Bureau County, Illinois - Chapter 16: Origin of the Anti-Monopoly Movement - John H. Bryant's Connection with Thk Same - Birth Ofthe Republican Party, 1885

Chapter 16: Origin of the Anti-Monopoly Movement - John H. Bryant's Connection with Thk Same - Birth Ofthe Republican Party

ORIGIN OF THE ANTI-MONOPOLY MOVEMENT - JOHN H. BRYANT'S CONNECTION WITH THK SAME - BIRTH OFTHE REPUBLICAN PARTY - JUDGE LAWRENCE DEFEATED FOE SUPREME JUDOE - JUDGE CRAIG ELECTED - THE BEGINNING OF THE GREAT CONTEST OF THE PEOPLE AGAINST CORPORATIONS - ITS EFFECT ON THE WHOLE COUNTRY - How BUREAU COUNTY HAS KEPT IN THE LEAD INALL GREAT MOVEMENTS - THEXIHTH ARTICLE OF THE STATE CONSTITUTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES - THE LAWS ENACTED AND THE COURT'S DECISION FOUNDED THEREON - ILLINOIS THE BIRTHPLACE or EVERY MODERN GREAT POLITICAL REVOLUTION - SOHE CORRECTIONS IN HISTORY - THE FACTS IN THIS CHAPTER WILL SOME DAY BE A GREAT CHAPTER IN AMERICAN HISTORY - ETC. ETC.

TpNGLAND'S Magna Gharta has now for --^ centuries stood as one of the most prominent landmarks in the great highway of National and civil liberty. And well it may. It was the victorious assault upon " the divine right of kings, " and that monster heresy that the " king can do no wrong." It was a sure foundation on which to build the liberty of the people and check the tyranny of rulers - to give the people some voice in the assertions of their plainest rights. Nothing could be more interesting to the student of political economy (a subject of which every voter in free America is, by a terrible legal fiction, supposed to understand) than the study of the history of charters and charter rights, and the growth of their abuses in this country. In the United States the interesting chapter dates its commencement from the argument of Daniel Webster in the Dartmouth College case. This great forensic effort, from the master of American constitutional law, became a national era, and the great argument was a settled fundamental law of the country for half a century. But at that time we had no great and rich railroads, no powerful private corporations, and no chartered privileges were sought, except for religious, educational and, perhaps, in a few instances, social bodies. Mr. Webster was the father of the idea of " vested rights" - that a charter was " a contract " by which the State gave a portion of its powers to a company, and that it could not resume powers it had granted away. Hence, at the time of Mr. Webster's argument in the Dartmouth case it could not be foreseen what the future ol this country would bring forth. The history of the sudden rise of great charter corporations is so recent that it must be familiar to the reader. These rich corporations sprang into existence like the growth of the mushroom, and so numerous were the calls upon the Legislatures for acts of authority to incorporate that finally a general law was passed authorizing everybody that might desire it to apply to the Secretary of the State and procure license therefor. The rapid building of railroads, especially after Senator Douglas' bill in Congress which resulted in the completion of the Illinois Central Railroad, started up an era of prosperity and rapid development of the country never before equaled. Men who were paupers one week became often millionaires next week, and the people rejoiced and showered their favors upon these and all other corporations without stint, and they voted all the money and all the privileges they asked for without question. Voters did not look ahead - they never stopped to think, and they could not comprehend how evil could come of institutions that were so rapidly developing the wealth of the country. As said above, a history of this general frenzy that seized the voters, which permeated the remotest frontier cabins in the land and extended up through the smallest local municipalities to and including the General Government itself until the financial agent of the United States in official publications announced in flaming headlines that " A Public Debt is a Public Blessing," and its equally swift development of gigantic evils, would be a most interesting and instructive chapter for the rising generation to contemplate and study. Internal improvements, credits, vast speculations and inflation were the national South Sea bubble, that ran like a prairie fire over the country. In the meantime the vast corporations were being gathered into the hands of the big and little Jay Goulds of the Nation, and while the people were lured by the rush of prosperity, these schemers were sapping the public substance, piling up fortunes that would individually run into the hundreds of millions, and were commencing to subsidize and control little ignorant and feeble municipalities rapidly, and from here extended their vision until they boldly and successfully captured States and then the General Government itself. They elected members of State Legislatures, State Senators, Congressmen, United States Senators; and Judges and courts and lawyers were their ready and willing minions. The principal men of the smallest villages filled their pockets with free passes, and the lawyers all over the land answered any grumbling complaint by simply saying, " Here are vested rights, and you people must endure it the best you can." State Supreme Courts, especially the Illinois court, and the United States Supreme Court, had either expressly decided or had tacitly conceded that the charter of a railroad company in which was granted the right to fix tolls, there was no power in the State or people to modify or change it. In other words, the roads could form their syndicates or pools and there was no limit to their powers to extort and oppress the whole people.

the curtains and see something of the real doings of these great corporations, we extract briefly from the evidence before a committee of the late State Constitutional Convention of New York. The entire testimony may be found in the reports of the committee, Vol. V, No. 150:

Edwin D. Worcester, sworn : - I am Treasurer of the New York Central Railroad Company, and have been for two years; was Assistant Treasurer for two years previous.

QUESTION. - Do you know of the New York Central Railroad Company paying out considerable amounts of money during the sessions of legislation?

In 1873 a bitter quarrel between the railroad magnates brought about an investigation by a committee of the State Legislature of New York, before whom Jay Gould testified and coolly informed the people that through his manipulations and by the power and influence of his money, they had been wrestling with one another for years past, as Democrats and Republicans, with no other result and no other purpose but the election of his creatures to office. Here is his testimony:

" I do not know how much I paid toward helping friendly men. We had four States to look after, and we had to suit our polities to circumstances. In a Democratic district I was a Democrat; in a Republican district I was a Republican, and in a doubtful district I was doubtful; but in every district and at all times I have been an Erie man."

" It is further in evidence that it has been the custom of the managers of the Erie Railway, from year to year, in the past, to spend large sums to control elections and to influence legislation. In the year 1868 more than one million ($1,000, 000) were disbursed from the treasury for ' extra and legal services. ' For interesting items see Mr. Watson's testimony, pages 336 and 337.

shown him, admitted the payment during the three years prior to 1872 of large sums to - Barber, Tweed and others, and to influence legislation or elections; these amounts were charged in the 'India rubber account.' The memory of this witness was very defective as to details, and he could only remember large transactions; but could distinctly recall that he had been in the habit of sending money into the numerous districts all over the State, either to control nominations or elections for Senators and Members of Assembly. Considered that, as a rule, such investments paid better than to wait until the men got to Albany, and added the significant remark when asked a question that it would be as impossible to specify the numerous instances as it would be to recall to mind the numerous freight cars sent over the Erie road from day to day."

Through these methods the railroads not only pack Legislatures and the bench with their creatures, from whom they can obtain such laws and such rulings as they desire, but by other methods, not less nefarious, they compel the people to re-imburse them for the money expended in securing the nomination and election of their own tools by stock watering. Shortly after the transactions admitted by Worcester, Treasurer of the New York Central Railroad Company, the Vanderbilt management of the New York Central Railroad watered the stock of the road $47,000,000 and a purchased Legislature legalized it. Regular dividends of 8 per cent have since been declared upon it and these dividends upon the water alone, have in thirteen years, with interest compounded annually, amounted to over $75,000,000.* or prefer charges against any particular corporation. This prominent road is merely selected and the above extracts from sworn testimony is given simply to elucidate what we started out to say, and to make plain the existence of the great Gorgon that the foolish people had fostered and fattened and possessed with their money and unlimited powers. The country had reached a period when some man must step forward and cut the Gordian knot. The people were rudely awakened from their golden dreams when these great corporations began to carve "the pound of flesh nearest each one's heart. " The people must revolt and strike the hand that was at every man's throat. They did, and as much as it may be news to even the people of this county, yet Bureau County is entitled to the great honor of starting the movement that extended all over the United States, and to John H. Bryant is due the conception and execution of the first steps in the revolution and the rescue of our people from these soulless tyrants. The golden opportunity presented itself in the spring of 1873, when Judge Lawrence was a candidate for reelection to the Illinois Supreme Court from this district. The usual form that had obtained in the election of Judges was for the members of the bar to agree upon some one and the people would elect whoever it might be. Judge Lawrence was admittedly an able jurist, pure and upright, but he was purely a lawyer, and the cold letter of the law was the one thing before his eyes when he made up his judgments. Ancient precedent, the decisions of the courts, the great arguments like Webster's and the black-letter of the law were the supreme things in a court room to his mind. The only question possible for him to consider was, " Is it so designated in the bond ?" and if yea, then he was the "Daniel come to judgment," and who suffered he could not consider. Hence his purity of mind and great legal attainments at that particular time made him both a menace and a danger to the public weal. The bench and bar of this district had chosen Judge Lawrence for re-election, and when a visiting attorney came to Princeton, we are informed, there was but one firm of attorneys - Herron & Scott - but that endorsed Judge Lawrence for re-election. Under the move given the people by Mr. Bryant, Judge A. M. Craig was secured to stand against Judge Lawrence, and thus was the issue of anti-monoply first fairly presented. It was the people on one side and the railroads and great corporations and the attorneys on the other side. The people triumphed and Judge Craig was elected, and is now in the early part of his second term, having the second time defeated a nominee of the Republican party.

The race between Craig and Lawrence was one of the notable contests in this country for the judicial ermine. It was watched with deep interest in all the States, and everywhere the lawyers and railroads were for Lawrence, and many good people were frightened into voting against their own plainest interests by the sneers and taunts of those who called Judge Craig the ignorant "Granger."' The writer of these lines was not in the district, but he distinctly remembers how the lawyers in his town were ready to work or pray, or both even, for the success of Lawrence. They openly said the dignity of the learned profession, the cult of the wig and woolsack, were at issue, and it would be almost a crime to defeat the great jurist by this farmer judge. But Judge Craig was elected and the people won a great victory, and he has been re-elected, and nothing better can be said for the sound sense of the people than the fact that he defeated a party nominee, running as an independent, in a district overwhelmingly

Republican. Here was a real case of the conflict of the "higher law" versus the law of the land - the cold letter of the statute book, versus the rights and liberties of the people. We have no hesitation in saying it was the beginning of a revolution - a revolt by the people in their own interests, - that is one of the greatest victories attained since the Declaration of American Independence. True, it did not, like the "Irrepressible Conflict," exterminate the great evil it attacked, yet it is a step forward all along the line for the relief and freedom from the tyrant monopoly, and it was the liberation of white men, the entire farming and laboring interests in this country, exceeding in numbers ten times the 4,000,000 of slaves that were liberated by the late war. It was a bloodless victory, yet the grander by this fact, and except that the miserable demagogues have stepped in and checked and to some extent stopped the great movement, yet the leven has commenced its work, it is there, and some day it will go on to the end in the general relief. As an illustration of what were the first results in this contest the following recital will explain:

The first case that arose after Judge Craig became a member of the court was the case of Munn & Scott vs. the People, reported in the 69 111., page 80. The Constitution of 1870, Article XIII, declares that all elevators and warehouses where grain is stored for compensation, are declared public warehouses, and where such warehouse or elevator is located within the corporate limits of a city of 100,000 inhabitants, certain duties were enjoined upon the owners or operators of such warehouse obviously, because the people by the Xlllth Article of the Constitution, declares them public warehouses, etc., and to give proper effect to this XHIth Article, the General Assembly, in 1871, passed an act to give effect to the Constitution, and provided all owners of such warehouses, before operating the same, should take out a license from the Circuit Court of the county, and give bond to the people in the sum of $10,000, conditioned, for the faithful performance of their duties as such public warehouse.

The law of 1871 referred to provides that such warehouses should receive for storage any grain that should be tendered them and that the warehouseman should not make any unjust discrimination in the amount he should charge between individuals, and that such license should be taken out from the Circuit Court before such warehouseman could operate at all.

Munn & Scott, of Chicago, owned a large elevator combined with a warehouse in the city of Chicago; had owned and operated the same prior to the adoption of the new Constitution, containing the Xlllth Article before referred to. It was well known that they had exercised unfair and unjust discrimination between individuals in Chicago, who stored large amounts, and the producer in the country, who wished to store smaller amounts. And when the Constitution of 1870 was adopted declaring such elevators and warehouses public warehouses, and after the acts of the Legislature passed in aid of the Constitution and requiring such warehouseman to take out a license from the Circuit Court to operate the same and give bond in the penal sum of $10,- 000, conditioned, that they would not make unjust discriminations between individuals who might wish to store grain in such place, and as the railroads all over the Northwest were making unjust discrimination in the amount they charged in carrying the people's freight, claiming that they had vested rights, by their charters, to charge people what they pleased; and that the people were powerless aud had no remedy.

was private property ; that they could operate it as they pleased; that it could not be declared a public warehouse and they refused to take out a license or pay any attention whatever to the laws of the State, and they were upheld in their disobedience to the laws by the railroad corporations. An information was filed in the Criminal Court of Cook County by the State's Attorney; they were put on trial, convicted and fined $100. They were defended by five able railroad attorneys: Messrs. Jewett, Goudy, McCagg, Fuller and Culver, all claiming that the law was an infraction of the rights of the citizen and an unwarranted interference with their property. The case was appealed by Munn & Scott to the Supreme Court, prior to Craig's election, and was argued before he took his seat on the bench, but the Court could reach no decision and did not decide the question.

After Craig took his seat upon the bench with the other new member elected at the same time, Munn & Scott's case was re-argued and with the aid of Judge Graig's vote the case was decided in favor of the people - Judges Breese, Sheldon, Craig and Scholfield making a majority opinion in favor of the act of the Legislature giving validity to Sections 3 and 4 of the Act of the General Assembly entitled an "Act to regulate public warehouses and to give effect to Article XIII of the New Constitution." The other three Judges, McAllister, Scott and Walker, did not concur in this opinion.

This was a test case and struck directly at the mooted principle of vested rights, behind which the great railroad corporations were sheltering themselves in their extortionate charges and tinjust discriminations against the struggling people.

Supreme Court of the United States and heard by that court, and the decision announced by Breese, Sheldon, Craig and Scholfield was affirmed in a very able and elaborate opinion by a majority of the judges of that court. It was held, soon after, in the case of Jewel vs. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company, by the Supreme Court of the United States, that railways were liable to be regulated in their charges by the Legislature , upon the same principle of law and reason that warehouses were subject to legislation. The Supreme Court of the United States in deciding the case of Jewel vs. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company, referred to the case of Munn & Scott and advanced the principle that railroads were liable to be regulated in their charges by the acts of the General Assembly upon the same principle that warehouses were subject to regulation. It cannot be denied that the railroad cases decided in this State in which it has been held that railroads may be regulated in their charges by law is founded, in part, upon the warehouse decisions of Munn & Scott.

Railroad companies have been chartered in part for the public good. They are given extraordinary powers that they may the better serve the public, and are therefore rightly held to legislative control. Judge Craig's election was not a mistake on the part of the people; it was the entering wedge. It should not be forgotten that the lawyers and Judges and railroads told the people they could not do this, exactly as the same men told the people they could not interfere with slavery. In one instance they quoted the Dartmouth College case, and in the other they quoted the Dred Scott case. Yet both these cases, as precedents, are consigned to the limbo of the waste-baskets, and thereby the wrongs of 4,000,000 slaves were in one case righted, and in the other case was, to

The average American thinks that because he can vote, parade and carry torches after a band; get drunk and yawp his patriotic yells, and monkey himself generally, that he is a free man - the freest of the free. The more intelligent monopolist knows better; he is ever ready to step forward and tickle the long ears of the groundlings with his foxy pretensions of loyalty and peculiar friendship to his voting victims, and he wheedles and buys his slaves in the open and secret market around the ballot boxes. It is this state of affairs that has prevented the great movement from completing itself, and is the prime cause of the evils that are now flowing out over the country, and producing much of the disturbances in the labor districts of our country.

In the mines, in the great mills, the factories and iron mills of the country is a perpetual contest going on, and the monopolist is tightening his clutch upon the laborer. The charter companies water their stock by hundreds and thousands of millions of dollars, and then starve the labor and rob the public in order to collect dividends on this watered stock. These evils have now reached enormous proportions; strikes of workmen are of daily occurrence; blood is shed; the militia are frequently called out, and the voting laborer is daily and hourly tending to a more cruel and insufferable condition. Overproduction is cured by paying certain factories more than they can make by running their machinery, to close their doors, and thus thousands of workmen are turned out to idle, starve or tramp. And still not satisfied in their enormous exactions, these rich corporations are crying out for more protection from the government - their exactions from the toil and life-blood of the people to be, not only increased ad libitum, but enforced and exacted at the point of the government bayonets. Hundreds of factories are idle, while the owners are reaping rich profits from the very idleness that turns out the laborers to starve by the thousand. In the nature of things the laborer cannot hire a million of his fellow laborers to quit work any day, and pay them more for idling than they could make in work; but the great factories and mills can, and then they can force their manufactured articles to high enough price to pay these idle mills and pay themselves enormous fortunes. The laws of the land that not only permit but enable and encourage these national outrages, need the speedy attention of some such reform movement as was commenced in Bureau County, and that gave the incalculable benefits of its healthy correctives to the country at large. The success of that movement is a perpetual proof that the people need only move in the right direction in order to righjt their wrongs. It is better for the monopolies and great taxeaters themselves, that the people move in time, and bring them with a grand round-to at the ballot box, than that they should lie supinely and await the fastening of the fetters that will some day only be loosened by chopping off heads.

In the Hocking Valley (Ohio) mines are to-day 10,000 workmen thrown out of employment, and their families are on the roadsides unhoused and verging upon starvation. This is one small section of our country, and so far as these 10,000 men and their families are concerned, there is no government on earth that is exercising a more crushing tyranny than are these poor men suffering at the hands of the Hocking Valley Railroad and the mine owners and combined capital of the charter companies. The farmers of

Illinois would to-day have been in probably as wretched a state of serfdom and suffering as are these poor miners in Ohio, had they not boldly took the evil by the horns and stopped it in its career of general destruction - not only the farmers of Illinois, indeed, but the farmers, laborers and all industrial classes in the country. It is in the view of the anti-monopoly movement in this county that we are justified in saying that, considered in all its bearings, it was one of the greatest movements that has yet come from the people.

This anti-monopoly movement originated in Illinois - notonly in Illinois, but in Bureau County - and from here it has extended over our whole country. It was a remarkable struggle between right and wrong - most extraordinary indeed, when we consider the circumstances surrounding it. Never in the history of our country has the issue been so clearly and sharply made, where it was the people, the masses, on one side and the lawyers, legislators and the combined wealth of monopolies on the other side. The mass, the common people cannot be organized, while the moneyed power is a close corporation - an army equipped with all the sinews of war, ably generaled, every man in position, alert, vigilant, untiring and unscrupulous. The great movement rewrote the law of the land, and emancipated 50, 000,000 people.

We do not pretend to say that Mr. Bryant alone wrought out all these results; that he alone did the work from which have come these grand consequences. "We do not even insinuate anything of the kind, because he had able lieutenants, strong and willing hands to aid him when once the work was fairly commenced. We simply assert he was the prime instigator, who, when the harvests were ripe, called up the slumbering laborers and led them to the -field. We could name a score of men in Bureau County who are richly entitled to immortal honor for the efficient, prompt and wise aid in the field-work and in the councils of the leaders of this movement. Among this class of men, where there are so many that are especially worthy, it might seem invidious to mention some and omit others where the great numbers preclude the possibility of a full list. But at the risk of censure in this line, we will say that to the Hon. L. D. Whiting, who was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1870, is due the fullest credit for his efficient aid. He was literally the father of the Xlllth Article of the Constitution, wherein he had to meet nearly every leading lawyer in the convention and out of it. He was in the Senate when the Legislature considered the subject of passing laws to give force and effect to the Xlllth Article. And here the destiny of the movement rested on his shoulders, and it was his energy and ability that brought the eventual triumph.

Before the close of the late Rebellion, or at least immediately thereafter, Mr. Bryant began to call the attention of the people to the monstrous claims being put forth by certain charter companies. Through the papers he sounded notes of warning to the farmers of northern Illinois, against the exactions of railroads. In the early part of 1870 a meeting of the farmers assembled in Bloomington. Mr. Bryant attended this meeting and offered a series of resolutions through Hon. L. D. Whiting, in which for the first time in a public body was laid down the doctrine that the people had not bestowed upon charter companies " vested rights," that were above the power of the Government. He ably sustained his resolutions in a speech that was published and created a profound impression upon the country. Fortunately, in this meeting there was a delegate to the Constitutional

Convention, then nearly ready to assemble at Springfield - Hon. Lewis W. Boss, of Fulton County, who listened to the resolutions - and their advocacy by their author and largely through this circumstance and also another address delivered in Springfield by Mr. Bryant, during the session of the Convention, there was inserted in the Constitution " Article XIII, " to which reference is made in the decision of the Munn & Scott case above referred to. The address of Mr. Bryant in Springfield on the subject of corporations was published in the Industrial Age, and was widely read, and we are told that the printed address having fallen into the hands of Amasa Walker, who carefully read it and endorsed the positions there assumed, and thus the movement received the weight of this eminent financier and political economist. As a result of this movement of the people, in which they had to fight the combined power of wealth, the bench and the bar of the land, as well as the politicians, the first tangible advantage or victory was the incorporation of the " thirteenth Article " of our State Constitution. The motion to insert this article was bitterly opposed at every step by a powerful lobby, as well as by the attorneys of the railroads, who were not only members of the Convention, but were there in strong array and were everywhere proclaiming that the measure would bankrupt the rich corporations and ruin the country. The newspapers of the country took up the hue and cry against what they called the "social ists," the "destructives," and no taunt was spared, no vituperation was too strong for these "enemies of social order." But the movement went on like a rolling snow-ball; the people became thoroughly aroused, they listened to the "agitators," they started new papers to advocate the people's cause, they organized to some extent and began to nominate their own candidates, and after a long and tierce war of words the celebrated "thirteenth Article" of our Constitution was adopted by the convention. The overwhelming vote on the Constitution could not be misread, and it was natural that the succeeding Legislature would enact laws to enforce its provisions.

SECTION 1. All elevators or storehouses where grain or other property is stored for a compensation, whether the property stored be kept separate or not, are declared to be public warehouses.

SEC. 2. The owner, leasee or manager of each and every public warehouse situated in any town or city of not less than one hundred thousand inhabitants, shall make weekly statements under oath, before some officer to be designated by law, and keep the same posted in some conspicuous place in the office of such warehouse, and shall also file a copy for public examination in such place as shall be designated by law, which statement shall set forth the amount and grade of each and every kind of grain in such warehouse, together with such other property as may be stored therein, and what warehouse receipts have been issued, and are, at the time of making such statement, outstanding therefor, and shall, on the copy posted in the warehouse, note daily such changes as may be made in the quality and grade of grain in such warehouse; and the different grades of grain shipped in separate lots, shall not be mixed with inferior or superior grades without the consent of the owner or consignee thereof.

SEC. 3. The owners of property stored in any warehouse, or holder of a receipt for the same, shall always be at liberty to examine such property stored and all the books and records of the warehouse in regard to such property.

SEC. 4. All railroad companies and other common carriers on railroads shall weigh or measure grain at points where it is shipped, and receipt for the full amount, and shall be responsible for the delivery of such amount to the owner or consignee thereof at the place of destination.

SEC. 5. All railroad companies receiving and transporting grain in bulk or otherwise, shall deliver the same to any consignee thereof, or any elevator or public warehouse to which it may be consigned, provided such consignee or the elevator or public warehouse can be reached by any track owned, leased or used, or which can be used by such railroad companies, and all railroad companies shall permit connections to be made with their track, so that any such consignee, and any public warehouse, coal bank or coal-yard may be reached by the cars on said railroad.

SEC. 6. It shall be the duty of the General Assembly to pass all necessary laws to prevent the issue of false and fraudulent warehouse receipts, and to give full effect to this Article of the Constitution, which shall be liberally construed so as to protect producers and shippers. And the enumeration of the remedies herein named shall not be construed to deny to the General Assembly the power to prescribe by law such other and further remedies as may be found expedient, or to deprive any person of existing common law remedies.

SEC. 7. The General Assembly shall pass laws for the inspection of grain, for the protection of producers, shippers and receivers of grain and produce.

The Legislature passed laws giving force and effect to this Article of the Constitution, and then came the claim from the monopolists that the law was a barren nullity, and hence arose the case of Munn & Scott as a test case that was taken to the Supreme Court. The rich companies now sounded their notes of alarm all over the country. As an evidence of the wide-spread interest the movement in Bureau County had by this time created, and as a complete proof also that the anti-monoply movement had its inception and guidance in this county, we need only state the fact that the New York Tribune sent its correspondents to Princeton to interview the leaders and ascertain what they really meant by the bold movement. That paper had become alarmed at the reiterated assertions of the monopolists that it was the red revolutionist, and boded the destruction of the capital and great property interests of the country. These representatives of the New York papers*[called upon Mr. Bryant and frankly asked him if such were the purposes of the movement. They soon learned that nothing could be more false than the cry of the monopolists; that the movement was in the interests of all, especially the farmers, and through the farmers the permanent and true interests of the railroads and all other public corporations.

Our excuse, were any needed, for this extended notice of this important event, is the fact that it is the first time, so far as we can learn, that the facts have been given the world of this most vital movement of the people - their greatest victory since the formation of the Republic - and that its lessons should be known to every voter in the land, and for the further reason that one of the greatest truths in our political history may n'ot be wholly obscured and misrepresented, as it has been in a recent publication by D. W. Lusk, of Springfield, 111., entitled the " Political History of Illinois," in which is what purports to be the account of the anti-monopoly movement, that is a tissue of misrepresentations from the first to the last. There is hardly a single sentence in the account that is not only in error, but a total perversion of the truth. As a specimen of the recklessness or carelessness of the facts, this historian says the movement commenced in Washington City; that had it not been checked by the sober second thought of the people it would have destroyed the capital of the country ; that it was only evil in all its effects and aims; that it gradually extended west and invaded Illinois, and did succeed in even electing a member of our Supreme Court, etc., etc. If Mr. Lusk is in the pay of the country's common foe, then we are constrained to I say, his book is a weak invention of the enemy ; the history of even unimportant events cannot thus be either perverted or obscured, much less this great movement whose effects will go on and grow while our free institutions last. We refer to this error in the " Political History of Illinois " not to accuse the author of a willful perversion of the by far most important chapter in the history of the State, but to correct it, and as an evidence of how widespread is the ignorance of the people generally of the most important facts of their history - of events that have not only occurred recently, but in their very midst.

As a fitting conclusion to this chapter we quote a few sentences from an address by J. H. Bryant, delivered at the third annual mooting in Springfield of the Illinois State Farmers' Association, January 28, 1875, as follows:

It is now more than forty years since, when a young man, I came to this State, and with these hands reared my cabin amid a waste of uncultivated lands, with only one human habitation in sight. During all these years I have watched with joyous satisfaction each step of progress and every discovery in the arts and sciences tending to the elevation and improvement and happiness'of our people. I have witnessed with feelings akin to enthusiasm the rapid increase of our population, carrying with it the civil and religious institutions belonging to our age, and converting deserts and waste places into orchards, gardens and fruitful fields. There is not a fruit tree or shade tree in the county where I live that has not been planted since I first set foot upon its soil, and not a dwelling-house or other structure that was not built since that day. I have seen our population increase from about 150,000 to 3,000,000. But now it seems to me that dark clouds are gathering about our pathway, not only involving our pecuniary interests, but involving our personal rights. And we have a bitter contest before us - a struggle with an enemy that never sleeps. And this struggle with the monopolies that claim our God-given rights will not be a short one, unless - which God forbid - the people are the first to yield. So long as we have among us keen-sighted, selfish grasping men, so long unceasing watchfulness alone will preserve our free institutions from encroachments and finally from subversion. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty!"

I have said that railroads are conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity, and I believe this is true; so true that the contrary is the exception and not the rule. Where was there ever a railroad built in our State that there has not been wrong, cheating and deception interwoven in its every fiber? If all the villainies practiced by railroad managers, all the dark and hidden ways resorted to to extort money from the people, and even to rob their brother stockholders, were laid bare and exposed to view and fully or even partially understood, the public would stand aghast at the sight. It has been said that railroad companies have got all the money and all the brains on their side, and that they cannot be opposed with any chance of success. It is true that they have vast amounts of capital in their hands and can wield it very effectively. But the people collectively have vastly more beside the political power of the State, if they have virtue and wisdom enough to use it. And as for brains, railroad men have no more than many others. They are usually what are called sharp men, which means that they are subtle, cunning and grasping. This is, or would be, if their acts were known to the public, their general character - I mean the leading, controlling spirits. Look at them! Vanderbilt, Fisk, Jay Gould and others. These are your model railroad men who have adopted Rob Roy's

But you say all are not such. Perhaps not, but I think if the acts of all were laid bare to your inspection, you would find few exceptions, save in degree and opportunity. * * The money which gives them position and respectability is wrung from your hard earnings. And yet you are maligned, traduced, slandered, ridiculed and blackguarded and caricatured; called all manner of opprobrious names; charged with the intention to commit all manner of grave crimes against society; and all this goes to the public through the columns of the public prints of the large towns and cities, whose support comes largely from the patronage of the abused classes, reminding me of the story of the wounded eagle that saw its own feather guiding the arrow that pierced its heart * * * * They have under the pretense of rights granted them by our Legislature, usurped a portion of our sovereignty. They defy our authority, and rob us universally and systematically under the sacred name of law; every year entrenching themselves more strongly in power, until they shall have finally raised upon the ruins of public liberty a moneyed oligarchy more oppressive than the monarchies of the Old World.

Vested Rights

" Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone To reverence what is ancient,.and can plead A course of long observance for its use. To even vested rights, those worst of ills, Because delivered down from sire to son, Are kept and guarded as a sacred thing."

It is under this 'doctrine railroad corporations shield themselves in committing their extortions and robberies. It is a doctrine which grew up under despotic governments and is said in its inception to have been in the interests of liberty shielding the common people under certain chartered rights, granted by the king, from the oppressions of the great barons who claimed their allegiance and service. But it has no business in free America. In this country it is a grant against liberty and not in its favor. It is not, as of old, an act enfranchising the few, but enslaving the many. "The same process, which, when the people were debased, elevated them to their proper level, now, when the people are elevated and occupy the lofty place of equal political rights, debases them to a comparative servitude."

Away with it then, since it does not belong to the jurisprudence of a free people, and can not coexist with liberty and equal rights. Let it be buried with the dead past, where it belongs. I hear people say we must go slow; we must be careful not to wrong the railroad companies; let us be just and fair, even liberal. We must

But if they have all the money and all the brains, as some claim, 'and the right to do as they please, as they claim, one would think they might take care of themselves, which all experience proves that thus far they have been able to do.

But who has any wish to harm them? I know of no one. It is right and justice, or some approach to them, that we are after. Having submitted to wrong for many years, we think it about time to seek redress, and some of the people do mean to re-establish the supremacy of the Government over the railroads, make them submit to law, and regulate them as right and justice demand. * * * They will so constitute the courts that they will sustain the liberties of the people, without regard to any precedent or old decision whatever. * * * Mr. Harris, in his talk before the Railroad Committee, two years ago, insisted that we should so legislate that this company (the C., B. & Q.) could make good dividends - eight or ten per cent at least. But how is it with the millions of people by whom, and for whose more especial benefit this Government was instituted, and is sustained? Are they not as much entitled to legislation that will ensure good dividends, as these railroads? Nay, more, for they are children to the manor born, while the most of the railroad stock is owned by foreigners, and is controlled by a set of Wall Street gamblers, passing from hand to hand, like a shuttle-cock. The railroad rings have absorbed nearly all the earnings of our people for many years, and made themselves rich. Is it not about time the tables were turned? Cannot these people who have made such enormous dividends afford to take something less for a time, while the crushed people take a breathing-spell, and recruit a little? Is it not our right, nay, our duty, to compel them to do it, and thus save our people from poverty and our liberties from annihilation?

The times are sadly out of joint. Many of our public men, who have long been trusted, have lost the confidence of the people. Corruption, bribery and peculation have taken the place of old-fashioned integrity and honest dealings with the men of all parties, in our State and National councils. Force and fraud are more common and more successful in their schemes than ever before in the history of our country. There has never been a time when murders and other high crimes were so frequent and so boldly committed, or when human life was held so cheap, or when legislation was so corrupt, and the administration of justice so lax ; when the sanctity of an oath was so little regarded; when taxation was so oppressive on the mass of the people, or when public funds were so criminally or needlessly wasted, and our public treasuries so shamelessly plundered.

Scarce an instance of legislative or judicial bribery has come to light that could not be traced to some connection with railroads. The corrupting influence of money, in the hands of their emissaries - money wrongfully filched from your pockets - is sapping the very foundations of society. Railroad men subsidize the press, fee leading attorneys, and seek the favor of all active business men and other men of influence, by special favors, and all at the expense of the people who foot the bill.

[Here follows a brief and lucid account of the celebrated Dartmouth College case, and an explanation that it was not a decision that would sustain, except by the grossest distortion, the claims of the railroads and their attorneys. - ED.]

It is time this error of opinion was corrected, and a more just and sensible one promulgated. If our courts and attorneys cannot of themselves arrive at a more correct opinion - if they cannot see that the doctrine of vested rights, as applied to railroads, strikes at the very foundation of our liberties - it is for the people at large to give them lessons in State and National jurisprudence. The common instinct of the people teaches them better. They see the danger, and are determined to avoid it. If our courts will cling to this radical error, we must, as we have opportunity, replace them with men of more enlightened and just convictions.

- This talk that the people condemn the courts for deciding the law to be what it really is, is all nonsense, as much as to say the law is an exact science like mathematics, and that Judges can cipher out an infalible decision. The decision of the court is only the opinion of the men constituting the court - usually founded upon the opinion of other men given in similar cases. It may be right and it may be wrong. Another court may and ought to set it aside, if they believe it contrary to justice, and the best good of those concerned. Law, as administered, is for the time being what the court of last resort declares it to be. It is true there are immutable principles of right and justice, which ought to govern courts. And it is equally true that Judges, who are only men with the prejudices and imperfections common to us all, do not alway find the right, or if they do, are not always controlled by it in making up their decisions. * * *

Mr. President and gentlemen, reflecting upon the subject under consideration, it has seemed to me the hope of the Nation in this crisis is with the people of these Northwestern States, and I think I can give good reasons for my opinion. Ours is a great segregated population, by which I mean, that with us generally each individual man in his material interest, at least stands more independent of every other man than is the case in any other part of our country. There is a smaller part of our people who are directly and necessarily dependent upon others for labor and bread, than in any other section of this Nation. They are also less controlled by the conventionalities of society than in the older States where wealth is more in the hands of the few. Our people are consequently better prepared to act independently and more directly upon their convictions of right, and more decidedly and intelligently for the public good. Now let us turn to the older States, Massachusetts, for example. There the preponderance of population and political power is in the cities and manufacturing villages. There a larger majority of voters are under the influence, if not control.of the wealthy employer or corporation. Thus the corporate wealth of the State, consisting of the railroads and the great manufacturing establishments, which are essentially one in interest, control the political destinies of the State. So completely is this the case that their Railroad Commissioners declare, in their report, that the railroads are the controlling power in the Legislature. The other New England States are no exception in thisrespect, and New Jersey and Pennsylvania are not far behind, while New York is essentially controlled by her vast,

One is almost led to think that in this last paragraph Mr. Bryant was foreseeing what would soon come in the way of distorting and misrepresenting the people of Illinois, and especially the people of Bureau County, in the entire false coloring of this very important chapter in history. He plainly indicates that such a movement could only start in the Northwest, as it did, and that it is here the country will some day learn to look for its bold and able defenders - to the people possessing that genius of freedom that dares stand up in the face of all the world and assert their rights.

During the past summer several places have come forward as the champion spots of the birth-place of the Republican party. We believe some place in Maine, August 13 last, celebrated the anniversary of this great event. There are hundreds of people here living in the county that will recollect a meeting held on the grounds of J. H. Bryant, July 4, 1854, where resolutions were passed and an organization formed, and as Judge Stipp informs us, named Republican party, and many persons signed the articles or constitution, and this was the same organization that extended over the country and in six years after its birth elected Abraham Lincoln President. There is strong evidence going to prove the fact that here was the birth-place of the Republican party. Here, too, originated the idea and finally the act of the State Legislature which led to the building of the noted and splendid Princeton High School, and the general law empowering other townships in the State to build similar schools.

We assume the fact that these three things are great historical events; events that have had, and will continue to have, immense influence and effect throughout the State and Nation. And like many of the greatest events in history that were freighted ' with the weal of Christendom, and that will grow and deepen for incalculable generations to come, they came so silently, were born of the brain and heart of men so retiring by their very nature, that their nearest neighbors heard no bluster and brag and noise, and really were not aware that they were moving in the midst of events that would never be forgotten, and that would, be studied and contemplated in the long after-ages as the pages of most absorbing interest.

It is not the noisy events, or the notorious and noisy men that are always the true themes of the historian. But it is this common error of writers that talk so long and so learnedly and so silly often, about notorious things in the belief that they are the only items in history worth considering. The writer remembers hearing, not long ago, a discussion in a literary society of "Who is the greatest living American?" One speaker bravely contended it was Setli Green, the father of fish culture. Another speaker ridiculed the Green idea; inquired who ever heard of Green, and contended that Beecher was the man, because everybody knew of Beecher, and declared that the whole population would turn out to see him if he was to come to the village, etc., etc. The neat retort was, that if notoriety constituted greatness, then Guiteau, the assassin (who was then on trial), was the greatest man in the world. To ninety-nine men in a hundred, all they ask is, Was he ever in Congress or worth a million dollars, and if not, they jump to the conclusion, " Oh, he wasn't much - no greater than I am." They can estimate a man only by the noise he makes, much as did the darkey when he said, "That was the biggest speech I ever heard; why, 3'ou could hear it a mile."

We have no hesitation in saying that Bureau County will eventually go into history as the historic county in the Nation, and she will wear this great title from the men who have passed their active lives here and wrought out some of the most important events in our Nation's history.