VI. The banking system of the country with its useless burdens imposed upon the public.
VII. The policy of protective tariff, and its effect upon the people and the interests of the country.
VIII. The evils incident to the patent laws of the country.
IX. The author will present his views respecting the means to be used for redressing the grievances considered by him.
In treating of these different subjects, it will be our design to cite and quote such acts of congress, of the state legislatures, and decisions of the courts as will sustain the views presented, in order that the reader may fully understand how these giant monopolies are in fact aided and supported by the government; and we shall try to demonstrate that the only way to arrest and correct these evils is by united and persistent action on the part of the industrial and farming communities, and that the remedy for all improper legislation for, and governmental aid to, these monopolies is in the hands and under the control of the people.
CHAPTER I.
A PRELIMINARY SURVEY.
Nothing in this country has contributed so much to the subversion of our republican institutions as Land Grants made by congress to railroad corporations, and congressional legislation in their favor. The policy has opened a wide field for reckless speculation and corrupt legislation. It has reversed the old rule, that "the people are sovereign," and has given to "the favored few" the absolute control of the nation. The reckless giving of lands to railroad corporations, by congress, is without excuse, or even apology. When grants were first made to states, it was pretended that railroads could not be built without this aid. Subsequent developments exploded this idea. Take Iowa as an example: In 1856 four leading railroads crossing the state from east to west, received grants of lands sufficient to pay at least one-half of the entire cost of their construction across the state, yet they were not built until long years after the grants were made, nor were they constructed as rapidly as roads built exclusively by private enterprise and private capital. The effect of the grants was to retard the settlement and development of the wealth and resources of the state, by demanding from those who wished to settle upon the lands so granted, an extortionate, or at least a greatly appreciated price therefor. It does not require a great stretch of the imagination to arrive at the conclusion that but for these grants the population and wealth of Iowa (the taxable wealth) would be quite one-fourth greater now. The grant of lands to certain railroad companies in Iowa reach eight thousand acres per mile; this, at $1.25 per acre, amounts to $10,000. per mile; much more than one-half of the actual entire cost of their construction. Yet, as a matter-of-fact, some, if not all, of them became insolvent, and either before, or soon after their completion, their roads were sold to other parties—the original companies becoming bankrupt. But while the companies became bankrupt, the officers and few stockholders who controlled the corporation retired with immense wealth. These are the men who, at the inception of the land grant system of building railroads, inaugurated the theory which has since been practiced, that all lands thus granted were to be treated as donations to the men who controlled the roads receiving the grants. The result has been demoralizing. It has opened a field to adventurers, stock jobbers, and unscrupulous men, who have gone to the national capital and organized themselves into squads, rings, and companies, for the purpose of robbing the people. Not unfrequently the men elected by the people to look after their interests in congress, have themselves become leaders and partners in these raids upon the public treasurer; and so powerful are these organizations that all the departments of government have yielded to them, and the rule, with but few exceptions, is, to plunder the treasury upon all occasions, and for every conceivable object. But as these matters will be treated in detail in the following pages, we dismiss them for the present.