Let’s see: Does this country lead the civilized world in progress? Well, hardly, since every other civilized country on the face of the earth, with the exception of Honduras and Costa Rica, own and operate their own telegraph lines and give a far more satisfactory service to the public for a far less consideration than it costs the dear people in this country of progress, where corporations, have, by robbing the people, accumulated untold wealth with which they are enabled to evade such laws as prove obnoxious to them, and can buy law-makers and have odious laws repealed and new ones made, giving them all the powers they seek.—Cloverdale (Ind.) Graphic.
The Standard oil magnates have been again showing their contempt of law. Their attitude hatches more anarchists than all the Herr Most brand of incubators. The lawless rich and powerful are the real enemies of the republic.—Pennsboro (W. Va.) News.
The American agrees most heartily with Dr. Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University, when he says the great movement of the world is toward democracy. This is the natural result of an advancing civilization.
America overthrew the false doctrine of the divine right of kings to rule when she wrote the Declaration of Independence and declared that all men were born equal. Since then we have created by law a person as great, as arrogant and tyrannical as the king—the Public Corporation.
How can all men have an equal footing in law when we give special privileges to the corporate person and enable that person to levy tribute at will on the wealth of the nation?
How can all have equal rights, when the corporate person can spend millions of dollars to corrupt our city councils, our state legislatures, our Congress and our courts?
The movement against these legalized law-created individuals is the awakening of the spirit of democracy, and it means the eventual wiping out of these public service corporations which occupy relatively the same position in this country that the king does in a monarchy. It means that genuine democracy, the rule of the people, will supplant the rule of the corporation. It means the public ownership of all public utilities.—Creston (Ia.) Morning American.