frederick A. Muhlenburg, of Pennsylvania, and the last, Thomas B. Reed, of Maine. From the year 1789 to 1859, or from the First to the Thirty-fifth Congress, inclusive, twenty-two individuals , occupied this important office. From 1860 to March 4, 1891, inclusive, nine differ- ent Speakers presided over the House, During the first period, Henry Clay, of Kentucky, was six times chosen Speaker, which is the greatest honor ever accorded to any member of the American Congress. Next to this enviable record stands the name of Andrew Steven- son, of Virginia, who was four times chosen between 1827 and 1833. Since 1859 no one has held the Chair more than six years, or for three terms. Schuyler Colfax was Speaker from 1863 to 1869; James G. Blaine, from 1869 to 1875, and was succeeded by Michael C. Kerr, of Indiana, who died in August following his election, and was succeeded by Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania, for the unexpired term. Mr. Randall was also chosen Speaker for the two succeeding Congresses, the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth. He was suc- ceeded by J. Warren Keiffer, of Ohio, who served during the Forty-seventh Congress. John G. Carlisle, of Kentucky, next succeeded to the Chair and served during the Forty- THE SPEA3CER. 5] eighth, Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Congresses, and was sue ceeded by Thomas B. Reed, of Maine. The Constitution provides for the election of Speaker hy the House of Representatives. By the Act of Congress approved March 1, 1792, it was provided that in case of the death, resignation or inability of both President and Yice President, and in case there shall be no President pro tempore of the Senate, the Speaker of the House for the time being shall act as President until the disability be removed or a President shall be elected. The power and influence of this great office have been but imperfectly understood by the American people; and even the great majority of men in public life have failed to comprehend its transcendent influence in governmental affairs. Through the force of tradition and precedent, in the course of the century it has been allowed to absorb about all the power of the House of Representatives as well as the independence of the individual members. Experience has shown that when a majority of the members unite in elevat- ing one of their number to preside over the House, they are likely to be largely controlled by his opinions if not by his will in matters of legislation. This majority is always rein- forced by a large number of members who belong to the minority, but who desire to secure the favor of the Speaker. The cause of this subserviency will appear as we proceed. Paragraph I, of Rule X, of the House of Representatives provides that unless otherwise specially ordered by the House, the Speaker shall appoint, at the commencement ol each Congress, the standing committees. Paragraph II of the same Rule authorizes him to appoint all select com mittees which may' be ordered by the House fromitime to time. 52 A CALL TO ACTION. While this rule eontempliites that the House may, if it so desire, provide other methods of selecting the committees, yet in point of fact it never does otherwise order, and the power to appoint remains unquestioned and is invariably exercised by the Speaker. We have said that Rule X authorized the Speaker to appoint the committees, but in fact the House, at the com- mencement of Congress, has no Rules. True, the Rules of the old Congress are in print, but they are not vital, for they perish with the House which adopted them. The new Congress enters upon its duties untrammeled, and can, in fact does, adopt its own Rules. Until a motion is made and adopted to make the Rules of the preceding House the Rules of the House then in session, the old Rules are without force, aud the body is simply under the restraint of general parliamentary law. Hence, in its last analysis, we find that the power accorded to the Speaker to appoint the commit- tees is the result of custom rather than of law. But, how- ever derived, it is a fearful power to lodge in the hands of any one man. The Speaker must be chosen from among the Members. He comes from a district of prescribed limits, and a thousand considerations, both trivial and important, some of public and others of a private char- acter, contributed to his election. Tlie range of his mental vision may be circumscribed, or his judgment blurred and marred by the local surroundings peculiar to his district, or he may be entirely free from all bias whatever. The thought we wish to bring out is this: Why, beyond the point of absolute necessity, should one Member be clothed with the power which clearly belongs to the whole body collectively? It .cannot be said that tlie wisdom of the one is superior to the judgment of the whole body united; nor can it be claimed that anything can be gained in the line of purity of purpose. You have not fortified the House THE SPEAKER. 53 against corrupt influences and the seductive power of wealth; on the contrary, you have concentrated all the vicious forces of public life against a single individual and exposed the Republic to extreme peril. All who are acquainted with legislative history know that the danger of the abuse of power is very great, even when the authority of the speaker is reduced to the lowest point compatible with the orderly dispatch of business, and the peril is increased as more power is conferred. The power to appoint the committees now conceded to the Speaker practically confides all legislation to his hands. It makes liim an autocrat and enables him to mould legis- lation, stifle public sentiment, thwart the will of the majority and defy the wishes of the people. It is a matter of common occurrence for the most important committees to be made up in opposition to the sentiments of a majority of the House, and even in opposition to the known views of a majority of the Members who belong to the Speaker's own party. This has been notably true during the past twenty years. A Majority of the members of the House . have at various times during this period, been in favor of the unrestricted coinage of silver, and during the time that the House has been under the control of the Democratic party, a majority of the Members who belonged to that party have clearly been in favor of unrestricted coinage, and yet the committee on* Coinage, Weights and Measures has through all these years, except in the Forty-fifth Congress, been packed solidly against the measure. Take as an example three important committees. Banking and Currency, Coinage, Weights and Measures, and the com- mittee on the Pacific railroads. It is entirel}'^ safe to say that during this whole period, with tlie one exception named, these committees have never fairly represented public sentiment upon the important questions over which 54 A CALL TO ACTION. they have jurisdiction. They have been inmost instances constructed out of harmony with the wishes of a majority of the House, and many times in opposition to the known wishes of a majority of the Members who placed the Speaker in the chair. And yet the House has uniformly submitted to the humilliation. From Congress to Congress, and from decade to decade, tliis farce is perpetrated before the eyes of the people; and even now this method by which a few circumvent the will of the majority is but little understood. Public sentiment is not observed. It is uni- formly defied. The object among our so-called statesmen seems to be to explore and ascertain the utmost limits and boundaries of public forbearance. Distrust of the people is apparent throughout all the stages of legislation. The wealthy and powerful gain a ready hearing; but the plod- ding, suffering, un-organized complaining multitude are spurned and derided. No respect whatever is paid to public opinion which sends the member to the National Congress. If he is not in accord with the Speaker's ideas of public policy, although he may be burning with desire to make known the wishes of his constituents and to take the advice of the House upon them; yet he is purposely placed at the tail end of the most unimportant committees known to the body, committees which have nothing what- ever to do with the great questions upon which he was elected. The people of his district may have given him a hearing, past upon his theories, approved of them and sent him to Congress to proclaim them to the Nation; yet one man from another District who happens to have been chosen Speaker, claims the right to declare that the Member shall be muzzled, that he shall be placed under ban and his theories, without a hearing, declared to be forbidden fruit. Perhaps the ideas of public policy entertained by the Speaker are the identical views which were rejected by the THE SPEAKER. 55 people of the district in question. No matter, the petty tyrant must be permitted to practice his black art, the fetish must not be profaned. Nor is this proscription exercised exclusively against Members of opposing parties. In every Congress it is applied with the samerelentlessness to Members of the Speaker's own party who may differ with him concerning questions of public policy. In the year 1878, twelve Independents were elected to the Forty-sixth Congress upon certain economic questions. The leading contentions presented by these gentlemen were the Abolition of the National banks, Free coinage of silver, Increase of the currency by the issue of Legal Tender Treasury notes, and the strict Control of transportation monopolies. They had presented these important issues squarely to the people in their respective districts and had been triumphantly elected against great odds. The follow- ing are their names: George W. Jones, of Texas, William M. Lowe, of Alabama, Gilbert De LaMatyr, of Indiana, Thompson H. Murch and Geo. W. Ladd, of Maine, Seth H. Yocum and Hendrick B. Wright, of Pennsylvania, Nicholas Ford, of Missouri, Daniel L. Russell, of North Carolina, Albert P. Forsythe, of Illinois, Edward H. Gillette and James B. Weaver, of Iowa. A. E. Stevenson, of Illinois, and William D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, were closely allied with the twelve, were mainly in sympathy with iheir views of public policy and voted for their nominee for Speaker, but did not claim to be members of the new party. This was largely true, also, ot Hendrick B,. Wright, although he remained out of the Democratic caucus and permitted his name to be used as the candidate of the third party. The gentlemen above named represented the protest '.)f the producers of wealth against the abominable economic policy of the old parties, whicli had just convulsed the 56 A CALL TO ACTION. country with panic, and plunged the industrial portion of the people headlong into poverty and disaster. The Democrats had control ©f the House and organized by the election of Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania, as Speaker. He received 144 votes against 125 for James A. Garfield, of Ohio, the Republican candidate, 13 for Hend- rick B. Wright, of Pennsylvania, the candidate of the National Greenback party, and 1 vote for William D. Kelley. The whole number of Members elected to this Congress was 303. Hence it will be seen that although Mr. Randall received a majority of all the votes cast, he fell eight votes short of having a majority of the members elect. The point that a majority of all the Members elect was necessary to a choice was raised by Mr. Conger, of Michigan, but the Clerk of the House, Mr. Geo, W. Adams, ruled that a majority of a Quorum voting could lawfully elect the Speaker. This now seems to be the settled construction of the law. The Speaker was elected and the Members sworn in on the 18th day of March, 1878, but the committees were not announced until April 11th —a lapse of twenty-five days. Soon after the third party contingent made its appear- ance in Washington, it became apparent that the Represent- atives of that party were to meet with but little considera- tion from those who controlled the proceedings of the House. Important questions affecting the financial policy of the Government and the disposition to be made of nearly $800,000,000 of public debt, and in fact the whole range of fiscal matters, would be up for consideration during the session; but the managers of the two old parties had settled lines of policy which were essentially alike concerning these measures, and differing only in the degree of their devotion to the interests of the capitalistic classes. No serious interference was to be permitted from any quarter. THE SPEAKEE. 57 Tlie Democrats had control of both branches of Congress for the first time since the close of the war. Fernando Wood, of New York, who was made chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, had prepared a bill which provided for the funding of the above named portion of the public debt for forty years. Mr. Garfield had a substitute making the period fift}^ years. A Presidential campaign was just ahead and the desire to secure the sup- port of the money power, had evoked a spirit of rivalry between the leaders of the old parties which was as instruc- tive to the whole country as it was disgusting to patriotic people. The leaders of both would scheme in the com- mittee rooms in favor of the monopolies and the money kings, and then dail}' emerge into the arena of the House and quarrel and rave like maniacs over sectional matters. Almost ever}^ da}^ witnessed the war-dance in which the chiefs would exhibit the ghastly scalps they had taken and lay bare the wounds inflicted during the war. i^ou could never tell when the paroxisms were to come on. They would burst forth at the most inopportune periods. Pande- monium reigned throughout the extra session and was resumed with renewed fury when the House convened regularly the following December. The Greenback contingent determined to make a bold stand for the people, and to place their banner above the angry storm of sectionalism which was everywhere howling about them. To this end the}^ resolved first, to oppose with all the power at their command all attempts to fund the debt, and second, to force the House upon record upon the following questions: The abolition of the National banks, the issue of an adequate supply of Legal Tender treasury notes, and the policy of the unrestricted Coinage of silv^er. Under the rule then in force it was proper for any member on Monday, after the Journal had been read and approved, 58 A CALL TO ACTION. if he could secure the recognition of the Chair, to move to suspend the Rules and place upon its passage any bill or resolution which he might desire to offer. Accordingly, on the first Monday in January, 1880, the writer drafted the following resolutions, and asked to be recognized to move a suspension of the Rules in order to place them immediately upon their passage: Resolved,. That it is the sense of this House that all cur- rency, whether metalic or paper, necessary for the use and convenience of the people, should be issued and its volume controlled by the Government, and not by or through the banking corporations of the country; and when so issued should be a full legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private. Resolved^ That, in the judgment of this House, that por- tion of the interest-bearing debt of the United States which shall become redeemable in the year 1881, or prior thereto, being in amount $782,000,000, should not be refunded beyond the power of the Government to call in said obli- gations and pay them at any time, but should be paid as rapidly as possible, and according to contract. To enable the Government to meet these obligations, the mints of the United States should be operated to their full capacity in the coinage of Standard Silver Dollars, and such other coinage as the business interests of the country may require. Recognition was refused and the House adjourned in hot haste. On the following Monday the attempt to secure recognition from the Speaker was followed with like results. For thirteen weeks (three months) the struggle went on. After a few weeks of fruitless effort, the resolu- tions got into the papers and began to attract very wide attention. Crowds beffan to throng the galleries on Mon- days, and the metropolitan newspapers were full of criti- 3isms upon the aggravating perseverance of the author of :he resolutions. The Speaker was overwhelmed with cor- respondence touching the matter, man}^ praising him for THE 'SPEAKER. 59 his firmness and others denouncing him as a tyrant worthy of death. Prominent caricaturists were employed by the monopoly organs to fill the illustrated weeklies with gross and uncomplimentary exaggerations of the author and the scope of his resolutions. The imaginative genius of Nast was called upon to swell the volume of misrepresentation and ridicule. The resolutions had by this time attracted universal notice. Everybody read them and wondered why they should meet with such fierce denunciation. Finally on March 6, 1880, Harper's Weekly^ came out with a full page scurrillous travesty, representing the writer as a donkey, braying to the utter consternation of the House. The Speaker was represented as standing with his back to the author of the resolutions, members as holding their hands over their 6ars, others as endeavoring to crawl under the desks, and the Mace as having been blown violenth^ from the hands of the Sergeant-at-Arms while he was vainly attempting to hide from the storm. A fao simile of this caricature will be found at the close of this chapter. When my attention was called to the publication I resolved to make the best possible use of it. A copy was procured and safely deposited in my desk. When Monday came I again addressed the Chair for recognition, and was refused. I then rose to a question of privilege, which, under the Rules, the Speaker was not at liberty to ignore. The Chair bade me state it. Holding up a copy of Har- per's^ containing the caricature, I called attention to the fact that a leading journal of the country had grossly slandered the Speaker. That it represented him as stand- ing with his back to me, when in fact the most that he had ever done was to shut his eyes. At this juncture the following colloquy occurred: The Speaker: The gentleman from Iowa will address himself to the question of privilesfe, and not to the picture. 60 A CALL TO ACTION. Mr. Garfield, (addressiuo: Mr. Weaver): Which figure represents yourself and which the Speaker? Mr. Weaver: I am represented b}^ the one with long ears. Does not the gentleman kn©w that Balaam's ass saw the angel in the way before his rider did? All Bible read' ers understand it perfectly. The Speaker demanded order, which was, after awhile, restored, and the struggle was passed for another week. Notwithstanding the protracted struggle over these reso- lutions the personal relations between their author and the Speaker were always cordial and friendly. Mr. Randall stated privately' that his party did not, in the face of a Presidential election, wish to be placed upon record on what they regarded as mere abstractions, and for that reason recognition had been withheld. Finally about the first of April, it became apparent that the long contest would soon close. Rumors that recogni- tion would be conceded on the following Monday obtained among the Members and it was evident that the intimation had been given out by the Speaker himself. Then another dilemma presented itself. Under the rules a yea and nay vote could not be secured unless demanded by at least thirty members. As there were but thirteen of the National party in the House, the outlook for a record of the vote was exceedingly dark. In this emergency we went to Mr. Garfield and called attention to the fact that on the follow- ing Mo'nday a vote would be taken. We stated that the Republican party was already on record against every proposition contained in the resolutions. That the Demo- cratic Members, when at home, generally favored the prop- ositions but always fought shy of them after reaching Washington. We asked him if he could not, in view of these facts, assist in securing a yea and nay vote? He replied that he would consult with his colleagues and give us an answer that afternoon. In the course of an hour he THE SPEAKER. 61 reported that his side of the House would join in the demand for a record of the vote. On the following Mon- day, April 5, I was recognized, made the necessary motion to suspend the rules and demanded that the vote be taken by yeas and nays. Upon statement of the demand by the Chair the Greenback members, General Ewing, of Ohio, and Mr. Tillman, of South Carolina, rose to their feet followed by the entire Eepublican side of the House. The yeas and nays were accordingly ordered. With the exception of General Ewing, Mr. Tillman, and possibly one or two others, every Democrat left the hall and repaired to the cloak rooms for consultation. On the first call of the roll but three or four Democrats responded, while the Ke- publicans, with the exception of Belford, of Colorado, voted solidly in the negative. On the second call of the roll there were eighty- four ayes, and one hundred and seventeen noes. Not voting, 91. The yeas consisted of 11 Green backers, including Stevenson and Kelly, one Re- publican, Mr. Belford, and seventy-two Democrats, mostly from the South and West. The nays were composed of a solid Republican vote, with the exceptions stated, reinforced by eastern and middle states Democrats. Messrs Wright and Yocum were unavoidably absent, but paired in favor of the resolutions. We have given this memorable battle somewhat in detail for the reason that we regard it as the great initial struggle of the mighty movement now in progress through- out the Republic. The resolutions over which the pro- tracted contest arose embodied the very essence and marrow of the vigorous contention presented by organized labor at the present time. The Speaker should always be selected with reference to bis views of public policy, but it is never any part of his duty to play the tyrant. It is not his province to originate 62 A CALL TO ACTION. political creeds, but to represent and to assist the law- making body to faithfully reflect the will of the great constituency. If nominated by a caucus, that caucus should have some test of membership besides that of mere party name. Every sensible person knows that a man may be an eminent and devoted Democrat or Republiean, be entirely loyal to his party, and yet the world be profoundly ignorant concerning his vIqws upon the most important questions of public concern. He may be the most pliant tool of monopoly and still be an acceptable and an un- usually influential member of either of said parties. It is well known that one of these parties has had no test oi membership since the days of Jackson, and that the other has had none since the death of Lincoln. All that is necessary to become a member of either is to take upon yourself the party name. If you will but do that, you may retain your own notions of public affairs. Under this state of faots men holding to antagonistic creeds and policies unite in electing a Speaker, and in every such instance the people are crucified. The party is served but the country is betrayed. The organization is triumphant but human rights are placed at the mercy of the time-server and the tyrant. The writer served in Congress under the Speakership oi Mr. Randall and Mr. Carlisle. These eminent gentlemen, ranking equal in ability to any who have ever filled the Chair, were as wide apart as the poles upon what they re- garded as the supreme question of the period, Mr. Randall was an ultra-protectionist, while Mr. Carlisle favored a tariff for revenue, with strong leanings toward free trade as soon as that policy can be safely reached. Both were Democrats and met in caucus upon terms of perfect equality. The monometalists and the bi-metalists, the bank men and the anti-bank men, monopolists and anti- THE SENATE. 63 monopolists, those who favored trusts and those who abhorred and would uproot them, the sharper from Wall street and the inexperienced Member from the rural dis- trct — all met in the same caucus, all were Democrats, and they united in selecting the man of their choice for Speaker, taking especial care not to provoke a disclosure on his part of anything that he believed concerning public matters. Parties which have no test of membership and caucuses which have no test of admission to their councils, are an abomination and they exist only for evil. It would more nearly comport with the dignity and character of our chief law-making body if the assignment of Members to committees were made by a well-guarded special committee, selected by the House itself — a com- mittee in which all parties and shades of opinion could be fairly represented. It is time the Speaker of the American House of Representatives should be shorn of his autocratic and unwarranted power. SPEAKER KEED's EULE. Article I, Section Y, of the Constitution contains the following provision: "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do business : but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such penalties as each House may provide." Clause I, of Rule VIH, is as follows: "Every member shall be present within the hall of the House during its sittings unless excused or necessarily prevented; and shall vote on each question put, unless, on motion made before division or the commencement of the roll call and decided without debate, he shall be excused. 64r A CALL TO ACTION. or unless he has a direct personal or pecuniary interest in the event of such question." It has been uniformly held that a Quorum of the House consists of a majority of the Members chosen. And until the Fifty-first Congress it was further held that in order to constitute a Quorum a majority of the Members chosen must not only be present, but must participate in the vote, either for or against a proposition. In the Fifty-first Congress it was held by Speaker Reed that a majority of the Members chosen, if present in the hall when the vote was being taken, constituted a Quorum, whether a majority of them voted or not. That if, under such circumstances, a minority only voted, it was suflEicient to pass a measure; and he accordingly instructed the Clerk to enter upon the Journal the names of the Members present but not voting, and declared the bills passed. The House, by a strict party vote, afterwards formally adopted the Speaker's construction and made it one of the rules for that Congress. Much bitterness was evoked by this con- struction of the law. Public opinion, and even experienced Parliamentarians were greatly at sea concerning the matter. It seems to the writer that careful reflection will show both the danger and the fallacy of Speaker Keed's con- struction. It is not required by the Constitution that a measure shall receive the affirmative vote of a majority of all the Members chosen in order that it shall pass. This rule generally obtains in State Assemblies under the pecu- liar provisions of their local Constitutions. But under the Constitution of the United States, a majority of a Quorum can pass a bill; and a Quorum is made up of both yeas and nays. Hence, under Speaker Reed's construction, if a bare Quorum be present, and but a minority vote in tiie affirmative, the others sitting mute, the bill is passed, even when the point that no Quorum has voted lias been ex- -^4. "LET HIM ROAR, MR SPEAKER." "Greenback, llie Weiivcr (from lowai. -T will sin ; second, they secured the removal of the Commissioner of the General Land OflBce, whose brusk honesty brought him into conflict with their nefarious schemes ; third, they secured the removal of Law Clerk, LeBarnes, who was a serious obstacle in their way ; fourth, they overthrew the David Davis decision in the L. L. & G. case, and secured the adoption of a rule, which, when applied to all other grants, as it has since steadily been, gives them probably ten mil- lion acres more than they could have obtained under the old rule. These ten million acres are worth to them at least one hundred million dollars. While the confirmation of the ex-Secretary was hanging fire in the Senate, as we are informed by Gen. Sparks, the force in the railroad division of the General Land Office was kept busy, almost day and night, issuing patents for the lands covered by this decision ; and the lady who signs the President's name to the patents was sent for after night to affix the Executive signature to the patents which con- veyed this land to the railroads. This episode illustrates with tremendous force the danger inherent in the method of selecting the members of this great Court. Reader, I think you will agree with us that David Davis had an accurate understanding of what was going on ! A LOOK AHEAD. The members of this tribunal whose terms are likely to extend into the future for a considerable period are : Chief Justice Fuller, aged 57, appointed 1888. Justice Harlan, aged 57, appointed 1877. Justice Gray, aged 62, appointed 1881. Justice Lamar, aged 65, appointed 1888. Justice Brewer, aged 54, appointed 1890. Justice Brown, aged 55, appointed 1891. THE SUPREME COURT. 93 The other members Lave already reached that age in life (70) and have served the period (10 years) which entitles them to retire on full pay, to-wit: Justice Field, aged 74, appointed 1863. Justice Bradley, aged 76, appointed 1870. Justice Blatchford, aged 70, appointed 1882. In the natural course of human life and strength, it may be calculated with certainty that the three Associate Jus- tices last named, have but a brief period of service before them. Their time is limited by a decree that is final, and cannot be reversed. It is then among the certainties of the future tliat the present administration and the one to immediately follow — most likely the former — will be called upon to choose at least three new members of the Supreme Bench. In view of the important issues which are now agitating the public mind, the certainty of an early re-construction of the Court brings the Republic to the very brink of an absorbing crisis, the importance of which can not be over-estimated. When, in the last great juncture, the public mind came to realize that the Supreme Court had been completely subjugated by the slave power, troublous times were near at hand. When the Court succumbed, freedom felt that she had lost her last citadel and was compelled to fall back upon the people for safety. But the present peril is infinitely greater than the former. Slavery was restricted within narrow geographical limits and the visible manifestations of the evil were repulsive and hateful to all who were removed from its immediate influence. Not so with the present foe of justice and social order. It assails the rights of man under the most seduct- ive guise. You meet it in every walk of life. It speaks through the press, gives zeal and eloquence to the bar, engrosses the constant attention of the bench, organizes the influences which surround our legislative bodies and 94 A CALL TO ACTION. courts of justice, designates who shall be the Eegents and Chancellors in our leading Universities, determines who shall be our Senators, how our legislatures shall be organ- ized, who shall preside over them and who constitute the important committees. It is imperial in political caucases, without a rival in social circles, endows institutions of learning, is in daily contact with all important business interests, disburses monthly large sums of money to an army of employes, has unlimited resources of ready cash, is expert in political intrigue and pervades every commun- ity from the center to the circumference of the Republic. THE ALARM. It will be remembered that the decisions of the Court upon the so-called "Granger Laws" of Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin were delivered in 1876. In these opinions the majority of the Court sustained the power of State Legisla- tures to prescribe maximum rates of charges for the trans- portation of freight and passengers on the various roads within these States. (See the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company m. Iowa, 94 TJ. S., 155; Chi- cago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company vs, Ackley, 94 U. S. , 179 ; Peik vs. Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company, and Lawrence vs. same company, 94 U. S., 164, Field and Strong dissenting. ) These cases were all argued at the same time, presented the same questions and were decided at the same term. The questions of the right of the State to regulate the rates of fares and tolls on rail- roads, and how far that right is affected by the com- merce clause of the Constitution of the United States were presented to the Court. It was ably and confidently con- tended by Hon, William M. Evarts, John W. Cary and associate counsel for plaintiffs in error, that the laws of Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota were void for two reasons : THE SUPREME COURT. 95 Firsi — They were in violation of that clause in the Fed- eral Constitution which forbids a State to pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts, and also in violation of that clause which forbids a State to pass any law which deprives any person of his property without due process of law. That in view of these provisions of the fundamental law, the question of what is a reasonable compensation for the transportation of passengers or freight is one calling for judicial determination and cannot be settled by the Legist lature. Second — That the State statutes in question attempted to regulate inter-state commerce, and for that reason were unconstitutional, being in conflict with the commerce clause of the Constitution. The opinion in these cases was by Chief Justice Waite. In the case of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Eailroad Company ^'s. Iowa, supra, the Chief Justice says: "Rail- road companies are carriers for hire. They are incorporated as such, and given extraordinary powers, in order that they may better serve the public in that capacity. They are, therefore, engaged in a public employment affecting the public interests, and * * * subject to Legislative control as to their rates of fare and freight, unless protected by their charters." In Peik vs. C, B. & Q. Ry., 94 U. S., page 1Y8, the Chief Justice uses the following language : "Where the property has been clothed with a public inter- est, the Legislature may fix a limit to that which shall in law be reasonable for its use. This limit binds tlie Court as well as the people. If it has been improperly fixed, the Legislature, not the courts, must be appealed to for the change." In the case of the C. M. & St. P. m. Ackley, supra, the Chief Justice says: "The only question presented by this record is whether a railroad company in Wisconsin can 96 A CALL TO ACTION. recover for the transportation of property more than the maximum fixed by the Act of March 11, 1874, by showing that the amount charged was no more than a reasonable compensation for the services rendered. * * * As between the company and the freighter there is a statutory limitation of the charge for the transportation actually per- formed. The limit of the recovery is that prescribed by the statute." There was still another decision in Munn & Scott vs. Illinois, 94 IT. S., 113, which establishes the doctrine that a state may constitutionally prescribe elevator charges for the storage of grain, notwithstanding they are used by those engaged in inter- state as well as state commerce. In these instances the state had fixed the maximum rates and had forbidden the roads and the owners of the elevators to charge more under penalty. The court declared the laws to be in harmony with the constitution. The railroads con- tended earnestly that the question whether certain rates fixed by them were reasonable or excessive, was a question of fact which could not be settled by legislation but must be determined by the courts after judicial investigation had in conformity with the constitution which declares that no person shall be deprived of his property without due pro- cess of law. But the majority of the court, as we have seen, held that the interest was of a public nature and that this clause of the constitution did not apply. When these opinions were announced by the majority of the court, Mr. Justice Field filed a dissenting opinion for himself and Justice Strong, in which, speaking of the decis- ion of the majority, he says: "That decision in its wide sweep, practically destroys all of the guaranties of the Constitution and of the common law invoked by counsel for the protection of the rights of railroad companies. Of what avail is the Constitutional THE SUPREME COURT. 97 provision that no State shall deprive any person of his property except by due process of law, if the State can, by fixing the compensation which he may receive for its use, take from him all that is valuable in the property? To what purpose can the constitutional prohibition upon the State against impairing the obligation of contracts be invoked, if the State can in the face of a charter authorizing a company to charge reasonable rates, prescribe what shall be deemed reasonable for services rendered ? That decision will justify the legislature in fixing the price of all articles and fixing the compensation for all services. It sanctions intermeddling with all business and pursuits and property in the community, leaving the use and enjoyment of prop- erty and the compensation for its use to the discretion of the legislature." These decisions were all by a divided court. Only one of the judges who concurred in the majority opinion (Judge Bradley) is now upon the bench; seven of the pres- ent members having been appointed since that time. Will any sane man believe for one moment that the corporations were asleep while this court was being reconstructed? Not a single appointee escaped their scrutiny. They watch the tottering frames of the members of this tribunal with a solicitude equal to that which animates the unfilial spend- thrift who feels hampered by the longevity of his rich progenitor. Mr. John W. Gary, of Milwaukee, who is general at- torney for the C, M. & St. P. Railroad, represented that company in the Ackley case and was deeply disappointed in the decision of the court. In an article published over his own signature in the Daily Sentinel of Milwaukee, March 5, 1888, twelve years after these important decisions were rendered, he boldly asserts that the '"Granger" decis- ions must be overthrown, and exults that there were at the date of his letter but four judges (there were but three) upon the bench who participated in them. There is now 98 A CALL TO ACTION. but one. In these utterances he doubtless voiced the wishes of the whole array of corporation magnates and their host of legal advisers throughout the Union. Mr. Gary was well aware that they had, except as to the power of state Legislatures to fix maximum rates for purely state traffic, already been overthrown in the Wabash case. He knew too that other cases were then in preparation which would sweep away the last vestage of these decisions. It was Mr. Gary's knowledge of the movements in corpora- tion circles which enabled him to asssume the role of the prophet. Of course he was not speaking for himself but for his masters. It was not the voice of a man and a citizen, but it was a vengeful proclamation of war against an unsuspecting people who were fondly dreaming that since their great Gourt had spoken in the "Grange" decisions their rights were secure and that these great questions were forever settled. But Mr. Gary and his clients were looking forward to a change in the personnel of the Gourt through the visitations of time and the ravages of death. They had been vanquished but not conquered. They proposed to transfer the battle to the future and to trust for final victory through an insidious, quiet and treacherous reformation of the Gourt. By referring to the sub-division of this chapter entitled "Instability of Judicial Opinion and the Resulting Evils," the reader will learn how far the vengeful prediction of Mr. Gary has been verified. THE THUKMAN ACT. The act of congress, known as the "Thurman Act," approved May 7th, 1878 (20 stat., 56), required the Union Pacific Railroad Gompany, in the management of its affairs, to set aside a portion of its current income as a sinking fund to meet the mortgage debts of the company, THE SUPREME COURT, 99 when they mature. Included among these debts is the second mortgage lien held by the United States, which now amounts to about $130,000,000, The law was finally assailed by the railroad interests as being unconstitutional, in that it deprived the company of its property without due process of law, and was an unwarranted interference with vested rights. Cases were hurriedly prepared for the Court of claims and in the Circuit Court of the United States for the dis- trict of California. On appeal to the Supreme Court they were advanced to a speedy hearing. In October, 1878, the Court declared the act constitutional. (99 U. S., 700.) But the judges were divided in opinion. Five of them upheld the law, while Justices Field, Strong and Bradley dissented. Chief Justice Fuller now occupies the place then held by Waite, Justice Lamar that held by Strong, Justice Brewer the seat then occupied by Judge Swayne, and Justice Brown that held by Miller. Justice Lamar served in the Senate with Stanley Matthews, was aware of his hostility to the Thurman Act on the ground of its alleged unconstitutionality, and notwithstand- ing that fact he was ardently in favor of the confirmation of Mr. Mathews, by the Senate, and stood by him in the committee and on the floor until the contest reached a favorable termination. It is fair to conclude that he shared Mr. Mathews', opinions concerning the Thurman Act. Chief Justice Fuller's opinion upon the subject must be left to conjecture. Justice Brewer succeeds Matthews and is a nephew of Justice Field. It is quite safe to assume that the dissenting judges have not lost in numbers by the late appointments. Knowing that the corporations were exceedingly watch- ful, active and persistent when Matthews was appointed, it is but fair to conclude that all the late appointments met 100 A CALL TO ACTION. with closest scrutiny in corporation circles long before the public even heard that their appointment was contemplated. The overthrow of the Thurman Act is as important to- day to the parties who then desired it as it was when first enacted, or when Matthews was appointed. There is not the slightest evidence of a relaxed purpose or effort in this refpect. We cannot better illustrate the stealthy intrigue con- stantly employed bj'- corporate interests to control every branch of our Federal judiciary, than by calling to mind some events which have taken place during the past ten years within the Eighth Judicial Circuit, which is made up of the districts of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Nebraska and Colorado. In the year 1869, Judge John F. Dillon, of Iowa, was appointed for this circuit. He served ten years and resigned, ostensibly to accept position as professor of Real Estate and Equity Jurisprudence in the Columbia law school, but really to accept the position of chief counsellor of the Union Pacific railroad, with his office at Boston. A number of appli- cants sprang up of course, for the vacancy, but the contest soon narrowed down to Judge Brewer, of Kansas, and the Hon. George W. McCrary, of Iowa, then Secretary of "War in the cabinet of President Hayes. Justice Miller and the Iowa delegation in Congress strongly urged the appoint- ment of McCrary, while Justice Field, backed by strongly organized influence, was active for his nephew. Judge Brewer. Judge Brewer's mother was a sister of Justice Field, and her distinguished son was born abroad while the parents were temporarily absent from the United States. The contest became animated to such an extent that the relations between Justices Field and Miller became some- what strained. McCrary, however, was appointed and confirmed. THE SUPKEME COURT. 101 McCraiy was a splendid type of American manhood. He rose to fame and position upon his own inate ability, rugged character and acknowledged integrity. His sympa- thies were all with the poor, the lowly and the oppressed. He was gnarly timber for the corporations to operate upon. His keen insight and breadth of mind carried him directly to the marrow of every question which he undertook to investigate ; and after he had applied his powers of analysis to the matter in hand, there was little room left for contro- versy. The new appointee was far from satisfactory to the corporations. As Judges, Dillon and McCrary were not satisfactory to the corporation magnates. Judge McCrary served about three years and resigned to take employment as general consulting counsel for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company, with a liberal salary, compared with that which he received as Circuit Judge. The contract ran for five years, and he was located at Kansas City. The transaction provoked very considerable comment in professional circles at the time, but its significance did not attract general public attention. How remarkable that these Judges, serving from the same State ; one the successor of the other in the same circuit, should both suddenly become so essential to the business interests of the corporations ! Their great value as legal advisors had not attracted railroad interests until they reached the bench. From that hour the import- ance of their services was beyond computation and must be secured at whatever cost. Enormous salaries were prof- fered. Ample fortune, to be earned in a brief term of years, and the comforts which it confers, were placed along- side of a laborious life upon the bench and these gentlemen resigned. Can there be a doubt about the underlying motives which caused these railroad interests to bid for the services of these gentlemen? The corporations were not 102 A CALL TO ACTION. seeking for coiiDsel in a land full of eminent attorneys. They simply desired to get rid of righteous and troublesome judges, to slay judicial adversaries and, if possible, install carpet knights of their own. McCrary resigned in 1834, and to-day his successor is upon the Supreme bench. ENFRANCHISEMENT OF COKPOEATIONS. The constitution of the United States was designed as a safe-guard for human beings. It was framed at a time when commerce in the new world was in its infancy and when business was carried on for the most part by single individuals and by associations of persons called co- partnerships. Our present phenomenal growth of ideal beings which we call corporations had not been dreamed of in the business world. When the Constitution speaks of citizens and persons, there can be nothing clearer than that it refers to human beings who are the subjects of birth and death and who owe allegiance and obedience to law. Modern corporations had no representative in the Colonial armies nor were they present when the British forces sur- rendered. They did not sign the Declaration of Indepen- dence nor are their rights or grievances enumerated in that instrument. The design of the Declaration was to assert the right of man to smite his oppressor and to break every chain. It boldly asserts the theory of human equality and justice. The Constitution is the Declaration enacted into law. It should enable the citizen to strike down, through the proper law-making bodies and the courts of justice, every assailant of individual rights or personal security. The internal foes of social order and personal liberty are more dangerous — more insidious, than those which threaten from without. The Constitution should be so interpreted as to protect society from both. If it be not capable of such translation it is a broken reed and tiie THE SUPEEME COURT. 103 most stupendous failure of the Century. The menace of plutocracy as manifested in the modern corporation and association of incorporations called trusts, was not foreseen by the framers of the constitution. But that interpretation of our fundamental law which will enable both law-makers and courts to afford the amplest safe-guards to the individ- ual is the only rendering which should be tolerated. Men and women — not corporations — are the glory of the state. It is man — not the trust — who hastens to the defense of Society when it is imperiled. It was the happiness and security of the individual which engaged the attention of our fathers, and not the conservation of powerful syndicates, corporations and combines. Accumulated wealth has for- ever claimed kingship over the whole earth. Our fathers understood this full well and sought to dethrone the tyrant and to take the crown from his head. This cruel assump- tion of wealth was personified in the monarchs of antiquity who asserted absolute dominion over the earnings, the estates and the lives of their subjects. It gave life to the feudal system of the middle ages and it was the spirit of the law of primogeniture. But its latest and most dangerous incarnation is the intangible and yet ever living corporation. The sword could overthrow the monarch and the execu- tioner behead him. The feudal system perished before the inexorable demands of modern commerce and the march of Christianity. But an invisible, intangible being has no fear of the sword nor of the uplifted axe. Neither moral nor revealed law can reach it, for it has no conscience. It is the tyranny of greed coupled with the attribute of statutory immortality. The despotism of wealth found its greatest foe in the limitations of human life. Men died, great estates crumbled to pieces and were redistributed again. Hence some means must be found to bridge the chasm of death, 104 A CALL TO ACTION. and 80 the State was asked to create a being and place him upon the earth who should not be circumscribed by mortal- ity. Owing to the disposition of man to transgress every obligation of the Decalogue the span of his life has been cut short by his Creator. But our Governments, State and ISTational, have been dealing out legal immortality and im- mutability by tKe wholesale. They have created thousands of corporations on every hand and endowed them with perpetual succession. They have clothed them with all the power to acquire and hold property which belong to ordinary mortals. These artificial beings have the infirmi- ties of avarice but are without the restraining virtue of con- science. In every conflict flesh and blood go down before them like grass before the scythe. With the certainty of life given to them, the fear of death taken away and with millions of wealth at their command, to what maj^ they not aspire? State lines are as cobwebs and great Commonwealths and populous cities are only ant hills to these terrestrial monsters. Their creation is in manifest derogation of moral law and a declaration of war upon humanity. The world should become awake to this fact before it is too late. But let us carefully note the gradual steps in their enfranchisement which is now thorough and complete throughout the Kepubhc. The power of either Congress or the State Legislatures to create corporations and endow them with perpetual suc- cession was at first stubbornly denied. It was speedily sustained, however, by the courts. To guard against pos- sible reversals, provisions were from time to time inserted in State Constitutions expressly granting the power. Capital- ists were quick to avail themselves of the proffered advan- tages and hence the unparalleled growth of these institu- tions in modern times. Now that they had a statutory birth the question of their status in society and in businosc THE SUPREME COURT. 105 affairs became important. Having by their incorporation escaped all the weaknesses and disagreeable limitations belonging to natural persons, they then laid claim to all the rights and immunities belonging to man, including that of citizenship under the Constitution. Having thus far conquered they at once laid siege to the Court of Last Eesort. In the year 1769 the British crown (Geo, III.) granted a charter to the trustees of Dartmouth College in the then colony of New Hampshire. Early in the present Centurj- the Legislature of the State of New Hampshire passed a law to amend this charter and making a change in the board of trustees. The power of the Legislature to do so was stub- bornly denied. Litigation folloM'ed in the State courts where the legislation was upheld and the cause quickly found its way to the Supreme Court. Daniel Webster was of counsel for the corporation. The litigation attracted very wide attention. Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for the Court, pronounced the opinion in the year 1819. (4 Wheaton, 518.) He held that the charter granted by the British crown constituted a contract within the meaning of that clause of the Constitution of the United States which declares that no state shall make any law impairing the obligation of contracts. The Court held that the charter was not dissolved by the Kevolution, and that the subse- quent act of the New Hampshire Legislature, after the organization of the government of the United States, and after the admission of that State into the Union, alter- ing the charter in a material respect, was an act impairing the obligation of the charter, and therefore unconstitu- tional. This decision is the great bulwark of corporate power. It is the shield and hiding place for all kinds of associations which are plotting to rob the people and sup- plant Democratic government. It is infinitely more disas- 106 A CALL TO ACTION. trous and fatal than the Dred Scott decision, for unless our Constitution be amended or the decision overthrown in the Court, which is now quite impossible, it must be accepted as the law through all time. The immutability of charters, and doctrine of vested rights arising under the acts of Legis- latures, by which all subsequent Legislatures are pre- cluded from either repealing or changing the conditions of the grant — these and a multitude of other evils have sprung from the Dartmouth College case. In the case of the Louisville Railroad Company vs. Let- son, 2 Howard, 555, decided in 18-M, and Insurance Com- pany vs. Morse, 20 Wallace U. S. Rep., 553, decided in 1874, it is held that a railroad company, or other corpora- tion, of course, is a citizen within the meaning of section 2, article 3, of the Constitution, and also within the meaning of that section of the Judiciary act of 1789, and subsequent acts, which provide for the removal of causes from State to Federal courts. These cases, taken together, constitute a Pandora's box, out of which have sprung a brood of evils which are now embarrassing and afflicting the Commonwealth. They com- pletely enfranchise the whole multitude of artificial persons and grant them a status and base of operations from which they can carry on their war for the subjugation and enslave- ment of natural persons. It is safe to assert that no mem- ber of the Constitutional Convention ever contemplated anything of the kind. It is a vicious fiction existing solely in the imagination of the Court. It is curious to note the progress made by the Court in reaching the conclusion that a corporation is a citizen within the meaning of the Constitution. At first it was held by Chief Justice Marshall, in Bank of U. S. vs. Deveaux, that "An invisible, intangible and artificial being, that mere legal entity — a corporation aggregate — is THE SUPREME COUET. 107 certainly not a citizen, and consequently cannot sue or be sued in the courts of the United. States, unless all the mem- bers of the corporation were citizens of the State which created it." The same doctrine was held in Strawbridge vs. Curtiss. See 3rd Cranch 36, 5th Cranch 267. It was next held that all members of the corporation should be conclusively presumed to be citizens of the State that created it, and that the presumption could neither be denied in pleadings nor contradicted by evidence! Still later it was held in Louisville Railroad Company vs. Let- son, 2d Howard, page 555, "That the former decisions had never been satisfactory to the bar, and not entirely satisfactory to the Court that made them!" Quoting from the Dartmouth College case, they hold that a "Corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law; that it possesses only those properties which the charter of its crea- tion confers upon it. These are such as were supposed best calculated to effect the object for which it was created, and among the most important are immortality and indi- viduality — properties by which a perpetual succession of many persons are considered as the same, and may act as a single individual. They enable a corporation to manage its own affairs, and to hold property without the perplex- ing intricacies, the hazardous and endless necessity of per- petual conveyances for the purpose of transmitting it from hand to hand. It is chiefly for the purpose of clothing bodies of men in succession with these qualities and capac- ities, that corporations were invented and are in use. By these means a perpetual succession of individuals are capable of acting for the promotion of the particular object like one immortal being." And then they squarely hold in the same case, that "A corporation created by and doing business in a particular state is to be deemed to all intents 108 A CALL TO ACTION. and purposes a person, although an artificial person, an inhabitant of the same State for the purpose of its incor- poration, capable of being treated as a citizen of that State, as much as a natural person." This, the court declares, is a natural inference from the decision in the Dartmouth College case. The whole super- structure seems to bo built upon a succession of inferences instead of upon a plain grant of power. In 1874, an opinion was rendered in the Insurance Com- pany vs. Morse. 20 Wallace, U. S. Kep., 553, that a cor- poration is a citizen of the State by which it was created, and in which its principal place of business is situated, so far that it can sue and be sued in the Federal courts, and like natural persons, has the right to remove its causes from the State to the Federal courts. Now every member of the bar, every intelligent person, certainly knows that there is not a particle of authority for this ruling, either in the Constitution itself or in the busi- ness situation at the time the Constitution was made. The very terms used in that instrument and in the Judiciary Act of 1789, exclude and render unreasonable any such interpretation. Both the Constitution and the act use the word citizen, evidently meaning natural persons. It is simply and purely judicial legislation of the most unau- thorized character, promulgated in amplification of the juris- diction of the Court. The first opinions of Chief Justice Marshall, found in 3rd and 5th Cranch, referred to above are correct. They were in harmony with the Constitution and in accord with sound reason. The gradual and reluctant change of opinion by the Court was contemporaneous with the alarming growth of corporate power and influence in American business life As the Court showed hesitation, the corporations grew THE SUPREME COURT. 109 importunate, and the complete surrender of the Judiciary quickly followed. What authority had our courts, in the absence of legis- lative expression, to enfranchise this modern octopus, and clothe it with all the rights of citizenship? Neither Con- gress nor the framers of the Constitution had ventured to do so. No act of legislation since the foundation of our Government has exerted such stupendous influence upon the fortunes and business interests of the American people as this one unconstitutional and wholly unauthorized judi- cial ipse dixit. It was the one thing needful to place the people in complete subjection to corporate-power. And they have even gone so far as to flatly hold that where an insurance company had filed an agreement in compliance with the law of the State of Wisconsin, as a con- dition precedent to entering upon business in that State, that it would litigate its causes in the State courts and not remove the same to the Federal courts, was not binding, and that the act of the Legislature which required the company to file this agreement was unconstitutional and void. Such, also, was the fate of an Act recently passed by the Iowa Legislature known as the Sweeney law, which required foreign corporations doing business within the State of Iowa to become incorporated under the laws thereof. It was held to be repugnant to the Constitution. These and other decisions of similar import inaugurated the conflict now pending in the United States between nat- ural and artificial persons. The corporations are intrenched in the courts and the people are at great disadvantage. It is a race war of the fiercest kind, and a war of subjugation, for it is the evident purpose of the multitude of artificial persons to drive the great body of mankind to the wall and to compel them to submit to the yoke. The barbarians over- ran Rome, but the corporations and trusts have secured a 110 A CALL TO ACTION. much easier conquest liei'e. It must be conceded that in a struggle with persons clothed, as the courts say, with "indi- viduahty, immutability and immortalitj"," and who possess at the same time unlimited wealth, natural persons would be very unequally yoked. So far as this world is concerned man lacks two of these attributes. He enters the contest with but one — his individuality, and sooner or later is likely to regret that he possesses even that. INSTABILITY OF JUDICIAL OPINION AND RESULTING EVILS. A critical examination of the adjudications of our Supreme Court upon the most vital questions of tlie Century impresses us with the instability of judicial opinion, and we stand astonished at the spectacle of fickleness and incon- stancy which rises up before us. Whilst the administration of justice between private indi- viduals is always important, as it is one of the chief ends for which Society is organized ; yet when this duty is con- fined to trustworthy hands, the steady flow and exercise of the power does not attract marked public attention. The members of community know generally that the courts of justice hold their regular sessions ; tliat persons accused of crime are being tried, convicted and punished or restored to their liberty ; that judgments and decrees are being ren- dered and property taken and transferred to satisfy a variety of obligations; but beyond this general comprehen- sion the great mass of people are unobservant and ordina- rily disinterested. When, however, absorbing controversies arise involving the right of a State, inhabited by millions of people, to protect its citizens from various abuses affect- ing the morals, the health, the business and the safety of Society, the attitude of our Court of last resort should be unmistakable, clear and steadfast. The adjudications of nearly a century upon a given question, all concurring to THE SUPREME COUET. Ill establish a certain construction for the guidance of the citi- zen and the States alike, should not be disturbed, and the institutions and laws which have become chrystalized and established in consequence of these decisions should not be broken up and unsettled with impunity. This tribunal, if it would command respect, should see to it that its adjudi- cations comport with the dignity of the parties to the con- troversy, be equal to the gravity of the questions involved and as thorough and exhaustive as it is possible for the human understanding to afford. Our Federal Union is now composed of forty-four inde- pendent States, with avenues of inter-communication which sever State lines and municipal boundaries with as little regard as birds of passage exhibit when, with the recur- rance of the seasons, they make their periodic flights across the continent. The Legislative power of the States over institutions of their own creation, over questions of internal police, the point where this power ceases and the authority of Congress begins, aiid vice versa^ are questions of vital import in this day of colossal corporations and associated capital. If the Court is entitled to the respect and venera- tion which is claimed for it, the legislation and litigation of a Century should not leave us in doubt, at this late period, concerning the lines which separate between the State and Federal sovereignty. Let us proceed to an examination of the decisions of the Court relating to questions of internal police and the regu- lation of inter-state commerce. The first great case in this category was decided at the January term, 1829, Wilson vs. the Blackbird Creek Company, 2 Peters. 245. A law had been passed by the State of Delaware to authorize the con- struction of a dam in a navigable tide-water of that State. In delivering the unanimous opinion of the Court, Cinef Justice Marshall said: "The measure authorized by this 112 A CALL TO ACTION. act stops a navigable creek and must be supposed to abridge the rights of those who have been accustomed to use it. But this abridgment, unless it comes in conflict with the Constitution or a law of the United States, is an afl[air between the Government of Delaware and its citizens of which this Court can take no cognizance. Counsel for the plaintiff in error insists that it comes in conflict with the power of the United States to regulate commerce with for- eign nations and among the several States. If Congress had passed an act which bore upon the case *• * * we should feel not much ditiiculty in saying that a State law coming in conflict with such act would be void. But Congress has passed no such act. The repugnancy of the law of Delaware to the Constitution is placed entirely on its repugnancy to the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States; a power which has not been so exercised as to affect the question." There can be no misunderstanding concerning the mean- ing and scope of such language. Thestate of Pennsylvania, through its legislature, author- ized the city of Philadelphia to erect a permanent bridge across the Schuylkill river (a navigable water), at the foot of Chestnut street. The constitutionality of the act was called in question and the case was taken to the Supreme Court, Gillman vs. Philadelphia, 3 Wall., 713, where the law was upheld. The court held that "It was for Congress to determine when its full power to regulate commerce should be brought into activity * * * and that until the dormant power of the Constitution is awakened and made effective by appropriate legislation the reserve power of the States is plenary and its exercise in good faith can not be made the subject of review by this court." Again, in the Escanaba Co. vs. Chicago, 107 U. S., 678, 683, where the city had, in pursuance of a State statute, THE SUPREME COURT. 113 regulated the times for opening and closing the draws in the bridges crossing the Chicago river, which operated as a regulation of commerce both interstate and foreign, the Supreme Court held that '"There being no legislation by Congress to the contrary the power was constitutionally exercised." Mr. Justice Field, delivering the opinion of the court, said: "The Chicago river and its branches * * * must be deemed navagable waters of the United States. But the States have full power to regulate within their lim- its matters of internal police, including in that general designation whatever will promote the peace, comfort, con- venience and prosperity of their people." For more than eighty years in the history 6f 'this country the States exercised almost excljisiye, ■control over roads, bridges, ferries, wharves and, harbors, and no judicial tribunal doubted their right to do so- The case of Transjoortation Co. vs. Parkersburg, is in point. The city had built certain wharves for the accom- modation of vessels navigating the Ohio river and estab- lished certain charges which boat owners were required to pay. Parties engaged in navigating that river claimed that the State law authorizing such charges was an uncon- stitutional inference with the commerce of the Ohio river. The Supreme Court held that "Until Congress has acted, the courts can not assume control over the subject as a mat- ter of federal cognizance. It is Congress, and not the judicial department, to which the constitution has given the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states. The courts can never take the initiative on this subject." The decision in Pelk m. The Chicago <& N. W. Ify^ 94 U. S., 164, is also in point. This case involved the consti- tutionality of a law of Wisconsin to .regulate the price of freights and passenger traffic on the railtojads operated in 114 A CALL TO ACTION. that State. It operated on freight and passengers carried from another State to any point within the State of Wiscon- sin, or from any point to another State. The Court held that "Until Congress acts in reference to the relation of this company to interstate commerce, it is certainly within the power of Wisconsin to regulate its fares so far as they are of domestic concern. * * * Incidentally these may reach beyond the State. But certainly, until Congress undertakes to legislate for those who are without the State, Wisconsin may provide for those within, even though it may indirectly affect those without." Tn Munn vs. Illinois, 94 U. S., 113. it was claimed that a law of the State of Illinois prescribing elevator charges was an attempt to regulate commerce among the States, inasmuch as it applied to wheat in transit between the States. The Chief Justice, in delivering the opinion of the Court said: " There can be no doubt but that exclu- sive power has been conferred upon Congress in respect to the regulation of commerce among the several States. The difficulty has never been as to the existence of the power, but as to what is to be deemed an encroachment upon it." Then referring to the cases of dams, navigable waters, turnpikes and ferries, and after stating that the question at bar was in all essential respects the same, he says: "Their regulation may be assumed by the State until Congress acts in reference to their foreign and interstate relation." The decision in the license cases, 5 Howard, 504, decided in 1846, is exactly in point. The case of Pierce et al. vs. New Hampshire, is the most important in this group. The defendants had been fined for selling a barrel of gin in New Hampshire, which they had bought in Boston and shipped coastwise to Portsmouth, and there sold in the same barrel and condition in which it was purchased in Massachusetts, but contrary to the law of New Hampshire THE SUPREME COUKT. 115 in that behalf. In delivering the opinion of the Court Chief Justice Taney said: "The question brought up for decision is, whether a State is prohibited by the constitution of the United States from making any regulations of foreign commerce with another ^State, although such regulation is confined to its own territory, and made for its own convenience or interest, and does not come in conflict with any law of Congress. In other words, whether the grant of power to Congress is of itself a prohibition to the States, and renders all such law upon the subject null and void. The mere grant of power to the General government can not, upon any just principles of construction, be construed to be an absolute prohibition to the exercise of any power over the same subject by the States. The controlling and supreme power over commerce with foreign nations and the several States is undoubtedly conferred upon Congress. Yet, in my judg- ment, the State may, nevertheless, for the safety or conve- nience of trade, or for the protection of the health of its citizens, make regulations of commerce for its citizens, make regulations of commerce for its own ports and har- bors, and for its own territory; and such regulations are valid unless they come in conflict with a law of Congress.'' The conclusion of the opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Taney is in these words: "Upon the whole, therefore, the law of New Hampshire is in my judgment a valid one. For, although the gin sold was an import from another State, and Congress have clearly the power to regulate such importations, under the grant of power to regulate commerce among the several States, yet as Congress has made no regulation on the sub- ject, the traffic in the article may be lawfully regulated by the State as soon as it is landed in its territory, and a tax imposed upon it, or a licence required, or the sale altogether prohibited, according to the policy which the State may suppose to be its interest or duty to pursue." But why cite further cases in which this doctrine has been enunciated? To use the language of the dissentins: 116 A CALL TO ACTION, judges in Wabash etc. Railway Company vs. Illinois. "It is almost a work of supererogation to refer to the cases. They are legion." From the accession of Chief Justice Marshall in 1801, to the opinions pronounced by Chief Justice Waite in the Grange cases of 1876, covering three-quarters of a century, it was uniformly held that in the class of cases now under consideration, the power of the States was plenary when exercised in good faith, and that in the absence of Con- gressional action, could not be made the subject of judicial review. To use the very terse language of the Court in the Parkersburg case, "Until Congress has acted, the Courts cannot assume control as a matter of federal cogni- zance. That it is to Congress and not to the Judicial department, to which the Constitution has given the power to regulate Commerce with foreign nations and among the several States, and that the Courts can never take the ini- tiative on this subject." Chief Justice Waite died enter- taining these opinions, and so, doubtless, did all his illustrious predecessors. DECADENCE OF THE COURT. The extraordinary financial crisis precipitated upon the country in the autumn of 1873, pervaded every avenue of society and shook every branch of industry. The politi- cal consequences which followed were tremendous. Throughout the northwest, in particular, the Grange movement rose like a tempest, and soon reached every nook and corner of the country. Investigation quickly revealed the fact that producers, consumers, and the pub- lic generally, were being shamefully swindled by excessive railroad rates and fares, and that public safety required that the t3a'anny of monopoly should be overthrown. Legislators were chosen witli reference to the great con- THE SUPKEME COUKT. 117 troversy, and political parties in the Northwest were com pletely disorganized. Legislation followed in restraint oi corporate pretensions. In Iowa, Wisconsin, and othei States statutes were enacted, prescribing maximum rates, beyond which the companies were forbidden to charge, under heavy penalties. The conflict between the people and the corporations grew to be fierce. It was the first important engagement between the belligerent and deter- mined forces. They fought at every step and contested every inch of the ground. True, the companies were the offspring of the State, but they did not allow a trifling matter of that kind to deter them for a moment. They spurned parental counsel, harrassed everybod}^ refused to obey the law, forbade the people to go aboard their trains without tickets, and declined to sell tickets except at the old rates. While this unseemly warfare was in progress cases to test the constitutionality of the offensive statutes were being rapidly pushed in the courts; meanwhile the anti-monopoly feeling among the people was constantly gaining in intensity and power. The corporations were defeated in the State tribunals, and at once appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. As we have already learned, they were equally unsuccessful in that tribunal. The monopolists were discomfited, of course, by these reverses, but never for a moment did they abandon their purpose. They were full of resources and bent on final victory. Not so with the people. They were exultant, short-sighted, unmindful of the future, ceased to be watch- ful and disbanded their forces. They did not comprehend the strength and tenacity of their powerful adversary. In the Grange cases the corporations endeavored first to overthrow the long line of decisions heretofore recited which held that in the absence of Congressional action the States might lawfully legislate upon this class of subjects; 118 A CALL TO ACTION. second, to have it judicially determined that even in strictly State traffic, the question whether rates exacted by trans- portation companies were reasonable or not, was a judicial question and could not therefore be determined by the Legislature. The Court ruled against the corporations on both propositions. Following these judicial reverses, the conspiracy alluded to by the Hon. David Davis, was formed to fill the Supreme Bench with men trained in the school of the cor- porations, and whose mental bias, forensic education and professional experience qualify them to evolve that new juripprudence — that new theory of constitutional construc- tion which shall stifle State Legislatures, palsy the arm of the people, and at once afford to the corporations a safe retreat from popular indignation and legislative super- vision. The success which has crowned their efforts will become painfully apparent as we carefully examine the decisions since that period. The people were victorious in the decrees of 1876, but tliey have met with unbroken dis- aster from that date forward, THE TRANSFORMATION OF A DECADE. The transition had begun in earnest. Ten years had elapsed since the first forensic encounter of 1876 had taken place between the people and the three giants, known as the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago & North- western and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railway companies. The defeat of the corporations was hailed at the time with delight by the multitude and attracted marked attention everywhere. But this august Court, greatly changed, was in session for the October term, 1886, There had been no change in the Constitution meantime, nor in the oath of office of the judges. One of the judges it seems, had been re-illuminated during the decade, while THE SUPREME COURT. 119 others had passed away and new men had taken their places. The case of Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Company vs. Illinois was up for hearing. A state — three millions of people, their Le«;islature and courts — stood at the bar^, summoned hither at the beck of a corporation which this same state had created, but which now denied the authority of its creator to circumscribe its conduct or set limits to its exactions. The Legislature of Illinois had passed an act which, in substance, made it unlawful for a railroad corporation, doing business in that State, to charge, collect or receive, directly or indirectly, for the transportation of freight or passengers upon its road, the same or a greater amount of toll than was charged for the same class of goods shipped a greater distance in the same direction, and prescribed pen- alties which were to follow the violation of the law. It appeared that the company had, in violation of the Illinois statute, charged Elder & McKinney for transporting 26,000 pounds of goods from Peoria, 111., to New York City the sum of $39. 00, being at the rate of fifteen cents ppr hun- dred pounds for the car load; that on the same day they had agreed to transport for Isaac Bailey and F. O Swansell another car load of goods of hke character from Gilman, 111., to New York City for the sum of $65.00, being at the rate of twenty-five cents per hundred pounds. The car load transported at the fifteen cent rate was carried eighty-six miles farther than the car load for which they charged twenty-five cents per hundred. Suit was brought in the State courts to enforce the law against the delinquent road. The corporation claimed that the law was unconstitutional, for the reason that it was an attempt to regulate commerce among the States. The Supreme Court of the State of Illi- nois overruled the point, and held that, as the statute applied only to that portion of the service rendered within 120 A CALL TO ACTION. the State, it was valid and must be obej ed. In support of its decision the Court cited the opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Grange cases, and partic- ularly the following language, found in Peik vs. Chicago & Northwestern Kailway Company, 94 U. S., 177-8^ "As to the effect of the statute as a regulation of inter-state com- merce, the law is confined to State commerce, or such inter- state commerce as directly affects the people of Wisconsin. Until Congress acts in reference to the relations of this company to inter-state commerce, it is certainly within the power of Wisconsin to regulate its fares, etc., so far as they are of domestic concern. With the people of Wisconsin this company has domestic relations. Incidentally, these may reach beyond the State. But certainly, until Congress undertakes to legislate for those who are without the State, Wisconsin may provide for those within, even though it may indirectly affect those without." The reader will understand that the Wisconsin statute, concerning which the above ruling was made in 1876, was in every particular substantially the >.same as the Illinois statute now under consideration, and was so treated by the judges who concurred as well as those who dissented from the opinion rendered. The Wisconsin statute was upheld in 1886; but owing to the marked change in the personnel of the Court and the change of opinion on the part of one of the old judges, the Illinois law was less fortunate in 1886, and was declared unconstitutional and void. It is creditable to Chief Justice Waite and Mr. Justice Bradley, that they rigidly adhered to their former opinion given in the Grange cases, and hence filed an able dissenting opinion in this case, in which Mr. Justice Gray concurred. During the presentation of the case to the Court, Mr, Hunt, attorney-general of Illinois, strongly urged the sim- ilarity of the two statutes and cited the decision of the THE SUPREME COURT. 121 Court in the Grange cases as conclusive of the whole matter in controversy. He showed that the State Legisla- ture and the Court of Illinois had been guided by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, and had in no respect exceeded the authority there enunciated and upheld. The thrust was keenly "felt and the awkward and embarrassing attitude of the Court was reluctantly admitted. One of the justices who had concurred in the Grange opinions, delivered the opinion in this case. He saj^s: ' ' It cannot be denied that the general language of the Court in these (Grange) cases, upon the power of Con- gress to regulate commerce, may be susceptible of the meaning which the Illinois Court places upon it." After quoting the language of the Court in these cases, he further says: "These extracts show that the question of the right of the State to regulate the rates of fares and tolls on rail- roads, and how far that right was affected by the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States, was pre- sented to the Court in those cases. It must be admitted that, in a general way, the Court treated the cases then before it as belonging to that class of regulations of com- merce which, like pilotage, bridging navigable rivers, and many others, could be acted upon by the States in the absence of any legislation by Congress on the same subject." The Justice did himself and the truth of history great violence when he intimated that the Grange cases were not fully considered and ably contested on both sides of the controversy, The litigation at the time attracted universal attention throughout the country and the ablest counsel known to tlie legal profession in America were employed to manage the contention. The Justice further gave utter- ance in this case to the following remarkable language: 122 A CALL TO ACTION, "Of the members of the Court who concurred in those opinions, (Grange) there being two dissentients, but three remain and the writer of this opinion is one of the three. He is prepared to take liis share of the responsibility for the language used in those opinions, including the extracts above presented. He does not feel called upon to say whether those extracts justify the decision of the Illinois court in the present case. " What did the learned judge mean by the statement that there were but three justices then upon the bench who had participated in the Grange cases ? What had that fact to do with the Constitution ? Are we to have a new interpre- tation of that instrument every time we have a change of judges? The Justice unwittingly disclosed the fact that the Court, as at present constituted, is hostile to the Grange decisions. His language and the decision which he was then promulgating render this conclusion inevitable. We submit that language like this is not becoming in a Court whose members hold their positions by the life tenure. What responsibility could this judge assume? Both he and the Court for which he was speaking were beyond the reach of the ballot box; they could not be impeached for judicial opinion expressed in a cause properly brought before them. There was no responsibility except a moral one which he or they could possibly assume. There was no atonement which the Court or this justice could possibly make for any evil which a wrongful decision might inflict. It is always the unoffending people who are wounded and bruised for transgressions of this character. But why did neither the Justice nor the Court feel called upon to say whether the decisions in the Grange Cases justified the ruling of the Illinois Court ? Both the State Legislature and the State Court had acted in strict conformity to the Grange de- cisions and relied implicity upon them. They were urged vehemently in the case as conclusive of the whole contro- THE SUPREME COURT. 12S versy. If the Illinois Court had not misapplied the decis- ions in the Grange cases, its ruling must be upheld until the Federal decisions were themselves overthrown; and yet the justice, speaking for the Court, refused to say whether or not the State Court was warranted in making this appli- cation! This was the vital point in controversy. Was it a trifling matter that the Legislature of the State of Illinois, the people thereof and the State Court had all been de- ceived and mislead by the Supreme Court of the United States and by the very judge who was delivering the opinion? Could judicial arrogance be more pronounced or offensive? It was little dreamed that this tribunal, with- out the courage to so avow, was about to nullify the solemn act of a State Legislature, the adjudications of the State Court made in conformity thereto, and its own deliberate decisions upon which both had been based. No wonder that Chief Justice Waite, Justice Bradley and Justice Gray refused to join in or be compromised by such an extraor- dinary decision. There is now but one Justice remaining upon the bench who concurred in the Grange decisions of 1876 — Mr. Justice Bradley. Chief Justice Waite and Justice Miller having died since this decision in the Wabash case was rendered. Mr. Justice Bradley stands as steadfast as Gibralter, but, alas! he stands alone, powerless to arrest the influx of the tidal wave. The Supreme Court is the highest point in our Federal system. When it is submerged by the corporations what must necessarily be the status of the people who move in the humbler and lower walks of life ? On March 19, 1888, the case of Bowman vs. Chicago & Nerthwesteru Railroad Co., was decided, 125 U. S., 465. Section 1553 of the Code of Iowa, as amended by Chapter 143 of the Acts of the Twentieth General Assembly of 124r A CALL TO ACTION. 1886, forbade common carriers to bring intoxicating liquors into the State from any other State or Territory, without first being furnished with a certificate as described in the act. This law was declared unconstitutional as being es- sentially a regulation of commerce among the States. Its unconstitutionality did not result from any conflict with the legislation of Congress, for that body had taken no action, but simply from its repugnance to the mere grant of power to Congress by the Constitution. This decision was tantamount to a declaration by the Court that the grant of power to Congress is of itself a prohibition to the States and renders all such enactments null and void. It was in direct conflict with the unbroken decisions of the Court upon that question for three-quarters of a century, as already shown. The opinion in this case was by Mr. Justice Matthews, whose elevation to the bench, as has been seen, was surrounded bj'- circumstances well calculated to awaken public apprehension. There was an elaborate concurring opinion also by Mr. Justice Field. The fact that this case related in one of its phases to the suppress- ion of the sale of intoxicating liquors had no influence whatever upon the Court. It involved purely and simply the right of a State, in the absence of action by Congress, to legislate at all upon this class of questions. The state of affairs foreseen by the Honorable David Davis was rapidly becoming manifest. Chief Justice "Waite, Justice Harlan and Justice Gray stoutly dissented, for the reason that the ruling was in effect a reversal of the Grange decis- ions to which they still adhered. It was directly in conflict with the opinion in the case of Pierce vs. New Hampshire, rendered by Chief Justice Taney, in 1847, before referred to in this chapter and in point blank contradiction of the utterances of the Court in the Bobbins case, 130 U. S., 493, where the Court made use of the following language; THE SUPREME COURT. 125 "It is an established principle that the only way in which commerc© between the States can be legitimately affected by State laws, is where, by virtue of its police power and its jurisdiction over persons and property within its limits, a State provides, for the security of the lives, limbs, health and comfort of persons and the protection of property; or where it does those things which may inci- dentally affect commerce, such as the establishment and regulation of highways, canals, wharves, ferries and other commercial facilities, * * * or by the passage of laws to restrict the sale of articles deemed injurious to the health or morals of community. " Moreover, it was as suggested by the dissenting judges, squarely in conflict with the opinions in the Grange cases, and with the whole line of opinions from the organization of the Court in 1790 down to 1876, concerning the power of State Legislatures to enact such laws before the dormant force of the Constitution was awakened by Congressional action. But the ruling in this case created no surprise at the bar, at least among those who were watching closely the current of events. All observant members of com- munity well understood that the opinion in the Wabash case, above referred to, marked the period when the Court had adroitly about-faced upon the real question in contro- versy in this case, and of course no retrogression could now reasonably be anticipated. Quickly following this judicial fulmination came the cel- ebrated Iowa original package decision, which upset the New Hampshire case decided in 1847, and blasted State laws and judicial rulings which had flourished and been accepted for more than two generations. The next important adjudication was in the case of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company vs. the State of Minnesota, ex rel, the Railroad and Warehouse Commissioners of that State. This judicial Dronunciamento 126 A CALL TO ACTION. was delivered March 24, 1890, by Justice Blatchford, who was appointed in 1882. An act of the Legislature of the State of Minnesota approved March 7, 1887, created a com- mission to be known as the "Railroad and Warehouse Commission," to consist of three persons to be appointed by the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The first section expressly limited the operation of the act to traffic between points within the State. The second section declares ' ' that all charges made by common carriers, subject to the provisions of this act, * * * shall be equal and reasonable; every unequal and unreason- able charge for such service is prohibited and declared to be unlawful." The eighth section provides that in case the Commission shall find at any time that any part of the tariffs of charges, filed and published by any common car- rier, is in any respect unequal or unreasonable, it shall have the power, and is authorized and directed, to compel any common carrier to change the same and adopt such charge as the Commission shall declare to be equal and reasonable; to which end the Commission shall, in writing, inform such carrier in what respect such tariff of charges is unequal and unreasonable, and shall recommend what tariff shall be substituted therefor, and their action shall be final; that in case the carrier shall neglect for ten days after such notice to adopt such charges as tlie Commission recom- mends, it shall be subject to a writ of mandamus, to be issued by any judge of the Supreme Court, or by any of the District Courts of the State, on application of the Com- mission. And the Commission may apply also to any judge for an injunction as against the carrier to restrain him from carrying on business within the State until they shall have complied with the requirements of law and the recommendations of the Commission. Certain other pen- alties, such as costs and counsel fees, were also to be inflicted. THE SUPREME COURT. 127 In June, 1887, the boards-of-trade union of four diflfer- ent municipalities made complaint in writing that the Chi- cago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company, a common carrier doing business in the said State, was charging unequal and unreasonable rates for the transportation of milk, and specified with great particularity the facts upon which they based their complaint. The railway company was duly apprised by the Commission of the nature of the complaint, and appeared by its attorney on the day set for hearing. An investigation was had and the Commission pursued in all respects the line of procedure pointed out by the statute. The Commission found that the rates charged, three cents per gallon, was unequal and unrea- sonable, and decided and prescribed two-and-a-half cents per gallon as equal and reasonable, and directed the com- pany to adjust their charges accordingly. The demand was refused. In December, 1887, application was made to the Supreme Court by the Attorney-General of Minne- sota for an alternate writ of mandamus to compel the company to comply with the recommendations of the Commission and to change its tariff rates and to adopt the rate declared by the Commission to be equal and reason- able. The writ was accordingly issued. The company filed its return to the writ, setting up, first, that it was not competent for the Legislature of Minnesota to delegate to a Commission the power of fixing rates for transportation, and that the act under which it was done was void under the Constitution of the State; second, that the company, as the owner of its railroad, franchises, equipment, and appurtenances, and entitled to the possession and beneficial use thereof, was authorized to establish rates for the tran- sportation of freight and passengers, subject only to the provisions that such rates should be fair and reasonable; that the establishing of such rates b}^ the State, against the 128 A CALL TO ACTION. will of the company, vf&Bjpro tanto a taking of its property and depriving it thereof, without due process of law, in violation of section 1, of article 14, of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States; that the making of the order of October 13, 1887, was pro tanto a taking and deprived the company of its property without due process of law, in violation of said section 1, and therefore void and of no effect. That the rate of three cents per gallon as a freight for carrying milk in ten gallon cans on passenger trains from Owatonna and Fairibault respectively, to St. Paul and Minneapolis, was a reasonable, fair, and just rate; and that the rate of two and a-half cents per gallon in ten gallon cans so fixed and established by the Commission, was not a reasonable, fair or just compensation to the company for the services rendered, and that the establishing of such rate by the Commission against the will of the company was, pro tanto^ a taking of its property without due process of law. The case came on for hearing and the company applied for a reference to take testimony on the issue raised by the allegations as to whether the rate fixed by the Commission was reasonable, fair, and just. The court denied the appli- cation and ordered that a peremptory writ of mandamus issue. The terms of the writ were in all respects in accord- ance with the provisions of the Minnesota statute, and directed the company to change its rates. The railroad at once took the case to the Supreme Court of the United States on writ of error for review. The cause came on for hearing at the October term, 1889, but the decision was not promulgated until March 24, 1890. The decision of the Supreme Court of Minnesota, and the statute upon which it was based, were overthrown. In delivering the opinion of the court Justice Blatchford says: THE SUPKEME COURT. 129 *'The question of the reasonableness of a rate of charge for transportation by a railroad company, involving as it does the elemeDt of reasonableness both as regards the company and as regards the public, is eminently a question for judicial investigation, requiring due process of law for its determination. If the company is deprived of the power of charging reasonable rates for the use of its prop- erty, and such deprivation takes place in the absence of an investigation by judicial machinery, it is deprived of the lawful use of its property, and thus, in substance and effect, of the property itself, without due process of law and in violation of the Constitution of the United States; and in so far as it is thus deprived, while other persons are permitted to receive reasonable profits upon their invested capital, the company is deprived of the equal protection of the laws. * * * "The issuing of the peremptory writ of mandamus in this case was, therefore, unlawful, because in violation of the Constitution of the United States.'' No point is made by the Court that it is not within the power of the Legislature to authorize a commission to fix arbitrarily the rates. The law is held to be void because it did not provide for a judicial investigation as to the rea- sonableness of the rates. For that reason they hold that the company was deprived of its property without due process of law, and so, by precisely the same reasoning, it would have been if the Legislature had itself, by statute, fixed the rate at two-and-a-half cents per gallon. It is a significant fact that the Court does not cite a single authority in this case in support of its decision. It may well be silent; for by means of this ruling the Court has retraced its steps and quietly returned to the ground occupied by Justice Field and the other dissenting judges, in the Grange cases, in 1876. Mr. Justice Bradley, the only surviving member of the Court who concurred in the Grange decisions, delivered a 9 130 A CALL TO ACTION. dissenting opinion in this case, in which Justices Gray and Lamar concurred. We quote from it as follows: *'I can not agree to the decision of the court in this case. It practically overrules Mann vs. Illinois (94 U. S., 113), and the several railroad cases that were decided at the same time (the Grange cases). The governing principle of those cases was that the regulation and settlement of the fares of railroads and other public accommodations is a legislative prerogative and not a judicial one. This is a principle which i regard as of great importance. When a railroad company is chartered, it is for the purpose of per- forming a duty which belongs to the State itself. It is its duty and its prerogative to provide means of intercom- munication betu'een one part of its territory and another and this duty is devolved upon the legislative department." "In the case of Davidson vs. City of New Orleans (96 U. S., 97), we decided that the appointment of a Board of Assessors for assessing damages was not only due process of law, but the proper method for making assessments to distribute the burden of a public work amongst those who are benefited by it. No one questions the constitutionality or propriety of boards for assessing property for taxation, or for the improvement of streets, sewers and the like, or of commissions to establish county seats, and for doing many other things appertaining to the administrative man- agement of public affairs. Due process of law does not always require a court. It merely requires such tribunals and proceedings as are proper to the subject in hand. In the Kailroad Commission Cases (116 U. S., 307,) we held that a Board of Commissioners is a proper tribunal for determining the proper rates of fare and freight on the railroads of a State. It seems to me, therefore, that the law of Minnesota did not prescribe anything that was not in accordance with due process of law in creating such a board, and investing it with the powers in question." "It is complained that the decisions of the board are final and without appeal. So are the decisions of the Courts in the matters within their jurisdiction. There must be a final tribunal somewhere for deciding every question in the world. Injustice may take place in all tribunals. THE SUPREME COUKT. 131 All human institutions are imperfect — Courts as well as Commissions and Leo^islatures. Whatever tribunal has jurisdiction, its decisions are final and conclusive unless an appeal is given therefrom. The important question always is, what is the lawful tribunal for the particular case? In my judgment, in the present case, the proper tribunal was the Legislature, or the Board of Commissioners which it created for the purpose." "I am authorized to say that Mr. Justice Gray and Mr. Justice Lamar agree with me in this dissenting opinion. " The decision in this case created great indignation among the people of Minnesota, and indeed throughout the whole country where its full meaning was understood. Incidents which point to a rapidly approaching National crisis are now almost of daily occurrence. The constant accretion of power resulting from the disposition of this Court to amplify its own jurisdiction, to obliterate State authority, to deny the power of the States to regulate their own affairs, to set bounds to the exactions of their own domestic corporations and to deny to Congress the author- ity to interpret the Constitution for itself, are among the ever recurring and ominous phenomena of our day. Mr. Jefferson said this Court would become a despotism if accorded the power which it claimed. "We may well inquire whether his prediction has not been fulfilled. Are we never to know what our Constitution means? It is made to« signify one thing to-day and another to- morrow. The Court interprets it and that stands, perhaps, as the law for generations. Meantime the State legisla- tures, State courts. Congresses, Executives, heads of depart- ments — in fact the whole people accept it and mould their institutions accordingly. Finally new light is discovered and a new interpretation evolved, and institutions, whose growth has extended through the greater part of the Cen- tary, are plucked up by the roots and the social structure 132 A CALL- TO- ACTION. turned upside down, We have a written Constitution, but the slave power claimed it for its own. Of late corpora- tions have taken refuge behind it. It will be the dawning of a glorious day when the monopoly-ridden people shall be able to use it as their own shield and buckler. But as at present interpreted, when we want fixedness of law we find ourselves standing upon shifting sands, and the juris- prudence of one generation becomes the pitfall of the next. SUPREME POWER IN THE STATE DEFINED. Municipal law is defined by all writers on jurisprudence, to be a rule of action prescribed by the supreme power in a State. Hence, it fallows that the supreme power is the legislative — the law-making power. The Judiciary is cer- tainly not the supreme power in the State. Manifestly it is a subordinate power. Its office is to interpret the will of the Legislature and to issue final process to make that will effective. In the absence of an express Constitutional provision, the interpretation given to that instrument by the law-making department should control. Indeed this is the theory upon which the courts profess to proceed, but it is not the practice. Both the law-maker and the judge take, an oath to support the Constitution, and there is nothing to interpret until the legislative department has acted. The legislator must necessarily first interpret the Constitution. In case of difference of opinion between the legislator and the judge, the legislative interpretation should stand, for the reason that the Court is not the advisor of the Legisla- ture, but merely translates its will. Should the Legislature err, the wrong can be righted by an appeal to the people and to the ballot-box; but who shall deliver us from the errors and usurpations of the Court of Last Resort, since they hold their positions by the life tenure and are not subiect to elective control ! THE SUPREME COURT. 133 The most embarrassing feature of American civilization — the real danger point in this era, is to be found lurking just where the last generation found it — in the conflict between the Legislative and the Judicial departments of the Gov- ernment. Every reform now pressing for recognition before the people and our law making bodies, State and National, is liable to find a foe ambushed in our Imperial Supreme Court. Freedom has been fired upon before from this same fortress and she is likly to again encounter a sim- ilar experience. Henry Clews, a prominent capitalist of New York, in one of his weekly circulars sent out to bank- ing and speculative circles February Yth, 1891, said: "It is true that, alongside these unexpected favorable developments in railroad interests, there is the dishearten- ing revival of hostile State legislation both by the Grangers and Farmers' Alliance; bat these attempts will be met with a thoroughness of opposition and with an application of Constitutional tests, both State and Federal, which will at least soon settle for the whole country what can and what cannot be done by this destructive sort of warfare. The probability seems to be, within a few months, there will be a great body of legal decisions showing that the farmers' conception of what constitutes ' reasonable charges ' for car- riage is something very different from the conception of the courts. " We distinctly remember that this same Court and Dred Scott once differed in their conceptions of human rights under our Constitution. But Dred Scott's views are now generally accepted. It is probable that the controversy between the farmers and the Court will end in the same way. The constant friction between our highest legislative bodies and the Court is calculated to precipitate a danger- ous conflict just at the point where we have the right to expect fixedness and tranquility. The assumptions of the 134: A CALL TO ACTION. Court exalt the Judicial above the Legislative poTver and introduce into Society confusion and distrust. It is the destruction of the very thing which we aim to secure by Popular Government. It dethrones the people who should be Sovereign and enthrones an oligarchy. The warning uttered by Mr. Jefferson, in the letter set forth in this chap- ter, was the result of his unclouded knowledge of human nature and of his clear comprehension of the functions of Democratic Government. The latest case which has come to the attention of the writer is that of Charles Counselman vs. Frank Hitchcock, Marshal of the Northern District of Illinois, decided early in January, 1892. Counselman is a wealthy grain dealer, engaged in operating elevators and buying and shipping grain. It was charged that he was receiving special rates or rebates from the railroads for the shipment of his pro- duce. He was directed to appear before the Inter-State Commission and testify touching the matter. He declined to do so on the ground that he was a member of the com- pany and could not be compelled to testify against himself. The decision sustains Counselman. This ruling exhibits the utter folly of attempting to harmonize individual ava- rice with the public welfare, and it practically nullifies the Inter-State Commerce law. This is probably one of the decisions which Mr. Clews promised was in store for the people. It is hoped that the thoughts expressed and facts por- trayed in this chapter may, in some degree, aid in arousing the people to a sense of the serious dangers which now con- front them. Courts should be held to their proper sphere as interpreters of the law. It was not intended that they should blossom into law makers. When the Constitution is silent Congress must be the sole judge of its own implied powers. State Legislatures must also be permitted to pro- THE SUPREME COURT. 135 tect the pe.ople from corporate tyranny. A Century of experience shows that new safeguards should be provided and the great Tribunal must be brouorht back to a sense of its accountability to the people. Note— Mr. Justice Bradley died while this work was In press. This leaves the Court without a single member who concurred in the Qirange decisions of 1876. CHAPTKR IV. IMPROVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. All men have a natural right to a portion of the soil; and as the use of the soil is indispensable to life, the right of all men to the soil is as sacred as their right to life itself. The public lands of the United States belong to the peo- ple and should not be sold to individuals nor granted to corporations, but should be held as a sacred trust for the benefit of the people and should be granted in limited quantities, free of cost to landless settlers. — Free Soil Platform, 1852. At the commencement of the Government the broad ex- panse of National territory was regarded merely as a source of revenue. To realize money from the sale of lands would relieve the people of an equal amount of taxes. In order therefore that taxes might be light, the possessors of private wealth were allowed to possess themselves of pub- lic lands at nominal prices and without limit of quantity. The subsequent purchasers — the farmer and producer — forestalled by the private cash purchaser from the Govern- ment, had therefore to pay, in the price given by him, not only the taxes which the people escaped, but interest as well, and as much profit as the transaction would bear. This was the "political economy" of the period — the ortho- dox political economy of all periods — the principle being to relieve accumulated property from all burdens, and to place all accumulated burdens upon labor and production. IMPBOVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 137 The first method adopted, therefore, for the disposal of public lands was by public and private sale. This system was applied to the Northwest territory, then to land south of the Ohio River, then to the Louisiana purchase and to Florida, and finally to California. Con.o;ress apparently forgot to apply it to New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and other States and Territories, or portions of them, outside of the Louisiana purchase; but this slight omission in the law was remedied by the Interior Department, which, without legal authority, offered and disposed of at public and pri- vate sale much valuable land in those regions. Under the cash system, a large portion of land in the earlier public land States, as well as in the later ones, was sold to capit- alists and speculators. As population increased the de- mand for land increased and various expedients were adopted to more rapidly dispossess the United States of its priceless public domain. And in all these expedients, some good on their face, and others flagranti}'- bad at the start, speculation and monopoly were fostered and encouraged at the expense of actual tillage of the soil. The pre-emption law, originally devised for the protection of settlers against cash purchasers, was soon made the instrumentality of ob- taining lands for speculation. The first development of systematic fraud under this law was in the South, the attention of Congress having been called to pre-emption frauds in Mississippi as early as 1843, when a statute was passed for local investigation. (5th Statutes, 519.) The issue of Military bounty land warrants, consequent upon the war with Mexico, opened a wide field of specula- tion. With the usual short-sightedness of small economists it was thought a world of wisdom to save money to the Treasury by giving land bounties to soldiers instead of cash. These bounties did the soldier little good. Land warrants calling for one hundred and sixty acres were 138 A CAIX TO ACTION. sold for $50, and years passed before the soldiers realized so much as $100 for their warrants. The small sums of money received by them were the merest trifles, but the lands passed to large land holders and served to build up great plantations in the South, and to augment speculative holdings in the West by securing individual control of val- uable lands through the location of such warrants. Mili- tary warrants to the amount of seventy million acres, covering an area as large as the six New England States, with New York added, have been issued by the United States, very few of which have ever been located on land by the soldiers themselves or their heirs. They were made assignable for speculative purposes, and, being assignable, were used in a vast number of cases for purposes of specu- lation and monopoly. In 1854, a gigantic land scheme, to acquire public lands in quantity for next to nothing in price, was consummated by the passage of the "graduation act," by which lands that had been in market for certain terms of years were sold at prices ranging down from $1.00 to twelve-and-a-half cents per acre. Twenty-five million acres were sold at these prices, chiefly in the South, before the war. Following the cash and pre-emption system and the bounty land expedient, came the colossal swamp land grant, State grants for various purposes, and railroad land grants, through all of which bodies of land larger than some European kingdoms passed into the hands of rich real estate owners. Following these methods of despoiling the Nation of its public lands came the speculative device of Homestead commutation, the Timber culture law, the Desert land act, and a great variety of scrip and* other land granting schemes, all tending to the one common end — robbery of the public lands. IMPROVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 139 GKANTS TO STATES FOE PUBLIC PURPOSES. The policy of making grants of land to new States upon their admission into the Union has been regarded as com- mendable, and the results of such donations presumed to be beneficial to the whole community. The disadvantages do not appear to have been considered. Guarantees were not usually demanded that the proceeds should be used for the purposes intended, nor was care taken that the States got the full benefit of the proceeds. . Checks were not placed upon the aggressive cupidity of transferees and agents, to prevent fraudulent claims upon the United States for the benefit of corporate interests succeeding to the State grants. And greater than all, the advantages to land monopoly and the additional cost of the land to its actual inhabitants, have never been measured. The granted lands for the most part have been obtained by actual occupants and cultivators, from speculative pur- chasers from the States or their grantees to whom sales were made in large quantity. The low price at which the lands have been sold by the State to capitalists and the grants which have been made by the States to corporations, have served the purposes of speculation and monopoly and thrown resulting burdens upon the people. That these have been the chief uses made of many of the benefi- cient grants, conspicuously the internal improvement, swamp, agricultural college, and school indemnity grants, is indisputable. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT GRANTS. It is well known that these grants have, as a rule, been monopolized by capitalists who obtained the lands from the States by large purchases at trifling suras. It is appre- hended that in some of the States it would be difficult to 140 A CALL TO ACTION. trace the disposition of the internal improvement funds, while there is no evidence in possession of the Govern- ment that whatever proceeds were derived by the States were used for the purposes intended. But there is little doubt that the farmers who actually obtained the lands did 80 only at speculative prices, and that the Government donations to the States resulted in an exaction from the farmers of the whole difference between Government prices and the sums actually paid by them to speculators. THE SWAMP LAND GKANT. This grant was made in 1849-50 to enable the several States then in the Union "to construct the necessary levees and drains to reclaim the swamp and overflowed lands therein." It was supposed that the grant would cover twenty-five million acres, and that the donation would sup- port vast public improvements beneficial to the States, particularly to those on the Mississippi River. It is not known that any such improvements resulted from the grant, but the amount of lands thus far claimed under it is seventy-five milllion acres, an area more than equal to fifteen states of the size of Massachusetts, of which forty- seven million five hundred thousand acres are in the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri, and twenty-eight million two hundred thou- sand acres in the States of California, Illinois, Iowa, Mich- igan, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon and Wisconsin. Fifty- eight million seven hundred thousand acres have been ( 1889 ) patented or certified to the States, and about eighteen million acres, equal to the area of the Territorial empire of Montana were pending in the Land Office when this chapter was written. This grant may be regarded as a public disaster to the States receiving it, benefiting chiefly speculators and cor- IMPKOVrDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 141 porations, taking away from the people homesteads and settlement rights under general laws of the United States, and resulting in no appreciable work of reclamation. In some instances, as in Florida and Minnesota, the swamp grant has been transferred by States to railroad companies which had already received donations of land greater in market value than the actual cost of the construction of the roads; and it appears to be the rule, as shown by the reports of the Commissioner of the General Land OflSce, that the best agricultural iands are largely claimed and have been obtained under the swamp grant, while settlers seeking such lands have been compelled to buy at specula- tive prices from the holders of the State claims. The same rule holds good as to timber lands, immense grants of which have been acquired by States under this grant, dis- posed of to capitalists and timber speculators, at nominal prices, and held for great advances in value, to be paid by consumers. When not given outright to corporations, lands have been sold to first purchasers at prices ranging from twelve- and-a-half cents to $1.00 per acre. At what prices they get into the hands of actual inhabitants can only be con- jectured, but may be estimated to rans^e from $5.00 to $10 per acre on ordinary private sales, up to whatever price especially valuable lands may command. The States receive an average of say from fifty to sixty cents per acre, while the actual occupier and user of the land must pay not less than $5.00 per acre, as a low average. The account then stands thus: Total volume of grant (acres) 75,000,000 Possible net result to States $ 45,000,000 Probable actual cost of the land to final pur- chasers from State grantees $375,000,000 142 A CALL TO ACTION. Such are some of the practical results of the swamp land grant. Commissioner Sparks asserts that the Swamp land grant has been a prolific source of fraud and corruption. He says: "Personal interest has prompted the grantees of the States to exert all possible means to swell their claims, and their plans have been made largely successful by the aid of a loose administration of the laws. " Agents undertake the prosecution of the claims upon commissions, amounting in some cases to fifty per cent, of the proceeds, and, invested with authority to represent the State, make selections of land or file claims for indemnity, which they insist is due the State, and manage to enlist the representatives of the State in support of their demands. They have thus succeeded in carrying their selections through and obtaining patents, or money indemnity, for many tracts of land which are as valuable for agricultural purposes, or for timber or minerals, as any in the United States, upon the alleged ground that the same are rendered unfit for cultivation by reason of their swampy character or liability to overflow. ""Experience has demonstrated the fact that reports of former agents of this oflice are quite generally unreliable, and in nearly every case a re-examination is necessary to ascertain the true character of the land. "Out of forty-five tracts in Oregon reported to be swamp land by an agent of this ofiice in 1888, thirty-eight were found, upon re-examination by the present agent, to be dry land, most of which can be greatly improved by irri- gation. "A recent report shows that about thirty-four thousand acres of land in the same State, approved upon the reports of a former agent, were fraudulently reported as swamp, and were undoubtedly not within the terms of the grant, being mainly hills, mountains, or sage brush plains, selected for the real purpose of securing the approaches to the waters of lakes, rivers and creeks. The most unblush- ing frauds have been practiced in the selection of alleged IMPROVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 143 swamp lands by parties claiming as purchasers of swamp lands from the State. By means of false aflSdavits, fraudu- lent surveys, and bribery of ao;ents, these parties have man- aged to obtain control of most of the lands bordering on lakes and water courses, shutting out intending settlers from access to water, and illegally monopolizing for pas- turage thousands of acres of public lands without payment of a dollar to the Government; and settlers who, notwith- standing the difficulty of obtaining water, have gone upon these lands, even when not selected as swamp, are threat- ened and often driven off by violence, while their crops are levied upon under color of a pretended title from the State. I am glad to be able to report that six indictments for forger}^, and three for conspiracy to defraud the Govern- ment, have been found against persons connected with these frauds, and only regret that the statute of limitation prevents the punishment of the parties who have realized the most of the profits of their crimes." (Land Office Report, 188T, p. 38.) Referring to similar examples in 1886, the Commis- sioner said: " The reckless method of swamp and swamp-indemnity selection, demonstrated in the foregoing examples, which apparently proceeds upon the theory that no claim upon the Government can be too excessive, floods this office with a vast amount of unnecessary work, and involves the Gov- ernment in a continued expense in establishing by exam- ination and evidence the validity or falsity of claims many of which are prima facie without merit. The instances above cited are in no respect exceptional. They may be regarded as examples of the general char- acter of swamp land and swamp-land-indemnity claims with which this office is overwhelmed, and as a fair index of claims which for vears past have been approved." — Land Office Report 1886, p. J^. "Swamp selections, work reservations of the land until the alleged claim is disposed of, and settlers are compelled to institute contests to save their land or secure the right of entry. The general result of contests against existing;*' 144 A CALL TO ACTION. swamp-land claims is that in 75 per cent of the cases tried, the swamp selection is rejected upon testimony taken at hearings, thus further proving the unfounded if not fraud- ulent character of the original selections." — Ibid, p. If,!. In making original swamp selections it appears to be the present practice of State agents to select the entire body of lands in the vicinity of rivers and creeks, as well as all classed by the surveys as low, wet and bottom lands, and to demand the approval by this department of such claims. —Ibid]?. J{.1. One-half of the entire area of Florida is claimed under the swamp land grant, and nearly half of the entire state has been patented under that grunt, but it has yet to be learned that the State has ever expended one dollar of the proceeds in the reclamation of the swamps and overflowed lands, the major part of which probably remain in the Government, it being pretty well understood that the swamp claim takes the good land, leaving the bad to be hereafter developed by public contribution. In this state the grant was transferred by the Legislature to railroad companies who made the selections, railroaded the patents through the Land Office, and, with their agents and collusive assignees, became the landed proprietors from whom those seeking orange groves or homes in Florida's luxurious climate must make their purchases. The United States has little or no good land to dispose of in Florida — the railroads have — but the condition of railroad service in that state does not indicate that the proceeds aro used for any public ad- vantage. In Illinois, whose proud boast it is that there are no naturally uncultivable lands in its broad domain, nearly one-eighth of its territory has been claimed as swamp. In Wisconsin, one-eighth of the territory of the state has been claimed as swamp. In Iowa, one-eighth is so claimed. In Missouri, more than one-tenth. In Michigan, one-fifth. In IMPROVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 14:5 Arkansas, one-third- While in Louisiana nearly one-half of all the land in the state has been solemnly sworn to as ''swamp and overflowed, and rendered thereby unfit for cultivation." In this state it is understood that a late gov- ernor made a contract with his brother by which the state pays to the gubernatorial relative fifty per cent, of all that can be obtained from the United States under the swamp land grant. Other States, as reported by the Commissioner, are said to pay from ten and fifteen up to forty per cent, for the same purpose. (Land Office Keport 1885, page 46.) These agents and their attorneys, masquerading in the name of the state, and sometimes with the interested in- fluence of the State Executives behind them, have haunted Congress for years to procure legislation extending the indemnity provisions of the swamp land grant so as to cover the intervening period between 1867 and the present time. To disclose the enormity of this scheme, its utter want of foundation, and precisely what it means, it is necessary to recur to the original measure. Upon the passage of the swamp land act in 1850, the states caused selections to be made ^w mass^ of lands claimed as swamp, sweeping in the rich arable valleys, and the homes and improvements of thousands of settlers. The Supreme Court with its customary leanings in favor of "grants," quickly decided that the swamp act made a grant inpresenti^ taking effect at its passage, and conveying a perfect title by operation of law. Settlers and intending settlers were caught in the toil. Those who had not gone upon and selected land could not do so, although they might know them to be high and dry, for the approval of the selections by the General Land Office and the Depart- • ment of the Interior was a mere matter of routine. They 10 146 A CALL TO ACTION. were all approved. Those who had gone upon good agri- cultural land — and it may be safely presumed that none had gone upon any other, were compelled to remove or buy their lands from state claimants. In some cases and before the doctrine of "present grant" had culminated in the can- cellation of settlement entries conflicting with the swamp claim, a few patents had been issued to settlers for lands embraced in the subsequent "swamp" selections. Here was opportunity for magnifying the swamp steal under the pre- text of "relieving settlers," and in 1855, an act was passed confirming to the few settlers who had obtained patents the land which had probably belonged to them without confir- mation, and allowing the states indemnity in lands or money, as the case might be, for the "swamplands so lost" to the grant, at the same time adroitly confirming to the states all their selections of dry land. This measure was pending two years before its passage, during which time selections of dry lands were crowded into the Land Office in anticipation of such result. The Surveyor General of Missouri, protesting at the time against the passage of the "relieving" act, declared that if it became a law "the mountain tops would be claimed as swamp." The act passed, and by a trick of legislative legerdemain was after- wards extended to 185T. It is needless to say that the pre- diction of the Surveyor General of Missouri became literally true. Commissioner Sparks says: "From the commencement of proceedings under the swamp-land grant, selections have been made to include large amounts of land not swamp, and by the acts of March 2, 1855, and March 3, 1857, Congress sought to close the matter of confirming the selections that had been made up to that date. Notwithstanding this, claims for large amounts of land which by no means fell within the terms of the original grant have continually been pre- sented. IMPEOVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 147 The acts of March 2, 1855, and March 3, 185T, also pro- vided for indemnity for swamp and overflowed lands disposed of by the United States between the date of the grant and the date of said acts, and, through the practice of presenting broadcast claims under these acts, $1,500,000 in money has already been drawn from the Treasury, and upwards of 570,000 acres of land patented as indemnity." —Land Office Report, 1887, p. 37. THE AGKICULTUEAL COLLEGE GKANT. This was the best regulated of all the grants made to the States, Congress having made provision in the act to secure the college funds, but in this case as in others, the cost of the land to the purchasers from the grantees of the States has made the donation an expensive experiment — to them. A total of about ten million acres has been granted for Agricultural Colleges. The aggregate funds derived by the States from this source amount to little more than seven million dollars. (See The Public Domain, First Edition, pp. 220-231, and subsequent Land Office Ee- ports.) The average is about 75 cents per acre. As the great body of the locations under this grant was made at a time when the most valuable lands of the Government were subject to such location, and as selections were made of choice timber lands as well as of select agricultural lands, it is fair to estimate that but a small portion of these lands would get into the hands of final purchasers from State grantees at a less price than five dollars per acre. In other words it is fair to say that to put seven million dol- lars into Agricultural College funds by means of this grant, has probably cost the farmers and producers of the country nearly $50,000,000 in the enhanced price they have paid for their lands above the Government price at which the same land could have been obtained, had there been no such grant. 148 A CALL TO ACTION. INDEMNITY AND COMMUTATION SCHOOL GKANTS. In 1886 an act was passed giving to the State of Nevada two million acres of land to be selected at pleasure, in lien of its grant of sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections for com- mon schools. This act was advocated on the plausible ground that so much of the state was mountainous and the land not adapted to agriculture, that school sections in place were of little value, and, for the laudable purpose of promoting education the state should be permitted to give up its worthless school selections and to select good land instead. The practical result is thus tersely stated in the Keport of the Commissioner of the General Land Office for 1886, page 13: "The grant by Congress of two million acres to be selected by the State in lieu of sections sixteen and thirty-six will, it is believed, absorh the whole of^ and probably more tha/n, the available agricultural lands and principal sources of water supply^ leaving the eemaindek of the lands of the STATE PKACTIGALLY IN THE POSSESSION OR CONTKOL OF THE purchasers of the state SCHOOL LANDS. The surveys that are urged in this State are desired chiefly for thp benefit of such purchasers. The result of this legislation and situa- tion must necessarily be the prevention of the settlement of tJie country and the permanent industrial and political CONTROL OF THE STATE BY A SMALL BODY OF LAND SYNDICATES AND CATTLE CORPORATIONS." It is understood as a fact that large schemes had been organized in pursuance of the plan of seizing the State under this legislation which was pretended to be for the benefit of common schools, and that the United States Sur- veyor General was one of the parties having large contracts for the purchase of schooi lands; also that he had caused certain lands to be retained as surveyed in order to consum- mate purchases, and that this particular branch of the con- ^ IMPEOVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 149 spiracy was defeated by the discovery that the surveys were fraudulent. (Land Office Keport, 1887, pp. 236 to 240.) Concurrently, also, with the passage of "The Lien Act" a special appropriation of $30,000 was made "for the sur- vey of public lands in Colorado," which the schemers expected to utilize for their purposes, and it is shown by the Land Office Kecords that the Surveyor General urged the speedy use of the money to enable the State to sell the lien land, which meant to enable the syndicates to make ring purchases of these lands. It appears that the money was not used as these persons desired, and this caused a virulent Senatorial attack upon the Land Office at the next session of Congress, showing the disappointment then experienced. It is inevitable that the lien grant to Nevada must be the perpetual curse of that State, since it places in the possession of capitalistic purchasers the most available lands susceptible of cultivation and a monopoly of the waters of the State. The future tiller of the soil must per- force become a serf of the land barons created by this school grant. ALABAMA COAL AND IKON LANDS. In 1881-2-3 an extensive conspiracy was developed, hav- ing for its purpose the capture and monopoly of hundreds of thousands of acres of valuable coal and iron lands in Alabama through fraudulent pre-emption and homestead entries. Foreign capital to the amount of millions of dol- lars was enlisted in this "business enterprise." Investiga- tions were made by agents of the Land Office, and numer- ous suits, civil and criminal, were brought against the wealthy perpetrators of the frauds. It was necessary that something should be done to save the "interests of capital," and to protect "vested rights," which had been acquired by fraud and perjury. Accordingl}^ a bill was introduced 150 A CALL TO ACTION. in Congress to "relieve the State of Alabama from the operation of the mineral laws." This bill became a "Sen- atorial issue," and was carried through by the personal efforts of distinguished statesmen, representing the coal and iron companies, and became a law in 1883, but not, as understood, until certain other distinguished statesmen had been admitted to a share in speculative enterprises con- nected therewith. The object of this act was to dismiss all pending suits and investigations, charge up to profit and loss account of the Government, the large sums of money that had been expended in futile efforts to protect these valuable lands, and to turn over to capitalists whole counties of coal fields and vast beds of iron ore at $1.25 per acre, instead of com- pelling them to pay $5 per acre for iron lands and $10 and $20 per acre for coal lands, as the mineral laws re- quired. A small body of the lands, perhaps from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand acres, was, however, not at once included in the surrender. These were lands that had been specially reported upon, and it was provided as to such, that they should not be open to entry until first offered at public sale. The purpose of this provision was, of course, to secure the specially reported lands in bulk at private entry at $1.25 per acre. But a hitch occurred as to this remnant of the great Alabama coal and iron land steal. Distinguished gentlemen who had presented this bill and secured its passage were urgent that the contemplated sale should be made! Other gentlemen, not so distinguished perhaps, but claiming to represent the people of the State, succeeded in delaying the proceedings. The knot of the difficulty was, however, cut in a very simple manner. In 1884 an act had been passed increasing the endowment of the University of Afebama by an additional grant of land, IMPKOVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 151 and by a recent decision of the Secretary of the Interior the reserved mineral lands are allowed to be selected. So, under the disguise of "University selections," the vast remaining mineral lands in Alabama passed to the wealthy combinations. KAILKOAD LAND GRANTS. The seizure of public lands by corporations and capital- ists through the medium of Congressional grants professedly made "to aid in the construction of railroads," has been a striking example of reckless legislation, of flagrant disre , gard of public interests, and of the corrupting power of money to procure gigantic steals, enlarge the robberies by Executive administration, and protect the plunderers by judicial decisions. The blackest pages in the history of legislative, administrative and judicial procedure in this country are undoubtedly connected with the railroad land grant system. The total amount of land embraced in un- forfeited railroad land grants is estimated at one hundred and lifty million acres, an area exceeding that of the com- bined states of Maine, JSTew Hampshire, Yermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, JSTew Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Vir- ginia, nearly one hundred million of which is forfeitable under the granting acts. In his annual report for 1885, pp. 44, 45, Commissioner Sparks discussing this point, said: The matter of declaring these forfeitures and restoring the forfeited lands to the public domain is prominently before the country, and has awakened and excites keen public interest. The amount of unpatented lands em- braced in all the grants subject to declaration of forfeiture is estimated at one hundred million acres, an area equal to ihat of the combined States of New York New Jersej^, Penn- sylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Yi^inia. The restora- 152 A CALL TO ACTION. tion to public settlement and entry of this great body of lands is a subject of the first magnitude and of profound National importance. The question presented is strictly one of legal right. The rights of the corporations have been upheld for twenty and thirty years. The Govern- ment has not been in laches. The lands have been kept in reservation, material for building the roads has been freely supplied from the public domain, and extensions of time for constructions have been allowed. The default of the companies has been voluntary. The rights of the pub- lic are now to be considered — the right of the people to repossess themselves of their own. The case is not one calling for sympathy for the corporations; it is one calling for justice to the people of the country. In the manage- ment of their grants, as of their roads, railroad companies have shown little sympathy for the public — none for set- tlers and citizens whose presence and labor were building up traffic, and whose earnings were paying all the traffic would bear over roads constructed by public bounty. Holding their own claims through the indulgence of the Government, delinquent corporations have pursued settlers with the strong forces of corporate power, not only from local tribunals to the executive department, but from the executive department to the courts, to wrest from them the homes they had acquired within the boundaries of railroad grants. It is my information that a patent from the United States to a settler under an award by adjudication of this department is not security to his rights against a railroad company, but that the policy of compelling settlers to defend their patents in the Courts has been systematically adopted by some of the companies having the largest grants and being in laches to the government in respect to their own obligations. Appeals have been made to me by holders of such patents, asking for aid I had no means to give, in defense of their titles, which they said they could not maintain at their own cost acrainst vexatious, dilatory, and expensive proceedings, forced upon them to compel them to purchase from the companies the quiet of the titles which they had, after protracted struggle, obtained from the United States?^ Those who seek equity should do IMPROVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 153 equity; those who demand charity should show some regard for the rights of others and of their donors. "It is my opinion that the right and power vested in Congress of enforcing the forfeitures that have been incurred should be exercised. A failure or refusal to exer- cise the legislative jurisdiction may be construed as a con- tinuance or renewal of the grants. I misunderstand the sGntnneut and mistake the temper of the people if renewals of forfeited land grants in any form or manner is in conso- nance with their views of public policy or their demands for public justice. "However improvident the original grants were, the Government was bound to maintain its obligations so long as the companies kept theirs. But the failure of one party is the release of the other. An opportunity is now pre- sented for the legal recovery of a public estate long held in abeyance. Having been forfeited, it should now be resumed. I respectfully recommend that forfeitures be declared in all cases in which the roads were not completed in the manner and within the time prescribed by law, and that the unpatented lands be restored to the public domain." Eailroad grants in the State of Iowa cover an area larger in size than the surface of the two States of Connecticut and Rhode Island. In each of the States of Michigan and Wisconsin an area nearly as large. Railroad grants in Min- nesota would make two States just the size of Massachu- setts, one of which was donated to the promoters of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. In Kansas, railroad grants would make the two States of Connecticut and New Jersey. In Nebraska, a territory larger than the State of New Hampshire is given to railroad companies. Three Siates of the size of New Hampshire could be carved out of railroad grants in California. Another New Hampshire is found within railroad limits in Oregon, and the State of Rhode Island could be placed in the Oregon wagon road grants. In Dakota the Northern Pacific gets as much land 164 A CALL TO ACTION. as there is in the two States of New Jersey and Connecti- cut. In Montana the grant to the same company is as large as the whole of Maryland, New Jersey, and Massa- chusetts. In Idaho the same company gets a State of Delaware, and in Washington Territory its grant equals in extent the size of the three States of New Jersey, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. It was held by Commissioner Sparks that this company had absolutely no legal rights whatever to an acre of land west of the Missouri river, for the reason not only that no road was built west of the river, but that no road west of the river was even definitely located until after the time when by law and contract the time for construction had expired, and hence that no legal rights attached. These could vest only upon definite location and definite location could not be made after the expiration of the grant. He found no equities in the company to lands west of the Missouri, because the lands east of the river, if the com- pany were allowed to retain them, exceeded by far the actual cost of constructing the whole road. Is it any wonder that Sparks and LcBarnes had to go ? The reckless character of railroad land grants is worthy of more extended remarks than can be here given. The first of these grants was made to Illinois. It is notorious that the road paid a profit independent of the land grant on every division as fast as constructed. Contractors even got rich by completing the roads ri advance of time and running them for their own benefit until turned over under the contracts. It is notorious further, that none of the aided roads — except the Union and Central Pacific and perhaps the California and O^'egon — were built until a 'jrofit in construction could be seen without the aid of the land grants; and the two former were built with IMPKOVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 155 the money of the Government and not with the money of the corporations. The land grants have been almost invariably regarded and used as the private plunder of the incorporators of the company and not for the purpose of building the roads. Immediately upon the procurement of a grant and tiling in the land office a map of purported definite location, descriptive lists of the lands were obtained from the Department of the Interior, the lands sold to collusive syndicates or to outside purchasers, and the building of the roads was frequently left to those who might come after* wards. The early grants were made to States for the benefit of railroad companies and were in each case for the public land in a specified number of alternate sections on each side of the road, not including in such grants any land pre- viously reserved or disposed of by the United States, or to which a pre-emption right had attached at date of grant or which should have attached at date of the definite location of the line of the road. There was no provision of law in these early grants for the issue of patents or certificates to the State or railroad company. After the road was definitely located the State might sell the land in alternate sections, for a distance of twenty miles. When twenty miles of road were built and accepted, twenty miles more of the granted land mieht be sold. If the land was occupied by a pre-emption settler at the date of the grant the company could not sell that land. If occupied by a settler at date of definite location it could not be sold, but other land could be taken in place of it. If the law had been allowed its course no settler's land would ever have been given to a railroad company, because a settler need only prove that he or some other person was living: on the land or claimino; it under the laws of the 156 A CALL TO ACTION. United States at the date of grant or at date of definite location of the road, as the case might be, and any sale or attempted sale of such land by the State or railroad com- pany would have been absolutely void. But the officers of the Interior Department, without authority of law, and in defiance of the rights of the set- tlers, certified to the States or companies, outright, millions of acres of land regardless of claims that might be upon the land, or of any just claim that might be entitled to be afterwards placed upon the land. More than that, they certified such lands when no road had heen hidlt, and before any road had heen commenced^ and "before it was hiown whether the State or the companies would ever he entitled to tlie land^ except the quantity allowed for the first twenty miles, or how much land they would ever be entitled to, or the time when they would be entitled to it. More than that, they unlawfully and fraudulently certi- fied millions of acres of indemnity lands when no indem- nity had been earned, when 7io road had been built, nx) losses to the grant ascertained, no losses sustained, and no indem- nity right acquired io any land whatever. These certificates passed a presumptive title to the rail- road companies, sufficient to enable the land to be sold by the companies before the time when the law allowed such sale, and sufficient to enable them to attack and defeat existing settlement claims, and to prevent the attachment of other settlers' rights, which the law had in terms secured to the inhabitants of the country through which the roads ran. The following statement, compiled from official sources, and covering the years 1857, 1858, and 1859, is given as an example of this line of procedure, which com- menced soon after the first railroad grants were made, and was continued for an indefinite period thereafter: IMPKOVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 157 •n.ogtijso JO 9lT?p IB p.lOJisnoo pBoa sica 'o^i -gijjao joj XliJOqiKV © © ® o o a a n s s o o o c o s a o o "^ e s o o n sees o o o c o 2 15 ZZZ 4) O* Oi CJ Ci a a p a a o o c o o Z 12; 2;;z;a o o a o o o c o -^ O C! t- r; OS cc QO o •I-eaoj, CO 00 Ct t' t> (M CO tO-V-O ■* O 00 W i-H C^ C3 t- Ot~— CO O L , t^ ci to t-^ ■* cT w ci-^i ir^ o t- CQ' 00CD 0» o tn «n LO m m - aoocQOOGQOoo 00 ■" t»' tab ;a jj- > >) © . o c; c; C-. C-. o> in- 10 wuoiOinio GO 00 COOCCOQOOO O to SSfaSi^ >>l ^ t».235 O "to <<3 Cs0 o m u ra O a ^ ^ i •a ^ rt y o C3 S P. •3 J O o 158 A CALL TO ACTION. It will be seen that in the three years mentioned as a specimen of land office practice, upwards of six million acres were certified when only one hundred and seventy- six and a half miles of road had been built! It is apparent from the Land Office Reports that the bulk of all the rail- road lands certified under State grants, amounting to some 30,000,000 acres, were thus prematurely conveyed, and in some instances the roads are not yet built, and in others are only partially constructed. Analyzing the preceding Exhibit and obtaining official data to make an illustrative example of the effect of pre- mature certifications of railroad land, I take four grants in the State of Iowa and find the following to be the facts: The Burlington and Missouri River Road earned no indemnity lands before November 26, 1869, for until that time the road had not been built. It had no right to any granted lands until after March 3, 1865, the date of the passage of an act authorizing a change in the line of the road. Until after that time there was no definite location that fixed the route of the road on the line upon which it was constructed. Yet ninety thousand acres within unde- termined granted limits were certified for the company in 1859, and in the same year the officers of the Interior Department took from settlement right one hundred and forty thousand acres of land in indemnity limits, and with- out authority of law or equitable excuse gave these lands to the railroad. The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Road was not completed until June 6, 1869. Until that date indemnity rights were incomplete. The line having been changed there was no actual definite location until construction, and no right to any granted land could be acquired until the entire definite line was designated. But ten years before the rights of the company under the railroad grant were IMPROVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 159 legally established, the Department of the Interior robbed citizens of Iowa of three hundred and eighty-seven thou- sand acres of land whicli were given to this company through premature and unlawful certifications. The Dubuque and Pacific Koad (afterwards Cedar Kapids and Missouri River, Dubuque and Sioux City, and Iowa Falls and Sioux City) to which the Interior Depart- ment gave one million seven hundred thousand acres as early as 1858, never built any road on the line of selections, never built but eighty miles of road altogether under the grant, on account of which it was given seven hundred thousand acres as granted lands, and one million acres of indemnity, and had not earned one acre of the one million indemnity at the time these lands were unlawfully trans- ferred to it. Settlers and purchasers of land along the four great lines of railroad which cross the State of Iowa, who paid more than $1.25 per acre for their lands between 1856 and 1865 and later, have somebody to thank, and it might be well for them to inquire whom. In October, 1881, the Senate Committee on Public Lands was instructed by resolution to inquire into the condition of the General Land Office. The inquiry was commenced in December, 1881, and the committee reported April 3, 1882. (Senate Report No. 362, First Session, Forty-first Congress.) In the course of this inquiry Mr. J. "W. LeBarnes, then and for several years afterward Law Clerk of the General Land Office, was examined and gave his testimony in the matter of railroad administration in the Department of the Interior. The statement of this officer will be found on pages 89 to 105 and pages 113 to 151, inclusive, of said report, and is a most scathing arraign- ment of the illegal practices, unjust decisions, and corpor- ation-inspired policy which had habitually marked the 160 A CALL TO ACTION. liistoly of proceedings in the Land Department in its administration of railroad a^rants and its treatment of conflicting interests of settlers and of the rights of the Government. MOKE ABOUT KAILKOAD FBATJDS IN IOWA. Referring to railroad grants in Iowa, a volume of injustice and oppression, of railroad audacity and official mendacity, collusion and outrage is compressed in the following brief paragraphs found in the printed testimony: "In 1856 (11 Stat,, 9) a grant of land was made to the State of Iowa, which was transferred by the State to the Iowa Central Air Line Railway Company. This company constructed no road, but became insolvent; 775,717 61-100 acres of land were, however, approved to the State for the benefit of the road. In 1860 the Legislature of Iowa resumed control of the grant and transferred it to the Cedar Rapids & Missouri River Railroad Company on certain conditions. "In 1864 (13 Stat., 96) Congress recognized this trans- fer, and made a new grant to the company of the same lands and the same amount of lands as originally granted to the State, It also authorized a change in the location of the road, and the construction of a branch line. But as the former company had built no road, and it was uncer- tain whether the road would be constructed, large numbers of settlers had gone on the lands within the limits of the original grant of 1856. Congress therefore provided that the conveyance of lands under this grant should not embrace any lands within such original limits which had been sold or pre-empted, or to which a pre-emption right or homestead settlement had attached, or on which a hona jide settlement and improvement had been made under color of title from the TJnited States or the State of Iowa; and to allow for deficiencies in the grant it was provided that if the amount of land originally intended to be granted under the act of 1856, could not be found within the limits prescribed by that act, then selections to make up such amount mi^ht be made within a distance of twentv n:iles IMPKOVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. IGl from the new line of road. The original grant was for alternate odd-numbered sections within six miles on each side of the road, with the right to select indemnity in odd- numbered sections within lifteen miles. The new act increased the indemnity limits as stated. It was also pro- vided that whenever the modified main lines should be established, or the connecting line located, the company* should file a map definitely showing such modified line and connecting branch. When this should be done the Secre- tary of the Interior was to reserve, and cause to be certi- fied to the company as the work progressed, the lands to which it would be entitled under the grant. The map of definite location required to be filed in the General Land Ofiice as a condition prcedent to the reservation of any lands for the benefit of the grant was never filed. There was, therefore, never any authority of law for the with- drawal of any lands under this grant. A general with- drawal of all the pubKc lands in Iowa was, however, made in June, 1864, for the benefit of railroad grants. It was stated that this withdrawal was made at the request of the Iowa delegation in Congress. No act of Congress author- ized it. In August, 1864, this withdrawal was modified so as not to inhibit pre-emption and homestead entries. In June, 1865, the modification was annulled, and all entries made under it were suspended. In July, 1866, an order was made to restore to market all lands in the State that had previously been withdrawn. In September, 1866, the execution of this order was suspended. In August, 1867, the order was again issued, and the restoration was made by public notice. In 1875 the department decided the restoration to have been illegal, and all pending entries made under it were canceled. Where patents had been issued, but not delivered, they were called for and with- held. "These proceedings, which were wholly of departmental authority, affected the lands within the limits of the grant to the Cedflj* Ea,pids & Missouri River Railroad Company equally with all other lands in the State. Then in the adjudication of the claims of settlers it was held by this oflSce that the right of this company under the grant of 11 162 A CALL TO ACTION. 1864 attached to all the lands embraced in the original grant to the State, from the date of the original grant in 1856; and the rights of settlers who had gone on the lands between 1856 and 1864, and which were legally protected by the statute, and for which protection additional indem- nity selections were allowed to the company, were rejected. It was further held that the right of indemnity selection provided for by the act of 1864 was an absolute grant, that it embraced both odd and even numbered sec- tions within the limits of twenty miles, and that it took effect upon the date of the passage of the act. Under the statutory provision requiring a map of definite location to be filed before any lands could be reserved, the rights of settlers who settled before such map was filed, and in default of the filing of the map, before actual selection of the land for the company after the construction of the road, were protected in their settlements. Under the rulings of this office these rights were not recognized, but the lands and improvements of such settlers were decreed to the railroad. These proceedings went on until the lands taken from the settlers had aided in swelling the grant far beyond its maximum limits. Cases of this kind have been decided in this manner down to the present time, and others are still pending. "What is true of this grant is also true of several other grants in the State of Iowa, except as to the amount of land received by the companies in excess of the amount to which they were entitled. That is a matter I have not investigated. But the decisions affecting the rights of settlers were, I believe, of the same character as here stated. "Q. Where lands are awarded to railroad companies in the way you have mentioned in your testimony do the companies receive money from the settlers for the sake of quieting the settlers' titles? A. Yes, sir; I have heard of settlers paying as much as fifty dollars an acre for land awarded to the railroads in this way." — (Testimony, pp., 149-151.) It being impossible in the limited pages of this book to present more than a few instances to illustrate the general character of railroad mal-administration in the Department IMPEOVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 163 of the Interior, I take the fore^oin£r case as a pertinent example of the infamous methods exposed by this testi- mony in the robbery of public lands in Iowa. It must be remembered, also, that the Iowa case is an example only and not an exception. Classif3dng the points in the above testimony it is seen that the witness asserts: I. That the law required a map of definite location to be filed before any lands could legally be withdrawn from entry by the Secretary of the Interior. II. That such map was not filed. III. That lands were withdrawn, all the same, by com- placent officers of the Government, and that these with- drawals were for the benefit of the four lines of road across the State and included all public lands in the State. The tergiversations of withdrawals, restorations and revocation of restorations, make a confusing medley in which settlers were caught as in a vise, while the land, including their improvements, passed to the railroad company. IV. That the Land Office, incorrectly and in violation of the statute, held that the grant of July 2, 1864, was an absolute grant, and that it took effect upon the passage of the act, and operated upon all lands within the prescribed limits, while, in fact, the act only made an indemnity pro- vision which did not operate on any lands whatever until the company had made its selections to compensate for ascertained deficiencies, and in no case until after the map of definite location had been filed. The Land Office made the act take effect as an absolute grant upon all lands in July, 1864. In the case of Cedar Kapids R. R. Co. m. Hening and others, decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1884 (110 U. S., 27), the Court sustained the views expressed in the statement above referred to, and held that the act of 1864 allowed indemnity only; that the indemnity right did not attach to any lands until the proper selection 164 A CALL TO ACTION. was made ; that the Secretary of the Interior had no right to make any withdrawal until the map of definite location was filed, and the Court upheld the patents involved in the twenty-nine cases embraced in this suit. In some of these cases the lands had been patented before withdrawal and in others not until aftewards. (See Guilford Miller case, Land Office Keport, 1885, p. 206). So, by the decision of the Supreme Court, with all its leanings in favor of railroad corporations and its habitual methods of deciding in favor of such corporations upon even the flimsiest of pretexts, the basis of every order and decision of the Land Office making withdrawals under this grant and rejecting settlers' claims for conflict with it, was invalidated and the rulings of the Land O ffice shown to be illegal and absurd. The Court say that it was the purpose of the act to authorize certain changes in the line of the road, and "To adjust the amount of lands to which the company would be entitled under this new order of things and to enlarge the source from which selections might be made for the loss of those not found in place." Cedar Rapids cases, supra. The land office held that the act made a new grant out- right, and so awarded the lands to the railroad company. After it was too late to protect the people, the Court said that the act only enlarged the area within which the indem- nity selections could be made, and gave the company no right to the lands unless a right of indemnity selection existed, and not then until selections were lawfully made. "It is not easy to see how rights can be vested in any particular section or sections of the latter class (indemnity lands) until it is ascertained how man.> of the original odd numbered sections are thus lost and until the grantee has exercised his right of selection." {Ihid.) The Court said that the Secretary of the Interior had no rieht to make any withdrawal .until December 1, ISeT, a IMPKOVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 165 period of three years and a half after withdrawals were made : The following official correspondence shows that Law Clerk Le Barnes was correct, in stating that the withdrawal of these lands was made at the request of the Iowa delega- tion in Congress : Department of the Interior, Washington, June 16, 1861. The Commissioner of the General Land Office : Sir : Having considered your report of the 2d instant, inclosing the request of the Congressional dele• June 16, 1861. J Register and Receiver, Des Moine.% Iowa: The Secretary of the Interior, at the request of the Iowa delegation in Congress, has directed that all the public 166 A CALL TO ACTION. lands in said State be withdrawn from entry and location by individuals, with a view to facilitate the adjustment of the several g'rants of land recently made by Congress to the State of Iowa. You are, therefore, hereby instructed to withdraw from sale, location, homestead entry, or pre- emption claim, all the public lands in your district now subject to sale from the date of the receipt of this letter, excepting only you will allow the completion of the selec- tions by the State under the grant for agricultural colleges. The receipt of this you will promptly acknowledge, stating the date at which it may reach you, thus interdicting hereafter the disposal of any tract with the exception men- tioned. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant. J. M. Edmunds, Cortimissioner' (Copy of this sent to land offices at Sioux City, Council Bluffs, and Fort Dodge.) Other official correspondence on file in the Interior Department shows that the request for the withdrawal of the lands was made by the delegation the same day the act was approved, June 2, 1864. The public lands remaining in the State at that time amounted to about six hundred thousand acres. It must be remembered that this period was the very time when Iowa soldiers were returning from the battle- fields of the war and seeking to invest their small earnings, received in return for their great sacrifices, to make homes for themselves and their families upon the public lands of the United States. They found the public lands in the great State of Iowa closed against them by railroad with- drawals that had been made without justification and without color of legal authority, as the Supreme Court afterward decided. These withdrawals continued long after that period; and as late as 1875 the Department, protecting and approving these illegal withdrawals, decreed the temporary restorations that had been made to have IMPROVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 167 been unlawful, canceled entries that had been allowed under such temporary restorations, and, where patents had been issued to settlers and sent to the local land offices for delivery, but had not been delivered, the General Land Office recalled such patents and witheld them from their lawful owners. These patents had passed the legal title of the United States, and it was as incompetent for the General Land Office to interfere with them, or to recall them, or to with- hold them, as it would have been to have attempted to interfere with the private deeds and conveyances in Ohio or New York. This high-handed act of the Land Office discrediting the patents of the United States, compelled the holders of perfect titles from the United States to buy an invalid and worthless railroad claim to protect their homes. How many such instances there were, will probably never be known; how many more instances there were, in which valid entries which had not been patented were as arbitrarily and unlawfully canceled, will probably never be disclosed by the General Land Office; the multitude of other instances in which lawful entries were wickedly and shamefully denied, can never be known, as no records are kept of those who "' die and make no sign." Undoubtedly, every one of the patentees or their legal representatives, have a clear, indisputable right to-day to secure the patents which had been issued, to stand upon that absolute title and to recover from the railroad com- pany and its privies whatever money they may have been wrongfully compelled to pay. The law gives to those whose unpatented entries were illegally canceled, a remedy, to still preserve their rights, and for recovery from the railroad companies of moneys wrongfully exacted; but the Secretary of the Interior and the Attorney General have found a way to defeat the law. 168 A CALL TO ACTION. in this and other respects, and to protect the railroad com- panies and their confederates in stolen property of this kind, as will be shown hereafter. FTJRTHEE TESTIMONY BY THE LAW CLEEK. The following extracts from the testimony of the Law Clerk of the General Land Office, indicate the unerring fidelity of the Land Department of the Government to the interests of corporations, and its habitual disregard of the interests of settlers and of the Government, and affords a clear view of corporate methods and influence in the Department. "Q. How is it in regard to the ability of counsel usually employed by railroad companies? A. Railroad com- panies never make the mistake of employing lawyers of inferior capacity. A railroad corporation has the ablest attorneys in its service that the country can produce. A settler has no attorney, or perhaps very indifferent counsel. He may be some local attorney without much practice or experience in the questions he is called to manage. When the case comes before the General Land Office a corpora- tion is represented not only by able but by abundant counsel. The settler generally is wholly unable to employ a resident attorney, but relies on the merits of his case and the fidelity of the officers of the government to secure him his rights. "Q. Before what tribunal or what class of minds are these questions heard in the first instance? A. Before the clerks having that matter in charge. "Q. Before ordinary clerks? A. Yes, sir. "Q. Do these counsel have access, informally, to these clerks in private conversation and otherwise, and endeavor to press their views upon these clerks with such means as they see fit to exercise upon them? A. / think it has usually heen the fact that the views of railroad attorneys^ and their constructions of the law, have heen fully imjyressed upon the minds of clerks acting ttpon cases in which the cor- porations are interested. The regulations prohibit confer- IMPKOVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 169 ences between attorneys and clerks except upon permission. Such regulations have not always proved effective, although they are now more strictly enforced than formerly. At- torneys have, however, full access to chiefs of divisions. "Q. What is the nature of the hearings that then occur upon these questions before these clerks, and how are they conducted ? A. Tlie attorney of the company goes in person to the General Land Office, examines the papers, and if necessary follows the case to whoever has it in charge or control, and argues and insists upon the superior or exclusive rights of his company to the land. Tliere are no formal hearings. Tlie pressure brought upon clerks is the pressure of tlie power and injluence of the great corpor- ations. If a case involving railroad interests adverse to a settler's right or to the public interests, happens to come to the attention of the Commissioner before final decision, the attorneys usually find it out and interview the Com- missioner on the subject. TJiey also look very closely after cases that may in the same manner come before the law clerk for his opinion. Q. Are many cases terminated without reaching you at all? A. Until the present Commissioner came into ofiice, legal questions relative to railroad grants, and to rights and interests arising thereunder, never came before the law clerk of the bureau, unless in some merely incidental and comparatively unimportant cases. They were acted upon exclusively in the railroad division. Q. Are the cases that go before you for adjudication such as are not satisfactory to the corporations interested in them? A. It is the other way. The cases in which the decisions that have been made are satisfactory to the cor- porations are the ones that usuall}^ come before the law clerk's division. Q. How is that? A. In reviewing the office decisions the cases that may be thought to have been erroneously decided, according to the views of the law division, are usually those where the decision is favorable to the cor- poration. It is not usual to make mistakes in favor of settlers. Q. It is in the revision of this class of work, and the detection of what seems to you to be injustice towards the ITO A CALL TO ACTION. settlers, that the questions arise? A. Yes, sir; and it is the same way where the interests of the United States are concerned. SECRETARY SCHURZ. It appears from the testimony that the Land Office had held from 1850 down to 1878, that the right of a railroad company to lands within indemnity limits was the same, and attached at the same time as to lands within granted limits, and that, under this rule, all lands within indemnity limits were decreed to the railroads against settlers. In 1878 a case arose in which it was to the interest of a rail- road company to get a different decision, and the court found, rightly as it happened, that the practice of the Land Office for thirty years had been totally wrong. The diffi- culty in getting the Interior Department to accept a correct rule, even under the authority of the Supreme Court, is thus recited by the witness: "At the October term of the Supreme Court, in 1878 (100 U. S., 382), in the case of Michael Eyan vs. The Cen- tral Pacific Railroad Company, successor to the California & Oregon Railroad Company, the court said tliat the right to select lieu or indemnity lands was only a float and attached only to unappropriated and unreserved public land at date of withdrawal, and was legally withdrawn at that time. "Soon after this opinion was pronounced, the Secretary of the Interior (Schurz), in the case of Blodgctt vs. The California & Oregon Railroad Company (6 Copp., 37), applied the principle of the Ryan decision to a case where lands within railroad indemnity limits had not been selected in fact, but had been withdrawn from sale or disposal for the future purpose of such selection. "In this case the Secretary held that the withdrawal had been authorized by statute, and that at the date of with- drawal the tract in controversy was public land, and there- fore subject to the withdrawal. There had been a prior IMPKOVIDKNT DISPOSAL OF PUPLIC LANDS. 171 settler on tbe land, who had abandoned it, and whose claim, the Secretary held, was not of snch a character as to exclude the land from the withdrawal, and consequently a second settler who went on the land after the abandon- ment by the prior settler, and after a legal withdrawal had been made, could claim no rights by virtue of the former settlement. "The principle of this decision was that where lands were public lands at date of withdrawal, and were subject to withdrawal, and were legally withdrawn, a subsequent settler could not claim against the reservation made by such prior valid withdrawal. "■The Supreme Court held that a reservation existing at some time previous to the attachment of the railroad right, but extinguished and not existing at the date of such attach- ment did not defeat the railroad right. The office held that a reservation which was in existence at the date of a withdrawal of lands within indemnity limits did not defeat the withdrawal, and accordingly rejected the claims of set- tlers who entered the land after the extinguishment of the prior reservation and before the attachment of the railroad right; and the decision in the Ryan case was cited as the authority for this ruling. ''The Secretary held that where a prior valid settlement claim was not existing at date of withdrawal, the with- drawal prevented the acquisition of a subsequent settler's right. The office cited this decision as authority for ruling that where there was a valid settlement right existing at date of withdrawal, then no subsequent settler's right could be acquired. "Finding the decisions of the office thus in apparent con- travention of the law as it exists in the statutes, and as expounded by the Supretne Court, and in contravention also of the cited rulings of the department, all decisions of this character were withlield and an explanation asked from the writers. "They stated that their decisions were in accordance with tbe practice of the ottice; that in their opinion such decis- ions were erroneous but tliat tliey were not permitted to express their own judgments, and that they were required 172 A CALL TO ACTION. to write their decisions in the way they had done. The attention of the chief of the division was then called to what seemed to be an obvious raisappreliensioL of the Ryan and Blodgett decisions, as tlins shown. He stated that he had followed the practice which he had found existing. " The questions involved in the withheld decisions were then stated to the Commissioner. He directed me to rewrite the cases as I thouojht riglit, and to present to him the original decisions, together with those prepared by myself!^ for his consideration. I did so, and the matter was contested before him at intervals from July until December. He perceived that the practice of the office was not supported by the authorities cited for its support, but he was assured that the practice was nevertheless sanc- tioned by other and unpublished decisions of the Secretary, He required the production of such unpublished decisions, and one alleged to be of the character named was presented to him. I stated to the Commissioner my opinion that this decision did not have the meaning claimed for it, and could not be held to have such meaning, except by a forced construction of an ambiguity, arising from an evident mis- apprehension by the writer of that decision, of a former decision made by the Commissioner. "It was then insisted that the matter should be referred to the Secretary, which was done. The Secretary declined to consider the subject, whereupon the Commissioner felt at liberty to act, and he reversed tlie preceding practice of the office and made the proper decision in this class of cases. But from April, 1879, to July, 1881, the incor- rect application of the Ryan and Biodgett decisions had been made in a very large number of cases, in every one of which some poor man's home had been sacrificed. "For the long term of years previous to 1879 the practice had been the same, nnder the theory, as I have stated, that the rights of railroad companies to land within indemnity limits were held to have attached at the same time as to lands within granted limits. "The eflect of the misapplication of the Ryan and Biodgett decisions was to continue the former practice after the prin- ciple upon which that practice was founded had been pro- nounced incorrect by the Supreme Court. IMPKOVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 173 " Q. Can you give any idea of the extent of the operation of this thing upon the settlers? A. From April, 1879, to August, 1881, or a period of two years and a half, I sup- pose there must have been at least two or three hundred cases decided in that way, and, perhaps, very many hun- dred cases were so decided previous to the decision of the Supreme Court. "Q. These are cases where men who have made their improvements in good faith have been ousted from their property by the railroad companies without compensation ? ' ' A. Yes, sir ; or by the Land Department for the benefit of the railroad companies. "Q. Has it been the custom of the railroad company, or those who obtain these improved lands by virtue of this construction of the law making grants to them, to compen- sate the ousted parties for their improvements? A. I have never heard that railroad companies compensated set- tlers for their improvements on lands decided by the depart- ment to belong to the railroads. There have been many classes of cases in which the railroad companies have obtained land in this way. SCHUKZ OVERRULES CONGRESS. "In the case of Gates vs. California & Oregon Railroad Company it was held by the Secretary, in 1878 (5 Copp., 150). that when a pre-emption settler was on land within railroad limits at the date of the attachment of the railroad right, and afterwards abandoned his claim or transferred his improvemetits to another, the former pre-emption claim did not except the land from the grant, and that a subse- quent settler purchasing this former settler's improvements, or otherwise occupying the land after the former settler had abandoned it, could not have his claim recognized. " The same rule had existed previous to the decision in the Gates case and prior to 1876, and had caused much com- plaint, as it was of wide application and affected great numbers of cases. "In 1876, Congress attempted to correct this, and some other rulings of the department, by positive legislation. The act of AprU 21, of that year (19 Stat., 35), was a 1Y4: A CALL TO ACTION. mandatory act requiring the department to recognize the validity of subsequent entries where land had been covered by former claims of the date of withdrawal of lands for railroad grants. This act did not have the effect which was shown by the Senate debates to have been expected by the legislative mind. The Gates decision was rendered without reference to the act of 1876, and was afterwards modified upon such fact being shown. But the unmodified decision appears to have been the rule usually followed in the Land Ofiice down to a recent date. The regulations adopted by departmental concurrence or instructions, and the rulings made under the act of 18T6, had the effect in all cases to make the relief contemplated by that act diffi- cult of availability, and in most cases to render the act inoperative. It was held, for example, that the act could have no prospective effect because its language implied a past tense. Then it was held that it could have no retro- active effect because that would be unconstitutional. Again, if a case arose, that in the view of the office could be recognized as coming within the provisions of the act, the claim was rejected, unless the party was careful to state that he claimed the benefit of the act. He was not allowed to have the benefit of the act unless he expressly claimed it. A great many cases have been adjudicated in this way, and the parties who had an absolute legal right to their land under the indemnity provisions of the act granting lands for railroad purposes, and had such right irrespective of the act of 1876, were defeated in their claims under the construction given to an act designed for their protection. "A case was adjudicated under this act tb which the act had no application, and this case was then brought before the State court of Kansas, as a test case, to determine the validity of the act. In this case, according to the findings of the Court, the original settler was proven to have volun- tarily abandoned his claim in 1868. In 1869 the railroad right attached. In 1871 a second settler made an entry of the land. This entry was canceled, and in 1875 the land was patented to the railroad company. In 1878 the second settler's entry was reinstated by the Secretary of the Inte- rior, under the act of 1876, and patent was issued to the settler. Then the case was brought before the Court. The IMPKOVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. IjO Court found that the first settler's claim was invalid, and accordingly held that the second settler had no rights against the railroad grant, which had become effective after the abandonment of the first settler's claim. The Oourt thought that under the circumstances recited, the reinstate- ment ef the second settler's entry was a mistake in law, and observed that as the railroad company's title had vested in this particular tract in 1869, this vested title could not be disturbed by a subsequent act of Congress. "The act of 1876 provided that where valid homestead or pre-emption claims existed at date of withdrawal of lands under railroad grants, and these claims were afterwards abandoned, the claims of subsequent settlers on such lands should be confirmed. In the case before the Court the prior settlement claim was found to be invalid. In sus- taining the title of the railroad company in this case the Court neither expressed nor implied an opinion that the act of 1876 would not be operative in a case coming within the provisions of that act, but only that the act was not opera- tive in a case not coming within its provisions. Yet, upon the rendition of the judgment of the court in tliat case, as thus made up and stated, all cases depending in the Land Office to which the act of 1876 did apply, were suspended at departmental instance, and none have since been acted upon. "Q. What other instance of hardship to settlers do you recall? A. Referring to the general principle that home- stead entries segregate the land so that it cannot be taken by any other form of disposal, I may mention a decision by the Secretary in 1879, known as the Kniskern case (6 Copp,, 50), which is one of the classes of cases in which the principle stated is not applied in contests between set- tlers and railroad grants. In this case a soldier's home- stead entry had been made on a tract of land in Minne- sota, under the act of 1861: (R. S., Sec. 2291), which per- mitted soldiers in actual service to make their affidavits of intention to claim the land before a commanding officer. Thousands of soldiers availed themselves of this privilege, hoping, perhaps, to return from the field and have a farm to go to, or in any event to provide a home for family or parents. They did not always return. Their families 176 A CALL TO ACTION. could not always move out on the wild land. So that in most instances the required residence and improvement was wantinof, and the entries were canceled in due course of time. While existing on the records, however, such entries operated to reserve the land under the general rules of law applicable to all homestead entries. The public knew no difference between these soldiers' homestead entries and homestead entries of any other class. Neither did the department until 1879. Then it was held, in the Kniskern decision, that the soldier's entry in that particular case yjsis prima facie invalid in its inception, and therefore, that it did not operate to except the land from a railroad grant. All the lands that had been covered by these entries had been re-entered by other persons after the homestead entry had been canceled. The soldier's entry was a homestead claim, and homestead claims, as well as rights, were excepted from the grants. For fifteen years settlers had been educated by practice and precedent to believe that second entries made after the cancellation of the first would be respected. They knew that neither themselves nor others could legally go on the land until the former entry had been adjudged invalid. They did not know that railroad companies had rights that citizens did not possess. Secretary Chandler had ruled in a printed decision in this class of cases that they had not. But the settlers were undeceived by the decision in the Kniskern case; and those to whom that decision applies lose their improved farms, which go to the railroad." Continuing his exposure of illegal methods and practices the law clerk says: ' ' The award of land to railroad companies when no claim has been made by the companies, is an incident to the exceptional practice of the office in favor of railroads that does not exist in respect to any other class of grants. In the case of school-land grants, for example, the office acts upon the facts of record and the law applicable thereto in adjudicating settlement claims on the school sections, noti- fying the State of its decisions, when the State may appeal if it so desires. A contest between the State and settler is never assumed, but must be instituted in fact if the State IMPKOVrDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 177 desires to contest. But in the case of railroad grants settle- ment claims are treated as contests. The settler is required to especially notify the railroad company of his applica- tion to enter or to make proof. Notice by publication, which in all other cases of settlement proof is notice to the world, is not suflBcient notice to a railroad. If the com- pany does not appear, or does not, in fact, desire a contest, it makes no difference. It is regarded as a contest in any event, and the strict rules governing contests is applied to the settler, who I have reason to believe, in very many cases, even where the settlement claim would appear to be irrefutable, is driven by practices of the office, and the terms and requirements of official letters, as well as by delays and appeals, into compounding with the railroad" by pur- chasing from the company the land to which he has an apparent right under the law." The thousands ujid tens of thousands of settlers who have been forced by the action and want of action of the Land Office to buy their lands of the railroad companies when they had good right to enter them under the public land laws, will be able to appreciate the full force of the above testimony. The law clerk further says: "The grant for the St. Paul & Pacific extension lines in Minnesota, after its renewal by Congress, was transferred by the State to certain companies, except so far as the lands embraced in the grant were not occupied by actual settlers on March 1, 1877. The right to lands so occupied was not transferred by the State to the companies, but was expressly withheld, and the Governor was authorized by act of the Legislature to release all such lands to the United State? in favor of the settlers. The releases were duly exe- cuted by the Governor, but are not accepted by the depart- ment, unless the lands are also relinquished by the railroad companies, who have nothing to relinquish. The State officers have repeatedly complained of the action of the department in this respect. One case has been brought to my notice where, even after both the State and the railroad 12 178 A CALL TO ACTION. company had relinquished in favor of the settler, the Land Office, by the decision as prepared for the Commissioner'f signature, refused to allow the settlement claim, and ques- tioned the power of the State to withhold from a railroad company any lands granted to the State by Congress, and made subject to the disposal of the State Legislature, although the Supreme Court of the United States had expressed different views." CONVEYING LANDS NEVER GRANTED. It appears from the public reports of the General Land Office (see annual report, 1879, pp. 83, 84,) that from the commencement of the railroad land grant system down to 1879 it was the practice of that office to patent to railroad companies all the public lands within railroad limits, with- out regard to excepting clauses of the granting acts. It would seem to the unprejudiced observer that the following clause, which appears in substantially the same words in all grants, was sufficiently plain to be read understandingly by anyone: '''' Provided^ further^ That any and all lands heretofore reserved to the United States by any act of Congress, or in any other manner, by competent authority, for the pur- pose of aiding in any object of internal improvement or other purpose whatever, be, and the same are hereby reserved and excepted from the operation of this act, except so far as it may be found necessary to locate the route of such roads through such reserved lands, in which case the right of way shall be granted, subject to the approval of the President of the United States." But the Interior Department obligingly conferred upon the corporations these reserved and excepted lands, not only without pretext or shadow of law, but in contemptu- ous disregard of the plain, precise, and absolute terms of the law, and in cruel and flagrant violation of the rights of settlers, and with utter indifference to public rights. IMPROVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 179 The Supreme Court could not sustain this direct violation of the statute, and in 1875 it declared the law violated and set aside a larsje number of patents that had been issued to a railroad company for lands embraced in an Indian reser- vation in Kansas (Osage ceded lands), when the grant was made. But the Land Office refused to apply the principles announced by the Court to anj' other kind of reservations than Indian reservations. They seemed to be doggedly determined to adhere to their illegal practice. Then, in 1879, the court again announced the same principle, in regard to private land claim reservations, and the principle was haltingly and partially adopted by the Land Office even then. In the Commissioners' report for 1878 (page 83) it is said: ' 'The Supreme Court decision in the case of Newhall vs. Sanger, following the Osage ceded lands decision, had par- ticular reference, to the attachment of railroad rights upon lands covered at the time of the railroad grant by a foreign grant claim, and settled the question adversely to the rail- road company, holding that the lands reserved for the adjustment of the foreign grant claim at the time of making the railroad grant did not pass under the latter, and became a part of the public domain." The decision of the Court, both in the Osage ceded lands case (Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston R. R. Co. vs. The United States) and in the private land claim case (Newhall vs. Sanger) laid down the broad principle of the law applying to all reservations. The Land Office restricted its obedience to the precise cases upon which suit was brought. But the Commissioner admits the fact and extent of the previous illegal practice: ISO A CALL TO ACTION. "Prior to the rendition of this decision the department had held that the railroad grant attached to such lands on their release from reservation, and under such construction, thousands of acres were patented to the companies, to which, under the before-mentioned decision, they were not entitled " (Land Office report, 1879, p. 84). The law clerk, in his testimony, refers to the wholly illegal practice of the Land Office in patenting reserved lands to railroad companies, to the sullen and incomplete recognition by the department of the correct principles of law upheld by the Court, and to the practical defeat, by departmental law juggling, of the decision of the Court in the Moquelemas case. He says: Among the exceptions to railroad grants are lands in a state of reservation for any purpose at date of grant or attachment of railroad right. But it was the practice of the Land Department for a period of twenty-five years to award to the railroads the lands thus excepted from their grants whenever the reservation ceased. In all these cases settlers in great numbers had gone on the lands after their restoration to the public domain, but the lands, together with the settlers' improvements, were by departmental decisions, turned over to the railroads. In 1875, the Supreme Court set aside patents that had been issued to the Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston Railroad Company for several hundred thousand acres of land m Kansas, which had been embraced in an Indian reservation at the date of the railroad grant. At the same time the Court decreed null and void the title that had been given to the Western Pacific Railroad Company for lands which at date of grant were embraced within the limits of a Mexican claim that was afterwards adjudged invalid. The Court said in these cases that the reservation was an abso- lute exclusion of the land from the railroad grants, and that it made no difference what afterwards became of it. When the reservation ceased the land reverted to the public domain, and did not go to the grant. IMPROVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 181 "The legal principles stated by the Court have met with a limited concurrence in the practice of the Land Depart- ment. "They have not generally been applied to other classes of reservations than the particular classes involved in the cases before the Court. For example, mineral reservations have not been brought under the rule of the Court, but lands reserved as mineral have, upon the extinguishment of the reservation, been uniformly awarded to the railroads. "The case in Newhall vs. Sanger (92 U. S., 761) was that of the claimed Moquelemas grant, a Mexican private land claim, which was sub judice at date of railroad grant. All that portion of the land within the claimed limits of the Mexican grant which fell within railroad sections had been patented to the railroad company upon the final adjudication that the Mexican claim was invalid. The case before the Court was a test case, and the decision of the court holding the railroad title null and void was a judicial determination of the legal status of all the land involved in this controversy. But the department refuses to accept the judgment of the Court as conclusive except as to the the single tract that was actually in the particular case before the Court, and holds that each individual settler on the same land must obtain a separate decree in his own case before a patent can be issued to him for the land to which he is entitled by law as settled by the Court. "Q. Have the laws generally been literally construed in favor of the railroad? A. Yes, sir. The principle of law appKcable to public grants — that they ought to be con- strued strictly against the grantees — has not been observed, although the exceptions to the grant are very strictly ruled against . "Q. That is to say, that the grants have been construed very liberally to the grantee and against the settler? A. Yes, sir. It is a common rule of construction that if there are words in a granting act which of themselves import a present grant, then the grant is in prcesentl^ although the general words of present grant may be restrained by par- ticular words in subsequent parts of the same act. Among the important decisions which would appear to have fol- lowed this rule are the decisions of the Secretary in the 182 A CALL TO ACTION. case of the Northern Pacific Railroad grant (Commission- er's annual report, 1879, p. 109), and in the case of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad grant, accepting the opinion of the Attorney-General of October 26, 1880 (T Copp., 166). The authorities relied upon in these and similar decisions and opinions are the authorities in cases where no condi- tion except the designation of the granted land was neces- sary to vest the estate in the grantee, as in the case of Greene's Heirs, 2 Wheaton, 196, and Schulenberg vs. Har- riman, 21 Wall., 44. In the cases to which these authori- ties were applied there were several conditions precedent to be performed before the estate could vest, among which was the construction of the road." The following table will aid the reader to form some con- ception of the frightful magnitude of the territorial conquest achieved by the corporations during the latter half of the present century: Land grants made by Congress to States and corporations for rail- roads, canals and wagon-road purposes prior and subsequent to March 4, 1861. (Compiled from the official records of the General Land Office.) Grants. Acreage Granted Prior to March 4, 1861, TO STATES. Grants for railroad purposes Grants for wagon purposes Grants for canal purposes Grants for river-improvement purposes Total (No grants to corporations were made hy Congress prior to 1861.) Subsequent to March 4, 1S61. TO STATES. Grants for railroad purposes Grants for wagon-road purposes Grants for canal purposes Grants for river-improvements Total DIRECTLY TO CORPORATIONS. Grants for railroad purposes Total of all grants made subsequent to March 4, 1861 . . Grand total for the purposes named 30,470,920.25 25],;-l53.78 3,001.189.74 1,406,210.80 36,029,074.80 17.775,624.86 2,530,370.84 699,635.05 569,382.23 21,575,022.03 163,643,944.83 185,218,966.86 221,248,641.47 mPKOVIDENT DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS. 183 About 2,500,000 acres of this were granted to aid in the construction of canals prior to 1850. All the rest fron 1850 to 1871 inclusive. The State of Illinois contains 36,000,000 acres, Iowa 35,000,000, Minnesota 53,000,000, Missouri 44,000,000, Kansas 52,000,000; and yet the above table discloses the startling fact that an empire — the inheritance and hope of our children — greater in area than the four States named, has been ruthlessly and wickedly wrenched from the people and bestowed upon the corporate barons of the period. The consequences of this stupendous crime will be felt to the end of time, and no man will ever live upon the earth who will be able to trace its malignant ramifications. With the terrible facts related in this chapter fresh in his memory, we request the reader to go back and re-read the quotation at the head of this narrative taken from the Free Soil Platform of 1852. He will then be prepared to under- stand to some extent the terrible crime which has been committed against the people in connection with our pub- lic domain. CHAPTKR V. FINANCE IN WAR AND PEACE. No occurrence in the history of our race so vividly exhib- its the importance of money in human affairs as a condi- tion of war. Thoughtful minds understand, of course, the continuous though unobtrusive demand which is constantly made by every rational adult person, for money in order to supply his daily wants. But it is only when great aggre. gations of individuals are hurried together, in the form of an army, and carried away from their accustomed chan- nels of trade, that the whole population, including officials and law makers, awake to the pressing necessity for an ample supply of money. Of course the demand for food, raiment, shelter, and compensation for services are ever present with us; but in a state of peace each individual bears his own burdens and conceals as best he can his anxi- eties and the wants which he is unable to satisfy. But when armies are assembled and navies are to be equipped, human wants are thrown into the foreground and society utters one universal cry for money — money to sustain the honor, money to save the life of the nation — and extraor- dinary efforts are then always made to satisfy the demand. It is clear, however, upon a moment's reflection, that the demand for money among those who constitute tJie army was greater before the war occurred than afterwards. Wages are higher in peace, and the style of living, quality of food and cloth'ng, more expensive in peace than in war. If, therefore, the money in circulation in time of FINANCE IN WAR AND PEACE. 185 peace is sufficient to meet the wants of trade, it is clear that it would be ample, if applied, to meet the wants of the same number of persons in war, when the wages and cost of living are diminished. The fact that so many men have ceased to be producers can niake no difference in the existing volume of money. In fact, diminished production curtails the demand for money. Labor can create wealth but it cannot create money. It requires a statute to speak money into existence. It is the creature of law, not the product of nature. It can neither be made by the march of battalions nor by plowing in the field, but it can be made to change hands by both. The beneficial effects of the bountiful issue of money in times of public peril, verify in the strongest possible man- Qcr the necessity for an adequate circulating medium at all times; and they bring out in strong light the duty of a great and powerful Government to furnish its citizens with a con- stant non-fluctuating money supply. The history of modern nations is trumpet-tongue d with warnings against all attempts to return to ante-bellum fiscal methods and financial policies after the perils of war have passed. THE TWO WITNESSES. It is our purpose in this chapter to introduce for the consideration of the reader the most important events, in war and peace, connected with the financial history of Great Britain and the United States, the two leading nations of modern times. It is said that at the dawn of creation the morning stars sang together. So now the ages utter their authori- tative speech. The voice of a dcsparting Century is per- suasive, eloquent and full of majesty. There is no parlance with which it can be compared. It is the solemn allocution 186 A CALL TO ACTION. of three generations of human beings enunciated in artic- lilo mortis and compressed into a single narrative. And we submit that the financial experiments of the two most enlightened nations of Christendom, filling to the brim, as they jointly do, the full measure of the Nineteenth Centuiy, are clearly entitled to the candid consideration of mankind. The instruction which such enlightened and protracted ex- perience imparts cannot be disregarded nor cast aside with impunity , ENGLAND FROM 1793 TO 1796, INCLUSIVE. The internal and external condition of Great Britain during the years 1793-6 — the initial epoch in the protracted struggle for the overthrow of Napoleon — forms one of the most instructive chapters in modern history. It exhibits in bold and instructive contrast the helplessness of a Govern- ment enfeebled and stupefied by the consciousness of an empty treasury, as compared with the vigorous self reliance of a powerful Nation strengthened by ample means with which to defend itself at home and abroad. We trust we may be pardoned for digressing far enough at this point to call the attention of the reader to the remarkable similarity between the life of a nation and the life of a single individual, in this regard. It is said, and truth- fully as we believe, that in the life of the average citizen we have in miniature the life of a whole Nation. Nations are made up of individuals and hence they must have the same wants, ambitions, vicissitudes and history. The individual cramped and discouraged by poverty represents the Nation paralj^zed by m collapsed treasury. Tlie former drops to the bottom of the social structure where he will speedily be made to feel the weight of everything above him; the latter is at the mercy of its more powerful neigh- bors and is liable to lose its place on the map of the world. FINANCE IN WAE AND PEACE. 187 During the period above named England had met with unbroken disaster. She had secured but one victory at sea — that of Howe. She was forced ignominiously from Flanders, Holland and the north of German}^ Napoleon had gained his victory at Toulon where the British fleet had been forced to surrender the city and retire before the guns of the rising young Corsican. Every nation, except Austria and Russia, had broken off its alliance with England, and hostility was manifested everywhere to her arms. To add to her distress a severe commercial panic — a frightful financial rigor of prolonged duration, which had finally to be relieved by a Government loan to business classes, seized upon the channels of trade and finally term- inated in a run upon the bank. This was followed by widespread mutiny in the fleet. Driven by disaster to the very brink of ruin, the Government was forced at length to suspend cash payments. The result of this stroke of finan- cial policy which included the resort to an exclusive paper currency in the spring of 1797, was almost miraculous, Upon this point we introduce the testimony of an enlight- ened English historian, Sir Archibald Alison, author of " The History of Europe during the French Revolution.'' We quote from a book written by him and published in Edinburgh and London in 1845, entitled "England in 1815 and 1845, or a Sufficient and a Contracted Currency:" FROM 1797 TO 1815. " The next eighteen years of the war, from 1797 to 1815, were, as all the world knows, the most glorious, and taken as a whole, the most prosperous which Great Britain had ever known. Ushered in by a combination of circum- stances the most calamitous, both with reference to external security and internal industry, it terminated in a blaze of glory and a flood of prosperity which have never, since the beginning of the world, descended upon any nation. Hardly 188 A CALL TO ACTION. had the run upon the bank shaken to its center the whole fabric of our commercial industry, and the mutinies at the Nore, Plymouth and oflp Cadiz paralyzed the arm of our naval defenders, when the victories of St. Vincent and Camperdown again restored to us the dominion of the seas; and ere long the thunderbolts of the Nile and Trafalgar prostrated the naval strength of the enemy, and the vic- tories of Wellington first arrested, and at length broke his military power. Prosperity, universal and unheard of, per- vaded every department ef the empire. Our colonial pos- sessions encircled the earth — the whole West Indian islands had fallen into our hands; an empire of sixty millions of men in Hindostan acknowledged our rule; Java was added to our eastern possessions; and the flag of France had dis- appeared from every station beyond the sea. Agriculture, commerce and manufacture at home had increased in an unparalleled ratio; the landed proprietors were in affluence; wealth to an unheard-of extent had been created among the farmers; the soil, daily increasing in fertility and breadth of cultivated land, had become almost adequate to the maintenance of the rapidly increasing population; our exports, imports, and tonnage had more than doubled since the war began. And though distress, especially during 1810 and 1811, had at times been severely experienced among the manufacturing operatives, yet, on the whole, and in average years, their condition was one of extraordi- nary prosperity. The revenue raised by taxation within theyear had risen from 21,000,000^ in 1796, to 72,000,000? in 1815; the total expenditure from taxes and loans had reached in 1811 and 1815, the enormous amount of 117,- 000,OOOZ each year. " In the years 1813 and 1814-, being the twentieth and twenty-first of the war, Great Britain had above a million of men in arms in Europe and Asia, and remitted 11,000,- 000^ yearly in subsidies to continental powers. Yet was this prodigious and unheard of expenditure so far from exhausting either the capital or resources of the country, that the loan in 1814 was obtained at a lower rate than that paid at the commencement of the war; although the annual loan at its close was above 35,000,000/^, and the popula- tion of the empire at that period was onl}^ eighteen millions, FINANCE IN WAR AND PEACE. 189 just two-thirds of what it was found to be by the census of 1841." EESTJMPTION, 1819 AND FOLLOWING. But England had resolved to resume specie payments at whatever costs and made preparations to that end. She demonetized silver in 1816, declared that it should only be a legal tender for forty shillings (about $10.00), stopped its coinage at the mints and passed an act to resume in the year 1819. To accomplish this it was provided that the circulating paper currency should be funded into various kinds of public securities. We will let the historian before mentioned testify as to the direful effects of this step upon the fortunes of the people. Mr. Alison says: "Since the year 1819 the empire has exhibited the most extraordinary spectacle that the world has perhaps ever witnessed; and it is to it that we earnestly request the atten- tion of our readers, because then began the series of causes and effects in which we have ever since been, and still are involved. Considered in one point of view there never was a nation which, in an equal space of time had made so extraordinary a progress. Its population had advanced from 20,600,000 in L819, to 28,000,000 in 1844; its imports had increased from 30,000,000/. in the former period, to 70,000,000/. in the latter; its exports had advanced during the same period from 44.000,000/. to 130,000,000/.; its shipping from 2,350,000 tons to 3,900,000. There never, perhaps, was such a growth in these great limbs of indus- try in so short a period in any other state. Nor had agri- culture been behind other staple branches of national industry. Its produce had kept pace with the increase unparalleled in an old state, in the population, as well as the still more rapid multiplication of cattle aud horses for the purpose of use and luxury; and amidst this extraordi- nary growth of consumption the still more extraordinary fact was exhibited of the average importation of grain steadily declining from the commencement of the century, till at length, anterior to the six bad seasons in succession, 190 A CALL TO ACTION. which commenced in 1836, it had sunk to 40,000 qnarters on an average of five preceding years, being scarce an hundred and twentieth part of the annual consumption of men and animals, which exceeds 60,000,000 quar- ters. And what is most extraordinary of all, the returns of the income tax, when laid on, even in the year 1842, a period of severe and unprecedented commercial depression, proved the existence in Great Britain alone, of 200,000,OOOZ. of annual income of persons enjoying above 150/. each; of which immense sum about 150,000,000/. was from the fruits of realized capital, either in land or some other durable investment. It is probable that such an accumulation of wealth never existed before in any single state, not even in Rome at the period of its highest splendor. "Considered in another view, there never was a period in which a greater amount of financial embarrassment has been experienced by the government, or more widespread and acute suffering endured by the people. So far has the exchequer been from sharing in the flood of wealth which has thus been so profusely poured into the empire, that it has, with the exception of two or three years of extraordi- nary and perilous prosperity, been during the whole of this period, in a state of difiiculty. This steadily increased till it at last brought the nation to such a pass that it was extri- cated from absolute insolvency only by the re-imposition, during European peace, of the war income tax. Not only was tiie provident and far seeing system of Mr. Pitt for the redemption of the debt practically abandoned during the necessities of this calamitous period, but the national account turned the other way, and the annual deficiency gradually increased till it had reached the enormous amount of 4,000,000/. annually, and added, in six years of peace, no less than 11,000,000/. to the amount of the national debt. The nation, during the late years of the war, pros- pered and experienced general well being under an annual taxation of Y2, 000, 000?., drawn from eighteen million of souls; in the latter years of the peace it has, with the utmost difiiculty, drawn 50,000,000/ from a population of twenty- seven millions. Wages in the former period were high, employment abundant, the working classes prosper- ous, with an export of British and colonial produce of from FINANCE IX WAR AND PEACE. 191 i5,000,000? to 50,000,000?, annually; in the latter, wages were in many trades low, employment diflBcult, suffering general, with an annual exportation to the amount oi 120,000,000? to 130,000,000?. *'But extraordinary and apparently inexplicable as these facts are, they are yet exceeded in marvel by the details of our social and economical state during this period of unpar- alleled increase in our material resources. It may safely be affirmed that the anxiety and distress which were felt during that brilliant period of national growth has never been surpassed, at least in a state possessing the external mark of prosperity. It is well known to what straits the bank of England has been reduced on two different occa- sions in that period. In December, 1S25, it was, as all the world knows, in very great difficulties. We were, as Mr. Huskisson said, 'within twenty- four hours of barter.' In November, 1839, the stock of specie was reduced 2,800,000?, and the bank was under the necessity of negotiating 10,000,000? sterling from the Bank of France. * * * "The distress among the mercantile classes for j'ears after the dreadful crisis of December, 1825 — of the agricul- tural interests during the low prices from 1832 to 1S35, and of the whole commercial community from 1837 to 1812 was extreme. Wages sank, during these disastrous periods in the manufacturing districts, so low that they barely sufficed with the great bulk of workers, especially females, for the support of existence. Serious insurrections broke out in 1820 and 1842, both in England and Scotland, ostensibly for poKtical purposes, but mainly occasioned by the general distress among manufacturing operatives, as was decisively proved by their entire extinction when labor again received a remunerating return. " Farming capital in the agricultural districts was during their distress, everywhere grievously abridged — in many places totally annihilated. Ireland during the whole period has been in a state of smothered insurrection; and for the last four years has convulsed the country by the fierce demand for the repeal of the union, which was only pre- vented from breaking out into open rebellion by the con- tinued presence in tliat island of 30.000 armed men between the forces and armed police. The manufacturing 192 A CALL TO ACTION. districts of Scotland were involved, during the same period in such distress, that in 1837 the mortality in Glasgow was 1 in 32; in 1842, 1 in 30; and in the latter year 32,000 persons took typhus fever in that city, and the deaths were upward of ten thousand out of a population not exceeding at that period 280,000 souls. "The late poor law commission has accumulated evi- dence proving to demonstration the existence of severe and unheard of distress among the poor of all parts of Scotland, generally esteemed, and in some respects with reason, the best conditioned part of the empire. The poor law commission for Ireland has shown that there are in that fertile land no less than 2,300,000 persons in a state of almost permanent destitution. The heart sickens at the proof, numerous and incontrovertible, which the parlia- mentary reports for the last ten years have accumulated, of wide-spread and often long-enduring suffering among laboring poor in England. * * * * " While wealth was increasing to an unparalleled extent among the commercial classes, suffering and distress as generally ensued among the rural inhabitants; and the mul- titude of ruined fortunes among them rendered it certain that at no distant period the old race of landed proprietors woald, with the exception of a few magnates, be rooted out, and their place supplied by a new set of purchasers from the commercial towns. "While population was advancing with unparalleled strides in the manufacturing districts, pauperism even more than kept pace with it all; and the extraordinary fact has now been revealed by statistical researches that, in an age of unbounded wealth, and general and long continued peace, a seventh part of the whole inhabitants of the Brit- tish Islands are in a state of destitution, or painfully sup- ported by legal relief. * * * " While the returns of the income-tax have demonstrated that seventy thousand persons in Great Britain possess among them an annual revenue of 200,000,000^. a year, or about 2,800^. each on an average, the melancholy fact has been revealed by the result of the attempts to increase the national revenue by means of indirect taxation (tariff), that that source of income can no longer be relied on ; and in a FINANCE IN WAK AND PEACE. 193 time of profound, and at the close of a period of long con- tinued peace, it has become indispensable to recur to an assessment on property and direct taxation, as it was in Rome in the decaying periods of the empire. "The blue folios of the Houses of Parliament teem with authentic and decisive evidence of the vast increase during the last thirty years of crime and frequent destitution among the working classes in all parts of the empire. Every four or five years a brief, feverish period of gam- bling, extravagance and commercial prosperity is suc- ceeded by a long and dreary season of anxiety, distress, and depression . Frightful strikes among the workmen, attended with boundless distress among and hideous demo- cratic tyranny over them invariably succeeded in the close of those periods of suffering, as pestilence stalks in the rear of famine; and popular insurrection has become so common, that it is a rare thing to see two years pass over without martial law being of necessity practically enforced in some part of the empire. And, as if to bring this chaos of contradictions to a perfect climax, at the very time when unheard of exertions have been made for the educa- tion of the people in every part of the empire, and the newly aroused fervor of religion in all denominations of christians has drawn forth unparalleled efforts for the dif- fusion of the gospel among the working classes, crime has made unexampled progress in every part of the empire; and the scandal has been exhibited of serious and detected offences having multiplied sevenfold in. a realm which, in the same period, has not added more than seventy per cent to the amount of the population; in otlier words, during a period of unparalleled growth of wealth, and effort at instruction, crime has augmented ten times as fast as the the numbers of the people. "We repeat it — this state of things is unparalleled in any other age of the world or quarter of the globe. We say this after due consideration, and a full appreciation of the unutterable and now forgotten miseries in which the world in general, and ourselves among the rest, have been involved in former ages, from the ravages of foreign war, or the grinding of domestic oppression. * * * What we do say is unparalleled in the history of the world, 13 19^ A CALL TO ACTION. is the co-existence of so much suffering in one portion of the people, with so much prosperity in another; of unbounded private wealth, with unceasing public penury; of constant increase in the National resources, with constant diminu- tion in the comforts of a considerable portion of the com- munity; of the utmost freedom consistent with order, ever yet existing upon earth, with a degree of discontent which keeps the j^ation constantly on the verge of insurrection; of the most strenuous efforts for the moral and religious improvement of the poor, with an increase of crime unpar- alleled at the same or, perhaps, any other period in any civilized state. * * * "Let us not deceive ourselves, therefore, nor ascribe to the laws of nature the misery arising from the erroneous tendency of human institutions. There is food enough in the land, and to spare; the surplus of it produced by the cultivators is daily and rapidly on the increase. The agri- culture of Great Britain has stood a strain and kept pace with an increase in the demand for its produce during the last fifty years to which few parallels are to be found in the history of mankind. Nor are our resources by any means approaching their natural limits. On the contrary, they are as yet only in their infancy; and by a vigorous appli- cation of science and industry the land could with ease be made to maintain three times its present number of inhabi- tants. Capital exists, and to profusion, amply sufficient to give full and profitable employment to the whole commu- nity. Labor adequate to any possible expansion of indus- try is at hand. Abc/e two millions of destitute persons are pining for employment in Ireland alone. Our colonies are increasing with unheard of rapidity. Nearly two mil- lions of souls now exist in British North America; and the hundred and forty thousand in Australia alone consumed in 1843 no less than 1,211, 815^ worth of British produce, or nearly ten pounds worth a head. Yet with all this great and wide spread distress geuerall}^ exists among the work- ing poor, and whole classes of society in the more afSuent ranks are gradually slipping down to a state of insolvency. That is the prodigy of our times; that it is of which it most behooves us to discover the cause; that it is of which the cause is to a large portion of the community unknown. FINANCE IN WAR AND PEACE. 195 "In investio;ating the cause of this extraordinary state of things, one fact of leading importance must, at the very first glance, strike every observer- It is, that the opulence which has flown into the Nation has been very far, indeed, from being equally distributed; and that, generally speak- ing, the landed interests have been as much impoverished during that time as the commercial has been enriched. There are, it is true, colossal fortunes vested in land, chiefly in the hands of the aristocracy, which nothing can shake, and which have only become the greater in relation to the expense of living, from the limitation of the currency, which has proved fatal to so many estates of inferior mag- nitude, both in land and manufactures, around them. From the general tendency of realized commercial wealth also to investment in its purchase, the income of the land holders, taken as a whole, has rather increased than diminished dur- ing this period, from the great number of estates which ha/oe passed out of the hands of laboring or insolvent old families into those of new and opulent cominercial purchasers. But, notwithstanding this, notliing is more certain than that the landed interests, on the whole, have been in great distress during the last five-and-twenty years; and that for a con- siderable part of that time their embarrassments were absolutely overwhelming. ENGLISH FARMERS PETITION FOR RELIEF. _ "From 1826 to 1835 the table of the House of Commons literally groaned under the loads of petitions praying for relief to agricultural distress, which the low price of every species of rural produce in the four last of these years too plainly proved were well foumded. No person practically acquainted with the condition of the middle or lesser landed proprietors in any part of the empire, during that time, can have a doubt on that point. Let any man of middle 3'ears examine the condition of the landholders, having from 500Z. to 2000^. per year, with whom he began life thirty years ago, and he will find tliat two-thirds of them are practically insolvent; that nearly all are deeply in debt; and that probably a half have sold their estates and are now dragging out the last year of a useless life and wasted 196 A CALL TO ACTION. fortunes in what Dionysius, of Syracuse, called the most unhappy of all states — an indigent old age. The embar- rassments of the landed proprietors are, with the excep- tion of a few magnates, notorious and universal. This is decidedly proved by the prodigious extent to which com- mercial wealth is everywhere bujdng up the estates of the old gentry and rooting them and their families out of the land. And, what is very remarkable, this state of things is just the reverse of what it was during the war. Agricultural industry was then not only amply, „but splendidly remuner- ated; rents were constantly rising; the farmer, rapidly made fortunes, and laid the foundation of the whole sub- sequent agricultural progress of Great Britain; and the purchase of land with borrowed money was nearly as cer- tain a mode of making a fortune as it has since become a losing one. ' ' The next remarkable feature in the social state of Great Britain for the last quarter of a century has been, that cap- ital has daily acquired a greater advantage over industr}^, or rather large capital over small. This may be regarded as a grand characteristic of the period, and which in its ultimate effects through society, has produced more wide- spread and durable results than any other. Proofs of this occur on ever}'^ side; they lie as it were, on the surface of things. The common complaint, that there is no getting on now without capital, and that mere industry and good conduct are very far indeed from being a passport to suc- cess, if unaccompanied with this advantage, is a proof how strongly it is felt in all classes of the community. The colossal fortunes made by manufacturers and great capital- ists, contrasted with the innumerable bankruptcies of lesser adventurers in the same perilous path, is another proof of the same fact. Every person's experience, especially in the manufacturing districts and commercial towns, must have convinced him of the universality of this tendency. The common complaint, that the money power had become all-powerful — that its sway is paramount in the legislature — and that it is able to set all the other interests in the community at defiance, proves how generally this evil is experienced in all classes. And a most decisive proof of the universal sense of the overwhelming, and often des- FINANCE IN WAE AND PEACE- 197 potic influence of capital, has been afforded within this period by the simultaneous springing up, and astonishing multiplication in all parts of the country, of joint stock companies. (Incorporated companies.) These associa- tions, comparatively unknown in former days, when iso- lated capital could make its way in the world, demonstrate the sense universally entertained of the inability of small or moderate fortunes, standing alone, to withstand the competition of the great commercial magnates. Like the defensive associations of disorderly or dangerous times, they are the combination of the weak who are endangered, against the strong who threaten danger. But from this effort at self-defense has arisen another evil, of no small magnitude, and which may come in process of time to overthrow the equilibrium of society. These joint stock companies have themselves become a great and formidable interest in the state; their sway in the legislature is well known to be superior to the East and West India shipping, both put together. Falling as they generally do under the entire guidance of one or two active and skillful directors, they have in effect enormously augmented the influence already preponderating, ®f accumulated capital; they often commit practically, almost with impunity unbounded in- roads upon private property. The obligation of giving compensation to property injured or taken is often ren- dered almost illusory, from the results of the trials to ascertain its value. Defying competition, such companies are often deaf to the cries of justice. Industrial, as the French say, has come in place of territorial feudality; and probably men liave already discovered, in most parts of the country, that a joint stock railway company, with its patri- otic professions, accumulated capital, legislatorial attor- neys, skilled eno-ineers, scientilic witnesses, railway stock- holding jurymen, and legions of Irish laborers, is a more formidable neighbor than ever was feudal baron with his mailed men-at-arms, stout arcliers, strong castles, and open announcement of destruction to his hereditary enemies. "The third feature of the last quarter of a century which is in an especial manner worthy of attention is, tliat while the growth of the national wealth, as a wliule has been unpre- cedented, and of its population equal!}' so in an old state, 198 A CALL TO ACTION. neither the one nor the other have advanced in a propor- tional manner over the whole country. Generally speaking, the city population has immensely increased, and the rural by no means in the same proportion. In some counties the latter appears, from the late census, to have actually de- clined; in none, excepting the manufacturing districts, has it augmented in anything like the proportion of the inhabi- tants of cities. This is matter of common remark, and generally known, but few are aware of the prodigious ex- tent to which the difference is gone. Those who will cast their eyes to the notes will see few examples of the differ- ence in the progress of the rwral and urban population, which will probably excite general surprise, (The Author here gives a table showing the increase of ten cities and the decrease of ten of the rural district^ in population.) "Nor has the increase of opulence in cities been less re- markable than the augmentation in number of their in- habitants. The daily display of wealth in the metropolis excites the astonishment of every beholder. It is not go- ing too far to say that it is double of what it was at the close of the war. Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Dundee, Aberdeen and all the trading towns of the empire, have advanced in a similar proportion, not merely in the opulence of a few, but the evident ease and well-being of a considerable proportion of the community. It is impossible to see the streets of com- fortable houses calculated for persons of a moderate in- come, and the miles of villas beyond them for those more advanced in opulence, without becoming sensible that pros- perity has almost everywhere descended far into society in the urban population." "But there are by no means the same symptoms of growing prosperit}^ in the rural disti'icts. We see, indeed, cultivation everywhere extended, and the most strenuous efforts frequently made to drain and improve the soil, but we perceive scarcely any traces of these exertions leading to the accumulations of fortunes among their authors, to which they are so well entitled It is painfully evident that these efforts are made, not to accumulate money but to avert ruin. The farmers are contented if FINANCE IN WAK AND PEACE. 199 they can live; to make fortunes has become so rare among them, that it is scarce ever thought of. " We often hear of shop-keepers and merchants buying villas in the country to enjoy themselves in summer, but we never hear of farmers buying houses in town for recre- ation in winter. They do not even acquire small properties in the countr3^ Wealth is evidently not accumulated in the hands of the cultivators of the soil. If they can pay their rents and maintain their families they deem them- selves fortunate. The middle class of land-holders even have almost ceased to frequent towns in winter; the pre- text is, that they are going abroad, or are sending their cliildren to the continent for education. The real fact, that the}^ cannot afford living in towns in Great Britain, and they are fain to hide their straitened circumstances under the obscurity of a foreign country. The affluence of the towns is astonishing; but those at present engaged in the labors of agriculture, or in the receipts of its rents add but little to it. It is derived from manufacturing or commercial opulence, from professional gains, from for- tunes brought back from the Colonies, or from capital realized from, or rendered a burden on land in former or more prosperous times. "The last feature — and it is a most distressing one — of society for the last twenty-five years in the British Islands, has been the extraordinary inequality on the condition of the working classes themselves, and the general want of those habits of foresight amongst them which are the only lasting foundation of durable prosperity. This is the more distressing, as it might reasonably have been expected to have arisen with the advantages many of them have en- joyed. It is a great mistake to say the working classes are all permanently miserable. Many of them doubtless are so; and what is very extraordinary, certain professions, or trades, are generally immersed in poverty, while others in their close vicinity are often rioting in affluence. Wages differ in a remarkable and most distressing degree in differ- ent places. In many of the ajzricultural districts they are as low as seven or eight shillings a week: — (An English shilling is one-twentieth of a ]iound, or about twenty-four cents in American money.) — The piecers and female work- 200 A CALL TO ACTION. ers in manufactories seldom, save in years of extraordinary prosperity, earn more than six shillings. Weavers are generally as low as seven shillings a week; in seasons of dis- tress they sink to four shillings and even less. On the other hand the cotton spinners, iron moulders and other skilled trades, earn, in ordiuary years, from 20s to 30s a week; but the affluence of some professions or branches of labor affords no compensation for the des^raded and un- happy state of others. It is impossible to strike an average in such cases. You might as well make an average of the happiness of some, and the sorrows of others in private life. Perhaps, however, those of the laboring classes who are in health and employment and belong to trades which are in a state of prosperity are fully as well off as they "were during any former period of our history. * * * "But it is this condition of the poor in the lowest grade which is the most extraordinary feature in the last twenty years, and which has now assumed such a magnitude as to have become, in every point of view, a national concern. The hand-loom weavers are everywhere at the starving point; with the utmost industry they can never earn more than seven or eight shillings a week; during periods of com- mercial depression it sinks to four or five. The ease with which this trade can be learned, its adaptation to weak or sickly constitutions, the early gain made by young persons, with the immense temptations of a poor family of avoiding a protracted or expensive education for tlieir children by adopting it, is the cause of the universal lowness of wages in this branch of industry. It is the first step above total destitution. But this magnitude and condition of the des- titute class itself is the alarming thing. In every great town in the empire there is a mass, about the twelfth or fifteenth of its number, who are generally in a state of al- most total penury. In periods of commercial distress this destitute rises to double, sometimes triple its average amount. It is from this frightful tribulation of poverty, intemperance, vice and destitution that two-thirds of the physical contagion which ravages and four-fifths of the con- victed crime which burdens society, takes its rise. The alarming increase of offenses which penal severity and FINANCE IN WAR AND PEACE. 201 lenity, uncertainty and certainty of punishments, have been alike unable to restrain, mainly comes from this class. "Close packed in the center and worst parts of every great city — crowded together, many families in the same room — scarce knowing where to find their daily food, — careless because destitute, often joyous because always un- foreseeing, this deplorable body are retained within the precincts of contagion and vice by the iron bonds of hope- less poverty. It is impossible that regular or virtuous habits can be acquired, it is scarcely that those of intemp- erance and wickedness can be avoided, in their dismal abodes. If we penetrate into them we shall find that they are not peopled by any one class of society, but by the un- fortunate, the reckless, and profligate from every class ; and that the great majority, even of the criminals, are rather the objects of pity than censure. Widows with large families form the most numerous portion of this deso- late community; destitute old men, young theives, aban- doned drunkards, licentious prostitutes, shameless publicans, audacious receivers of stolen goods, and once virtuous families, brought into such hideous society, by being thrown out of employment, compose the remainder. And all this exists unnoticed, unrelieved, within a few hundred yards of the most unbounded opulence, amidst luxury un- heard of, prosperity unexampled, and in a community making a more rapid progress in material resources than any that ever yet appeared upon earth. "For a long period after the conclusion of the war it was said that the public distress, which was so generally and poignantly felt by all the industrious classes, was owing to the transition from the vast national expenditure of the war to the comparatively limited expenditure of the peace ; and without doubt this cause, for some years had a very powerful influence. But it has long ceased to have any effect. It is rather too late to speak of the transition from war to peace prices, when we are in the thirtieth year of unbroken European peace ; when we have during that time twice had, in 1824^5 and 1835-0 a perilous plethora of exu- berant prosperity, when the duplication of our imports proved a corresponding increase in the means of purciias- ing foreign luxuries, and the trippling of our exports has 202 A CALL TO ACTION. more than counter balanced the diminished purchases or expenditure on the part of government." It is interesting to note that the English people passed through the same stages of controversy which have charac- terized the American situation during the past twenty-five years, British resumption was preceded, as before stated, with the demonetization of silver and the limitation of its legal tender quality, and also followed by an immense con- traction of the currency which amounted to nearly one-half of the paper in circulation. Distress among the agricul- tural classes and among all branches of labor ensued, as a matter of course, and Parliament was petitioned by every class of industry for relief. THE TARIFF DOGTOK. At this point the tariff empiric made his appearance and the people were told that public distress was neither caused by a contraction of the currency nor by a deficiency of the circulating medium, but was caused by the sudden tran- sition from war to peace and by the burdens of taxation. That as soon as the nation would be relieved from this bur- den and when again settled into its accustomed state of tranquility, things would go on as before and all classes of society would be prosperous. They were told that the thing which afflicted English industries most was their system of indirect taxation — tariff duties. If these could be repealed all classes would at once emerge into an era of unparalleled prosperity. The farmers were skeptical, however, and petitioned for loans from the Government at a low rate of interest — loans based on staple agricultural products and upon land. (See Kicardo's Works, p. 456.) But they were told this would never do as it would lead to an inflation of the currency which would certainly prove detrimental to all classes. FINANCE IN WAR AND PEACE. 203 Diminished burdens was the remedy. This would relieve them of their distresses. Nothino; else was necessary. Constant use of cathartics and total abstinence from tonics was the sum total of the political therapeutics of the period. Ricardo published his work upon political economy; learned speeches were made in Parliament; reports of par- liamentary committees filled the journals of both houses; and finally the concensus of opinion approved of the plan of repealing gradually the indirect taxes with a view to reaching ultimate free trade and to secure the relief so sorely needed. Accordingly the plan was entered upon, and between 1819 and 1815, there were 30,000,000^. of indirect taxes repealed and England reached a condition of trade which is characterized by the economists of our day as being practically free from the abomination of protective laws. Has British labor been emancipated in consequence? In spite of the relief which came to labor and agriculture from a repeal of the so-called protective duties, the condi- tion of the laboring classes of Great Britain has grown worse from year to year, and the number of land-owners has constantly diminished. The reflective mind will find in this ample proof that labor needs something more than mere relief from its pack-saddle. The pittance saved by the repeal of taxes will not alone afford relief. He must have rest, food, and opportunity for intellectual and moral culture. To secure these essential comforts the income from his toil must be materially increased. With- out money his wants can only be appeased at the hand of charity. If his money has been filched from him it should be restored. If withheld it should be granted him at once. But let our enlightened historian, Mr. Alison, point out to us the real cause of distress among the British laboring people. After showing that the repeal of tariff duties did not relieve them, he says: 204: -A. CALL TO ACTION. " Some external causes, therefore, must have paralyzed and blio^hted the financial resources of the nation in the midst of such unbounded and increasing growth of the national wealth since the peace. And the all-important question arises — what was it which had this effect ? " The answer is: it was the Contraction of the Currency, which was unnecessarily made to accompany the resump- tion of cash payments by the bill of 1819, which has been the chief cause of all these effects. * * * ''It need hardly be told to the most heedless or superfi- cial reader, that a currency is required to carry on the transactions, public and private, of men in their intercourse of exchange with each other; that it consists in general, of the precious metals, which by the common consent of men are employed and have been so from the earliest period, for that purpose on account of their being at once rare, durable and portable; and that, in civilized and mercantile communities, paper notes, of some sort or other, have been usually resorted to in modern times to meet the wants of commerce, and remove the evils which may be frequently felt from the supply of the precious metals being less than the community require. "It follows, as a necessary consequence from this, that when the commercial transactions of a nation increase the circulating medium should increase also-. This is as nec- essary a step as that, when a people increase the subsis- tence by which they are to be maintained should be aug- mented in a similar proportion. If twenty millions of men on an average of years and transactions, require forty mil- lions of circulating medium to conduct their transactions, and if these men swell to thirty millions, they will require, other things being equal, sixty millions for their transac- tions. If a supply proportioned to the increase of men and the wants of their commercial intercourse is not afforded the circulating medium will become scarce, it will rise in price from that scarcity, and become accessible only to the more rich and affluent classes. The industrious poor, or those engaged in business, but possessed of small capital, will be the first to suffer: they will find it impossible to get the currency necessary to carry on their business, and will fail in consequence. To retain the circulating medium of a FINANCE IN WAR AND PEACE. 205 country at a stationary or declining amount, when its numbers are rapidly increasing, and their transactions are daily augmenting in number and importance, is the same thing as it would be to affix a limit to the issuing of rations to an army, at a time when the number of soldiers it con- tained was constantly augmenting; or to reduce the quan- tity of oil used in a machine when the wheels which required its application were always on the increase. The inevita- ble result would be, that numbers would be famished in the first case, and the weaker parts of the machine impeded by friction in the second. "When the precious metals, either over the whole world, or in a particular state become more abundant than form- erly, the necessary consequence is, that they become less valuable and^ consequently decline in price. But as, by the custom of all civilized nations, value is measured by a certain amount of the precious metals, either coined or un- coined, received or capable of being received, for them when brought in to market, this decline in value in the cir- culating medium is rendered apparent by a rise in the money price of all other articles. For example, if a quar- ter of wheat is worth, or will buy, at a certain time, in a particular country, half a pound weight of or pure silver, and by a sudden addition to the productiveness of the mines, which supply the world with. the precious metals, the amount in circulation is doubled, the result will be, that a quarter of wheat will be worth, or will sell for, a whole pound of pure silver. And, e converso^ if the supply of precious metals is again contracted to its former amount by a failure in the sources frotn which they are obtained, or an extraordianry absorption or hoarding of them in any particular part of the world, so that the currency in the country is restored to its former and more limited amount, a quarter of wkeat will again come to be worth, or to be equal in value in exchange, to half a pound of pure silver only. All this is the necessary result of the principal that commodities are valuable and bring high prices when they are scarce, and decline in exchangeable value and bring low prices while they are abundant, which is universally and constantly evinced in the transactions of private life." 206 A CALL TO ACTION. The evils which followed the passage of the resumption act threw British society into confusion, and distrust seized generally upon the public mind. In the autumn of 1817 the terrified Government induced the banks to raise the circulation to something near the amount that was flow- ing in the channels of trade prior to the commencement of contraction. We quote from an English work written and published by Jonathan Duncan, in 1857, to show the magi- cal effect which this reissue of paper had on the commerce of the empire : "The consequence was that prices again rose actually to the level of the war, and general prosperity returned, thus refuting the silly idea prevalent among many classes that a state of hostilities had caused the rise, the truth being that it was wholly due to the emission of paper money. If his- torical evidence be demanded to sustain the doctrine, such evidence is at hand. During the American war ©f inde- pendence, the colonies used paper money, while England retained its metal money. At that period all prices ad- vanced in America ; in England no advance teok place. In the war against revolutionary and imperial France, England adopted paper money ; France maintained its metal money. Land and all products advanced in England, they maintained an equal level in PVance, after the supression of assig- nats and mandats. Prices did not advance in England during the American war of independence, nor ic France during the war to which we have referred. * * * j^. j^^g been stated that the prices rose in 1818 to the war level, and that rise has been referred to the expansion of legal tenders of seven millions over and beyond the amount of circulation prior to the autumn of 1817. It was shown before the agricultural committee of 1821 that, in 1818, wheat was 84s and Id per quarter as compared, not with the consumption of the war, but with the consumption of 1818. Taking the large towns of Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield and Leeds, not only bread, but meat, fell in 1819, 1820 and 1821, that is after gold payments were ordered to be resumed. The fall in meats in those towns proved before FINANCE IN WAR AND PEACE. 207 the committee to have been fifteen per cent ; and proved by the most decisive evidence, the diminution of hides being fifteen per cent. If any one superficially considers that a fall of fifteen per cent was a proof of cheapness, let him bear in mind that the supply of animal food had declined with the same scale of percentage ; and let him further take notice that a petition from Birmingham to Parliament in 1812, stated that less butcher's meat was con- sumed as butcher's meat fell. Showing such a decline of wages simultaneously with the decline of food, as deprived the working classes of that command over commodities which they had enjoyed in 1818, when the supply of the legal tender was ample. "The year 1818 was not only a prosperous year for agri- culture, but a prosperous 3'ear for commerce and shipping. In reply to questions asked by the committee on foreign trade, which sat in 1820, Mr. Tindall, an eminent ship builder, said, that in 1818, the value of ships had recovered from depression; and that there was enough employment for all ships, including the transports discharsfed after the war, of good freights." Mr. Tooke stated, "tn 1818 I had very great difiiculty indeed, in getting the requisite quantity of shipping." But, in lsl9 and 1820, that is after Peel's bill was passed, ships were again too numerous for com- merce; then Mr. Tooke said, "he could have procured double the quantity of tonnage he desired." Mr. Maryatt, a member of the House of Commons, and a most extensive "West India merchant, averred in a speech delivered by him in Parliament in 1820, that a vessel called 'The Sesostris,' which cost in 1818, £12,175, was sold in 1820 for £6,300. If this case stood alone, it would be insignificant in support of the present argument; but Mr. Mar3'att declared that the rule was universal, of which he cited numerous instances. In fact, in 1818, commerce, manufactures and agriculture all flourished. The following statement is taken from the report of the finance committee of 1819, in which it com- ments on the revenue of 1818: "It appears that the total revenue of Great Britain in the year 1818, exceeded the same revenue for 1817, by the sum of £1,705, .510; and that the total revenue of Ireland for 1818 (when money was plentiful) exceeded that for 1817 208 A CALL TO ACTION. by the sum or £192,969, making a total improvement of tne revenue of the United Kingdom, as compared with 1817, of £1,898,479; but this comparison will be rendered still more correct, and the result will be more favorable, if the sum of £2,230,531. being the amount of unappropriated war duties received in 1817, be deducted from the income received in that year; and if the sum of £566,639, the amount of appropriated war duties received in 1818, be also deducted from the total revenue received in 1818. It will then appear that an improvement to the amount of £3,662,- 371 has actually taken place in the premanent revenue of the United Kingdom in 1818, as compared with 1817." THE PKOMOTEES OF BRITISH EESUMPTION MISTAKEN AS TO THE EFFECT OF THEIR SCHEME ON PRICES. The return to specie payments in England was forced by the holders of bullion who were doubtless backed and sup- ported by the British aristocracy and the principal share holders in the Bank of England. The country bankers, the merchants and traders, petitioned Parliament against the passage of the Peel bill, but their petitions were disre- garded. The elder Peel in presenting a petition of this character made the following statement in Parliament: — "In looking at the reports which have been published on the subject, he must say that the witnesses (those examined by the committee having the Peel bill in charge) were not men likely to give any information to the public, not men acquainted with the state of the country; the last men who should have been questioned if the government wanted to arrive at the merits of the case. He begged to state his opinion, that the petitioners were the best judges of such a measure. He would also add, that though they were in- timately connected with all that concerned the welfare of the country, the most experienced men, and the best quali- fied from their connection with our manufacturers and com- merce, yet.they had not heen examined hefore the committee.'^' FINANCE IN WAR AND PEACE. 20S "To show that the act of 1819 was passed in utter ignor- ance of its character, we must here deviate from strict chronological order, to what transpired in 1832, when Mr. Mathias Atwood was examined before the select committee on the state of agriculture. That gentleman was asked, 'Do you remember what was stated at the time in Parlia- ment on that subject — that the act of 1819, would not alter prices more than four or five per cent, at the utmost?' Mr. Atwood gave this answer: " It was never stated that the abolition of the silver standard would alter prices at all. It was stated, with ref- erence to the act of 1819, which established the present standard, that this would alter prices to the extent of four or perhaps five per cent. A member of the committee of 1819, stated in his place in the House of Commons, nine years after that time, that he, as a member of the commit- tee, was entirely mislead as to the character of the meas- ure which was founded on its recommendation and report. He stated that, in his belief, every member of that com- mittee was similarly mislead; he addressed himself to the chairman to ask if this was not so; he stated that the com- mittee, entirely inexperienced in such matters, were mis- lead by witnesses perfectly uninformed, who talked of a fall of prices of four or five per cent, when it was since rendered undeniable that a fall of prices had been pro- duced, and an alteration in the valne of money, not of four or five per* cent, but of twenty, thirty, or forty per cent; that if the character of that measure, the act of 1819, had been known to him he would not have voted for such a measure, or supported it in the House or in the committee, nor did he believe that any one member of the committee, knowing the character of the measure, would have sup- ported it, or that the chairman of the committee would have done so." "Mr. Atwood was then asked if Mr. Robert Peel was not the chairman alluded to ? The answer was ' Yes, he was present and made no answer to the statement.' It was Mr. Bankes who made the statement. Another member of the House of.Commons, Sir James Graham, f)ut a ques- tion to the chairman of the committee (Mr. Robert Peel) U 210 A CALL TO ACTION. in the House immediately after the statement of Mr. Bankes, whether he contradicted that statement, and he gave no contradiction. '" We return to the year 1819. Not one word was said in debate of that clause in the suspension act which pledged Parliament to restore cash payment six months after a definitive treaty of peace. It was felt that such a preten- •sion, several years after peace had been signed, was ridic- ulous. The reasoning of the bullionists was of a very different character. As their spokesman they put forward Mr. Ricardo, a gentleman largely engaged in stock exchange operations, and who was looked up to as an authority on trade and finance, he being the author of some able works on political economy. He gave it as his opin- ion that the return to cash payments would only lower prices about four per cent, and he was believed as an oracle is believed. This fall was so trifling that all effective opposition ceased. Mr. Baring, Mr. Atwood, and Mr. Ellice warned th