THE PROGRESSIVE FARMER W
4
RAILROAD MONOPOLY.
$ht Great Question Discussed by Penn-
sylvania's Great Son, Jeremiah Sulli
van Black, Before the Judiciary
Committee of the Pennsylvania Senate
v at the Session of 1883.
INTBODUCTION.
' Mr. Chairman: The irrepressible
conflict between the rights of the peo
ple and the interests of the railro id
corporations does not seem likely to
terminate immediately I beg your
permission to put our case on your
record somewhat more distinctly than
heretofore.
Why do I give myself this trouble?
My great and good friend, the presi
dent of the Reading Railroad Com
pany, expresses. the suspicion that I
am quietly acting in the interest of
some anonymous corporation. I wish
to contradict that as flatly as I can.
The charge that I am communist
"enough to wish the destruction of all
corporate property is equally untrue.
I think myself the most conservative
of citizens. I believe with my whole
neart in the rights of life, liberty and
property, and if anybody has struggled
- more faithfully, through good report
and evil, to maintain them inviolate, I
' 1 do not know who he is. I respect the
State Constitution; perhaps I am preju
diced in favor of natural justice and
equality. Iam convinced that with
out the enforcement of the fundamen
tal law, honest government cannot be
. expected.
These considerations, together with
the request of many friends, should
"be sufficient reason for doing all the
little I can to get "appropriate legis
lation." At all events, it is unfair to
charge me with any motive of due re or
malice.
It is not proposed by those who
think as I do that any corporation
shall lose one atom of its property. A
lawful contract between a railroad
company and the State is inviolable,
and must not be touched by hostile
Bands, however bad the bargain may
lave been for the people. , Mr. Go wen;
and all others with similar contracts
in their hands, are entitled each to his
pound of flesh, and if it be "so nomi
Bated in the bond " the Commonwealth
must bare her bosom to all their
inives and let them " cut nearest the
heart."
But we, the people, have rights of
property as well as the corporations,
and ours are or at least they ought
to be as sacred as theirs. Between
the great domain which we have con-
- ceded to them, and that which still
belongs to us, the line is plainly and
distinctly marked, and if they cross it
: for purposes of plunder they should
. "fee driven back under the lash of the
law. It is not the intent of the
amended Constitution, nor the desire
of those who demand its enforcement,
to do them the slightest injury. We
only ask for that impartial and just
- protection which the State, as parens
patriot, owes to us not less than to
them.
THE COMPANIES NOT THE OWNERS OP THE
RAILROADS.
In the first place, it will, I think,
be admitted by all impartial persons
of average intelligence, that the com.
panics are not the owners of the rail,
roads. The notion that they are, is as
silly as it is pernicions. It is the duty
of every commercial, manufacturing
or agricultural State to open thorough-
fares of trade and travel through her
territory. For that purpose she may
take the property of citizens, and pay
for the 4 work out of her treasury.
When it is done, she may make it free
"v to all comers, or she may reimburse
the cost by levying a special tax upon
those who use it; or she may get the,
x load built and opened by a corporation
or an individual, and pay for it by
permitting the builder to collect tolls
or taxes from those who carry and
travel on it. Pennsylvania has tried
all these methods with her turnpikes,
. canals and railroads. Some have
been made at her own cost and th ro wn
" open: on others made by herself si
placed officers to collect a specal tax;
others have been built for her by con
tract, in which some natural or artifi
cial person agreed to do the work for
the privilege of appropriating the taxes
. which she authorized to be levied.
But in all these case3 the proprietary
ngnt remained in tne state ana was
held by her in trust for the use of the
people.
- BAILBOAD AND CANAL CORPORATIONS ARE
PUBLIC SERVANTS.
Those who run the railroads and
canals are always public agents. It is
impossiDie 10 look at tnem in any
other light, or to conceive how a dif
ferent relation could exist; because
- railroad which is not managed by public
agents, cannot be a public highway.
The character of these agents and the
mode of their appointment, even upon
the same work, have differed maten
" f ally. The Columbia railroad, and all
the canals, were for a time under the
management of officers appointed by
' the Governor, or elected by the peo
ple, and paid out of the State Treas
ury. Afterwards the duty was de
olved by the State upon persons as
eociated together under acts of incor
poration who contracted to perform it
upon certain terms. The Erie and
; northeast railroad was at first run for
the State by a company; the company
removed from its trust for misbe
havior; the Governor then took it and
appointed an officer 'to
k; later the Governor's appointee
was displaced, with the consent of the
Legislature, and the duty was again
confided to a corporation newly char
tered.
None of these agents neither the
canal commissioners nor the State
Receiver, nor any corporation that
went before or came after, had the
slightest proprietary right or title to
the railroads themselves. To say that
they had would be as proposterous as
to assert that township roads are the
private property of the supervisors.
A -RAILROAD BUILT BY AUTHORITY OF
THE STATE, IN NO SENSE PRIVATE
PROPERTY.
The legal relations existing between
the Siate and the persons whom she
authorizes to supervise her highways
was somewhat elaborately discussed
by the Supreme Court of Pennsyl
vania in the case of the Erie ' and N.
E. R. R. Co. vs. Casey (2 Casey, pp.
307-324) It was there determined
that a railroad built by authority of
the State for the general purpose of
commerce is a public highway, and in
no sense private property that a cor
poration authorized to rvn it is a servant
of the Slate as much as an officer legally
appointed to do any other public duty,
as strictly confined by the laws, and
as liable to be removed for transgres
sing them.
All the judges cone aired in this
opinion. The two who dissented from
the judgment did so on the technical
ground that certain circumstances,
which would have estopped the State
in a judicial proceeding disarmed the
Legislature of the power to repeal.
Neither they nor any other judge in
this country, whose authority is worth
a straw, ever denied the doctrine for
which I have here cited that case,
though it may have been sometimes
overlooked, ignored, or perchance
evaded. This principle and no other
was the basis of the decision in Penn
sylvania and all the other States, that
cities and counties might issue bonds
or their money and tax their people
to aid in building railways. Because
they were public highways. Eds.
The Supreme Court of the United
States has affirmed it in scores of
cases. It was so universally acKnowi
edged that the convention of 1873 in
corporated it into the Constitution as
a part of the fundamental law. I do
not know upon what foundation more
solid than this any great principle of
unsprudence was ever established m
a free country. When in addition you
consider the reason of the thing, and
he supreme necessity of it for the
purpose of common justice, it seems
ike a sin and a shame and a scandal
to oppose it.
RAILROAD AND CANAL CORPORATIONS ARE
PUBLIC AGENTS HOLD THEM HARD TO
THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES.
K being settled that the railroads
and canals belong of right to the State
or the use of the people, and that the
corporations who have them in charge
are mere agents to run them for. the
owners, it will surely not be denied
that all proper regulations should be
made to prevent those agents from be
traying their trust. . The wisdom is
very plain of those provisions in our
Constitution which put them on a
level with other public servants, and
forbid them to prostitute their func
tions to purposes merely mercenary,
or to engage in anv business which
necessarily brings their private inter
ests into conflict with their public
duty. Seeing the vast magnitude of
the affairs entrusted to them, and the
terrible temptation to which their
cupidity is exposed, it is certainly
necessary that you hold them to their
responsibilities, and hold them hard.
THOSE CORPORATIONS DENY THAT THEY
OWE ANY RESPONSIBILITY TO THE
STATE.
But, on the other hand, the corpor
ations deny that they owe any respon-,
sibility to the State, more than indi
viduals engaged in private business.
They assert that the management of
the railroads being a mere speculation
of their own, these thoroughfares of
trade and travel must be run for their
interest without regard to Dublic
i
right. If they take advantage of
their power to oppress the labor and
overtax the land of the State; if they
crush the industry of one man or place
to Duua up tne prosperity oi another;
if they plunder the rich by extortion,
or deepea the distress of the poor by
discriminating against them, they
justify themselves by showing that all
this was in the way of business, that
tneir interest required tnem to do it;
that if they had done otherwise their
fortunes would not have been so
great as they are; that it was the
prudent, proper and successfnl method
of managing their own affairs. This
is their universal answer to all com
plaints. Their protests against legis
lative intervention to protect tne pub
lie always take this shape, with more
or less distmctness of outline. In
whatever language they clothe their
argument it is the same in substance
as that with which Demetrius, the
silversmith defended the sancity of
the temple for which he made shrines.
"Sirs, ye know that by this craft we
nave our wealth."
That railroad corporations and their
paid aanerents snould take this view
of the subject is perhaps not very sur
prising. Nor does it excite our special
wonder to see them supported by the
Buosidiary rings wnom they patron
lze.
xub, lb is amazing to find that
this odious and demoralizing theory
has made a strong lodgment in the
minds ' of disinterested, upright and
high-placed men. Two members of
the Senate Judiciary Committee I do
not say the ablest, because compari
sons are odious but they are both of
them among the foremost men of the
country for talents and integrity :.
these gentlemen emphatically dissent
ed from me when J. asserted that the
management of the railroads was not
a matter of business to be conducted
like private enterprise, merely for
the profit of the directors or stock,
holders. A heresy so supported is
entitled to serious refutation, however
aburd it may seem on its face.
A PUBLIC DUTY MUST BE PERFORMED
WITH AN EYE SINGLE TO THE PUBLIC
INTEREST.
I aver that a man or a corporation
appointed to do a public duty must
perform it with an eye single to the
public interest. If he perverts his
authority to purposes of private gain
he is guilty of corruption, and all who
aid and abet him are his accomplices
in crime. He defiles himself if he min
gles his own business with that entrusted
to him by the government, and uses one
to promote the other If a judge ex
cuses himself for a false decision by
saying that he sold his judgment for
the highest price' he could get, you
cover his character with infamy. A
ministerial officer, like a sheriff, for
instance, who extorts from a defen
dant, or even from a convict in his
custody, what the law does not allow
him to collect, and puts the surplus in
his pocket, is a knave upon whom ou
have no mercy. You bend county
commissioners to the penitentiary lor
consulting their own financial ad van
tage to the injury of the general weal.
When the officers of a city corporation
make a business of running it to en-
rich themselves at the expense of the
public, you can see at a glance that
they are the basest of criminal?.
Why, then, can you not see that the
officers of a railway corporation are
equally guilty when they pervert the
authority with which they are clothed
to purposes purely selfish? A
railroad corporation is as much
part of the civil govern
ment as a city corporation. The officers
of the former as much as the latter
are agents and trustees of the public,
and the public has an interest precise
ly similar in the fidelity of both.
Why, then, should partiality or extor-
tion be condemned as criminal in one
if it be tolerated as fair business
when practised by the other? Yet
there are virtuous and disinterested
statesmen among us who think that
faithful service ought not to be en
forced against the railroad companies,
however loudly it may be claimed by
the body of the people as their just
due, and no matter how distinctly it
may be commanded by the Constitu
tion itself '
I am able to maintain that all the
corruption and misgovernment with
which the earth is cursed, grows out
of this fatal proclivity of public ser
vants to make a business of their
duty. Recall the worst cases that
have occurred in our history and see
if every one of them does not finally
resolve itself into that. Tweed and
his associates in New York: the
Philadelphia ring; the carpet bag
thieves; the Star Route conspirators;
all went into business for themselves
while pretending to be engaged in the
public service. Oakes Ames distrib
uted the stock of the Credit Mobilier
where he thought it would do the
most good to himself and others with
whom he was connected, and that was
business in him who' gave, and in them
that took his bribes. Madison Wells,
when he proposed to Mr. Kenner that
he would make a true return of the
election if he could be assured of get
ting " two hundred thousand dollars
a piece for himself and Jim Anderson,
and a less sum for the niggers," had
as keen an eye to business as if he had
been president of a railroad company,
instead of a returning board. Certain
greedy adventurers made it a business
to rob the Nation of its lands, and
uniting with Congress carried it on so
magnificently that they got away with
an area nearly equal to nine States as
large as Pennsylvania. The imposi
tion bf the whiskv tax. nxr.lnrl in cr
L.n ' , 7
wuai was neiu on speculation, was
business to the officers and legislators
wno were sharp enough to anticipate
4 1 x -r "li
tueir own votes, xou win see on re
flection that every base combination
which officers have made with one
another, or with outside parties, has
been a business arrangement. precise-
ly like that which the railroads justify
on the sole ground that it is business.
The effect is not only to corrupt those
who engage in such transactions, but
to demoralize all who are tempted by
personal and party attachments to
apologize for it.
When the officer of the Pennsyl
vania railroad company corruntlv
bought the remission of the tonnage
tax, and thereby transferred to their
own pockets an incalculable sum just
ly due to the State, it was business.
rich to them and profitable beyond
tne dreams oi avarice, while to the
swindled tax payers it was proportion
ateiy disastrous. Tne nine million
steal of later date was a business en
terprise which failed, because Gover
nor Geary most unexpectedly put his
veto upon it. still more recently the
same organization undertook to n-et
from the Treasury of the State four
minions oi dollars to which it had no
decent pretence of a claim. Never
was any affair conducted in a more
perfectly business-like way. The
appointed agents of the corporation
came to Harrisburg when the Legisla
ture was in session, and regularly set
up a shop for the purchase of mem
bers at prearranged and specified
price?. You condemn this piece of
business because it was dishonest, but
was it more dishonest than that which
the same corporation habitually does
when it stands on the highway, and
by fraud or force extorts from indi
vidual citizens a much larger sum in
excessive tolls to which its right is no
better than to the money it tried to
get by bribery?
The functions of railroad corpora-
tions are as clearly defined and ought
to be as universally understood as
those of any servant which the Srate
or General Government emolovs.
r j
Without proprietary right in the
highways they are appointed to super
intend them for the owners. They
are charged with the duty of seeing
that every needed facility for the use
of those thoroughfares shall be fur
nished to all citizens, like the justice
promised in Magna Charta, without
sale, denial or delay. Such services,
if faithfully performed, are important
and valuable, and the compensation
ought to be a full equivalent; accord
ingly they are authorized to pay
themselves by levying upon all who
use the road a tax or toll or freight
sufficient for that purpose.
But this tax must be reasonable,
fixed, certain and uniform, otherwise
it is a fraud upon the people which
no department of the State Govern
ment, nor all of them combined, has
power to legalize.
IT IS EASY TO SEE THE MISCHIEF. ETC.
It is much easier to see the nature
and character of the mischief wrought
by the present practices of the railroad
companies than it is to calculate its
extent. If your action depends in
any degree upon the amount of the
spoilation which the people - of the
State have suffered, and are now suf
fering for want of just laws to protect
them, you certainly ought to direct
an nffimn.l innni'rv into t.h an "hi on f. ttnH
j ll
ascertain the whole truth as nearly asJ
But investigations have already
taken place in Congress and the Leg
islatures of several States; complaints
founded upon specified facts come up
from every quarter; verified accusa
tions are made by some of the com
panies against others; railroad men
have openly confessed their fraudulent
practices, and sometimes boasted of
the large sums they accumulate by
them. Putting these together, you
can iorm at least an approximate cal
culation. I doubt not you will find
the sum total of the plunder they
have taken in the shape of excessive
charges to be frightful.
Three or four years ago a commit
tee of the United States Senate col
lected the materials, and made a re
port upon this general subject, in
which they showed that an excess of
five cents per hundred weight charged
on the whole agricultural crop of the
then current year would amount to
seventy millions of dollars. Upon the
crop of the la3t year it would doubt
less come nearer a hundred millions.
The railroads would not get this sum,
because not near all of it is carried,
but it would operate as an export tax
operates; that is to say, the producer,
the consumer, or the intermediate
dealer, would lose that amount on the
whole crop, carried or not carried.
In 1880 the charges from Chicago to
the eastern markets were raised from
ten cents per hundred weight to thirty-five
cents, the latter rate being un
questionably twice as high as a fair
one. You can count from these data
the terrible loss sustained by the
land, labor and trade of the country.
It was the end and the attainment of
a combination still subsisting between
thegreat trunk lines, as they are
called, to pool their receipts, to stop
all competition, to unite the stealing
power of all into one grand monopoly,
and put the whole people at their
mercy. It was a criminal conspiracy
by the common and statute law oi all
the States.
THE RIGHT
TO RAISE OR LOWER THE
. RATES.
The magnitude of these excessive
charges is not the worst thing about
them. The corporations tninK it per
fectly right to raise or lower the
freight a3 they please without regard
to the rights or interests of anybody
but themselves. A grain grower,
manufacturer, miner, or merchant,
who can sell his goods at a profit, if
he can get them carried at the rates
of to-dav. may find himseli ruined to
morrow by an increase which did not
enter into his calculations. A rise in
the market enures not to the benefit
of the producer, but to the use of the
carrving corporations, which openly
avow that their rule is to charge in all
cases as much "as the tramc will
bear:" that is to say. as much as the
shipper can submit to without being
driven entirely on the road, x ou
must see plainly that this power to de-
nress asrriculture. to diminish the
nrofits of manufacturing industry, and
to skin the commerce of the whole
countrv bv the arbitrary use of a slid
ing scale upon freights, cannot safely
ha trnsted to human nands, ana
especially not to irresponsible corpora
tions whose interest, as well as their
acknowledged principle of action, con
stantly impel them to abuse it. Can
it be that a Pennsylvania Legislature
will hesitate to curb the career of this
destructive monopoly by adjusting the
charges according to some rule equit
able, fixed and certain.
THE WRONG OF DISCRIMINATION.
But even this sinks into insignifi
cance compared with the wrong and
evil of their discriminations. Com
mon justice, sound policy, every sense
of duty, the whole spirit and letter of
the law, requires them to give every
man equal facilities in the use of the
roads, and to charge them at the same
rates for the same class of goods, ac
cording to weight and distance. There
can be no possible doubt about this.
Every unprejudiced man who has
sense enought to know his right hand
from his left acknowledges that equal
ity must be the rule of right; and he
understands this perfectly well with
out looking at the Constitution, where
it is solemnly declared to be part of
the lex legum, the law of laws, and the
rule of all rules on the subject. Yet
this sacred principle is constantly and
steadily violated, trampled under foot
and treated with heartless contempt.
At the slightest glance you will see
the enormous injury, direct and con
sequential, which these discrimina
tions inflict upon the public. A man
who invests his capital, or employs
his time in mining or manufacturing,
car be driven into bankiuptcy at any
time by a discrimination against him,
and in favor of his competitors. This
is done every day, and all the time,
not in a few cases here and there, but
systematically and regularly, whenever
a carrying monopoly conceives that its
own interests can be promoted in that
nefarious way; and it will continue to
be done until the prohibition of the
Constitution is enforced by penal en
actment. THE FOUL BULK OF THESE ENORMITIES.
Instead of breaking the foul bulk
of these enormities, I will give you a
sample; convenient, because it is small
and easily handled. A neighbor and
friend of mine (in partnership with
another) became the lessee and opera
tor of a coal mine in Northumber-
land. For a short distance they were
obliged to carry their product over
one of the bra aches of the Pennsyl
vania company; they were charged
for the use of the road and motive
power alone there was no loading or
unloading in the case, and no cars
were furnished by the company at
about the rate of twenty cents per ton
per mile; while others whom the mo
nopoly chose to favor were let off at
two cents. They paid the excess
under protest, and brought suit uo re
cover it back. It was as simple a
case of extortion as can be conceived ;
but certain officers of the Pennsyl
vania Railroad Company swore that in
their judgment it was right to commit
it, and moreover declared that it was
a usual, common and customary prac
tice. I blush to acknowledge that m
all this the Supreme Court endorsed
and abetted the corporation. The
dialectics of the decision turned on a
prohibition in the charter against
charging more on an average than four
cents per ton per mile which was
construed as a legal warrant for any
robbery of one person which the com
pany could prove to be balanced by
the aggregate of favors shown to all
others. But neither the greatest cor
poration in the State, nor the highest
judicial tribune, paid any respect
whatever to the principle that all
men's rights to the use of a public
highway are equal.
It is known and not denied that this
equality of right (sacred and funda
mental though it be), is by the com
mon practice of carrying companies
corruptly disregarded.
If you want to drive business com
petition out of the field, bribe a rail
road, manager to raise the freights
upon your rivals and lower your own,
or take the whole board of directors
into partnership with you, or promise
to divide the spoils with the corpora
tion, and they will make you a mo
nopoly with power to plunder, limited
only by the rage of your dealings.
The loss thus inflicted upon the
worthiest men in the land is startling-
Wy large. By a single one of these
arrangements that with the standard
Oil Company the estimated injury
direct and consequential to honest
persons within the State, amounts to
Pnot less than a hundred and fifty mil
lions of dollars. or this fact you
have the statement of Mr. Gowen,
Lwhose veracity no man that knows
mm will doubt, and whose faculties of
observation, sharpened by a personal
interest in tne suoiect, maxe mm a
most intelligent witness.
TO BE CONTINUED.
. . '
THE MULE.
muie is always wortn per
cent, more than a horse because 50
per cent better. Close acquaintance
with mules for about five years has
taught me this fact. They are really
more docile than horses; are hardier;
do'more work; eat less: and thrive
upon coarser fare; are never sick un
less shamefully ill-used or ill-fed; live
longer and are more useful while they
live. I never saw a mule team run
away. Mules rarely stumble on the
rougnest roads; are scarcely ever
baity and will pull heavy loads as
steadily as an oxen, hanging on in the
traces with all their weight, without
-
anv ierks or civinc hoi- ry.
quently the harness lasts longer than
with , horses. They may be made as
kind in disposition as horses by thp
same kind of treatment. A pair of
young mules, coming 3 years old
which I have raised, will come whei
I whistle for them from the far end
of a 100-acre pasture lot; will eat corn
or take salt from my hand ; will enjoy
petting as much as the horse colts
and have never yet lifted a foot to
kick. The mule is made vicious by
vicious treatment; it has the patience
hardiness, abstemiousness and docility
of the ass, with the strength and in.
telligence of the horse. There is
money m rearing mules, and economy
in using them anywhere. Tribune
Correspondence.
RAISE MORE HORSES AND CAT
TL,E.
The United States is a great horse
and cattle producing country, yet the
importation of these animals into the
United States within a period of
eleven months, ending June 1, 18S9
would indicate that it is necessary for
other countries to assist us in supply,
ing our home demand. According to
facts gathered from United States
treasury reports there were 50,529
cattle and 46,230 horses shipped into
the United States on which duty was
paid. Of course they were not for
breeding purposes, as breeding stock
is exempt from tariff duty. The in
quiry naturally follows: Where did
they come from ? This we are not
prepared to answer, but we will sup
pose that a large portion of the horses
were of the Mexican , pony stock ana
shipped in from ' that country. We
do not favor such importations. This
pony stock of horses are a curse to
this country, and any country ad
vanced in the improved stock business
as we are. We see farmers in the
West who have been induced to buy
a team of ponies on account of price,
toiling away in an effort to cultivate
the soil with a team in no way quali
fied to do the work. The result is a
failure partial or entire. They are
vicious, treacherous, small and an
absolute nuisance in the hands of all
persons except the trader. Ex.
ORGANIZING.
Evidence is coming in from all sides
that the farmers throughout the coun
try are organizing for self-protection.
It is one of the best signs that they
begin to see what is the proper method
to secure themselves against those
who have been plundering them right
and left in the past.
We hope this organization will not
end in the mere establishment of ex-
changes for selling produce and pur
chasing the necessaries of life for the
farmers. These things are only the
beginning of the reforms which are
needed. It is one great step in the
right direction to get this much, and
if we can get no more we may con
gratulate eoch other on accomplishing
this much. But let us get more.
Farmers constitute a vast majority
of the citizens in our country and
they should have a corresponding ma
jority in all the responsible positions
in legislation throughout the land.
From the President of the United
States to the Governor and represen
tatives in our State Legislature the
farmers should be in the majority. It
is the height of folly to say, take no
organized action about who shall
make and execute our laws. We
want farmers and the friends of agri
culture wherever we can get them,
and we must have farmers at the head
of political affairs if we would have
them as we wish them.
It is very well known that laws are
of such an intricate nature now that
very few can understand them and the
way of justice is hard to find out.
The vast machinery of the law is more
complicated than steam engines or
electiical motors and why? Because
our rulers have been to a very great
extent lawyers men who have no
sympathy with farmers, and whose in
terest consists in promoting feuds in
stead of cultivating peace; who grow
fat upon laws which have been fash
ioned especially to accomplish this
end.
We want plain, hard-common-sense
farmers in the majority, that laws
may be made plain and justice may
be had without the necessity of quib
bles and technicalities, and without
the chance of escape of criminals
through the omission of a word or the
neglect of a formality.
Most of all we want farmers in the
majority in State and United States
legislative.halls that farmers may have
their just share of the benefits coming
from laws which bear upon fanning
interests. We should have the Presi
dent, Governors and legislators to the
extent necessary to secure those rights
which are now torn from us to build
up millionaire manufacturers, corpor
ations and monopolies generally a3
well as the vast trusts which openly
defy the right in their greed after the
farmers' toil-earned dollars.
Let the organizing go farther, then,
than the selling of produce and th3
buying of a few articles for the house
and farm. Let it resolve, not in the
spirit of Democrat or Republican, but
in earnest co-operation to place farm
ers to rule over us, to make and .exe
cute the laws upon which depend all
our welfare and happiness. Maryland
Farmer.
1