Show THE RESPONSIBILITY The experimental InterState law is still experimenting The many and serious seri-ous difficulties attending tho attempt ol the Government to curb the power of the great railway corporations is most conclusive proof of the pressing necessity for such curbing The railway corporations corpora-tions have so long wrung lawless and excessive ex-cessive tribute from the people that they have come to regard such tribute as a legitimate inheritance The railroad power is firmly seated and it will take more than one effort to hurl it from its places of strength The interstate law of the present is but tho initial attempt The conflict between the rights of the public and the usurpation of the railroad corporation has but begun Reform is making its first assault on tho carefully planned and constructed intrenchments of a great and powerful pow-erful abuse Naturally the first triumph is with organized power and cemented strength The raw and hastily marshalled popular levies have failed in the first assult But they are not by any means discouraged The InterState law is an experiment it is true but is an expenment imperatively called for It is a National manifesto It is an announcement of an unalterable National policy Crude though it is it i contains the germs of final and inevitable inevita-ble victory The InterState law has the irrisistible might of the Nation at its back it is vital with popular life and and its success is as certain as is the existence exist-ence of the Nation Additional legislation legisla-tion is required In many respects the law will have to be amended Its active and vivifying principle however has I been born for all time And whenco comes the necessity for this bitter and desperate fight thus thrust upon the people Who is responsible for the state of affairs that has rendered this desperate and bitter conflict a necessity Why does there exist in a free country an abuse so powerful that the full strength of the Nation has to be invoked for its abolition The answer follows tho question The answer is read in those words of such wide and evil import to the Nation twentyfour years of Republican Re-publican rule It is tho Republican party who is responsible for the overshadowing over-shadowing power of the railroad corporations To the Republican party is directly chargeable the bitter and gigantic struggle now in progress between corporation and the public The railroad corporations have drawn their evil strength from Republican Republi-can nourishment and through Republican Republi-can fostering have they become a menace to the Nation Republicanism and Corporation Cor-poration have ever been firm allies It has always been a case of mutual back scratching Corporation was given the entre of plunder to the National treasury I treas-ury by Republican Administrations and in return that plunder maintained main-tained the Republican Administrations in power It was a bargain of corruption cor-ruption and a negotiation of fraud As the power of the railroad corporations grew so thrived the Republican party It was a question only of mutual benefit formulated strictly on a Republican basis This characteristic application of Republican Repub-lican politics to National affairs was one of the many similar causes leading to tho overthrow of the Republican Repub-lican party at the polls in 1884 It is one of the strongest of the doors the people have closed upon Republican opportunities op-portunities It is one of the broad stand st-and firmest of the many seals of condemnation condem-nation the Nation has placed upon Republican Re-publican policy The overthrow of Corporation Cor-poration will follow the overthrow of Republicanism Re-publicanism The InterState law is the weapon of the people This weapon will be duly strengthened and sharpened until it will be able to finally strike homo |