Monopolies -- United States; Railroads and state -- United States
Among the railroad companies that are included in this combination are
the following: Chicago & Northwestern; Iowa Falls & Sioux City; Cedar
Rapids & Missouri River; Leavenworth, Atchinson, & Northwestern; Kansas
Pacific; Union Pacific; Burlington & Missouri River; Sioux City &
Pacific; Missouri River; Chicago, Iowa, & Nebraska; Hannibal & St.
Joseph; and the St. Paul and Sioux City. Most of the above roads
received grants of lands; some of them received subsidy bonds,
ostensibly for the public benefit, but in reality for the purpose of
combining in one the interests of all these combinations. Whatever may
have been the intention of congress in granting exclusive privileges to
these companies and permitting them to unite, the effect has been to
fasten upon the great west a monopoly, that for all time to come will be
an instrument of oppression. With its vast power and wealth it can but
control the fortune of the laboring and producing classes inhabiting the
richest portion of our common country. The further fact that this great
corporate power is the particular pet of congressmen, and that among its
directors and stockholders are members and ex-members of congress,
render the hope of any change in favor of the people remote, if at all
attainable. If the reader is desirous of learning who are the directors
and managers of the Pacific railroad and branches, he has only to
consult _Poor's Railroad Manual_ for 1872-3. He will find among the
present directors the men who, in congress, voted the lands and
subsidies to the companies in which they are now directors, and also,
that some of these directors are now holding the office of congressmen
and of United State's senators.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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