The Workingman's Advocate

CORPORATIONS RULE THE COUNTRY.

We boast ourselves an intelligent people. Whether we are so is a question which a few years more will definitely settle. The incubus of negro slavery crushed out humanity in the South until it became a Sodom, that only the reign of fire and brimstone could cleanse: and the North became so far demoralized by it that it was some time before it could be determined whether it would not share the same fate. But amidst the surging fires of revolution it was, after a while, discovered that one good effect had come out of our republican institution—the quickening power of individual responsibility among the industrial classes.

Intelligence, united with honest industry, saved the land, in spite of bad generalship and still worse statesmanship. Having removed the nightmare of slavery from the black man, the industrial classes can now examine the situation carefully, and see that the uplifted load does not so change its form that it comes back with redoubled force upon the backs of both white and black laborers. If so, it can only be lifted again through revolution. Slavery is one form of "institutions" which makes one class earn the living, and grants the blessed perquisite to the other class to eat it without paying for it.

Corporations are the modern and more comprehensive mode of procuring the same result, more extensively, and much more secretly and certainly. The principle in both "institutions" is the same. But slavery requires a personal supervision of the subject to obtain the fruits of the slaves' labor; corporations reach the same result through the operation of their legal machinery, without coming in direct contact with the subject or slave. The question of these laws and their practical working may be seen by the following extract, taken from the daily press, upon the subject of railroads: and.

"Considerable agitation has been caused in financial circles by the announcement that Mr. James Barton, the well known author, had published a treatise on 'The Relations of Railroad Corporations to Party Politics.' It sets forth, in considerable detail, the working of several roads, chiefly, however, the organization and management of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company, and its dependencies. It is alleged that within three years the chief officers have issued new capital, without a corresponding increase of assets, amounting to over nineteen millions of dollars. Also, that about three millions have been divided among the directors by the transaction. That the dividends paid have been borrowed at a loss of nearly thirty per cent. It is also asserted that the rates of transportation have been raised along the lines—from 50 to 58 per cent. on the score of earning a fair return for this fictitious capital. The article broadly intimates, also, that vast sums of these monies are spent for electioneering purposes, and, among other things, to pay the expenses of McClellan in Europe."

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