NEGenWeb Project
Resource Center
On-Line Library:

     His Excellency, Hon. ROBERT W. FURNAS, Governor of the State of Nebraska, introduced Mr. MORTON, to the audience, as follows::

     LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: it is with pleasure that I welcome you to this, our seventh annual exhibition, to which we have brought for your inspection and consideration the products of Nebraska soil and climate. Various promptings lead to the selection of orators on such occasions as this. Often individuals of particular note are selected to draw a crowd, and again the object has been to present an array of statistical information relating to the country, and serve more as an advertisement than otherwise. Believing that the time has arrived when we should have plain, practical talks with ourselves, as to matters in which all, who are co-laborers in the work of developing a nature-favored region, are interested, we have selected for our speaker, on this occasion, one of nearly twenty years' practical experience in our State--the Hon. J. STERLING MORTON--whom I now have the pleasure of introducing, and who will address you.:

     Mr. MORTON proceeded:

MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

     Eighteen years ago, for the first time, I visited and admired this beautiful and fertile valley. It was a bright and cheery day in September, 1855. The emerald glories of the prairie were fading into the amber colors of autumn. That peculiar haziness, so characteristic of the fall in this climate, filled the sky and hung like an incense in all the air. A supreme solitude rested down upon these plains, and from the Missouri to this valley there was no sign of civilization; not a cabin, not even a plow furrow. At night we camped where Ashland now stands. Indians were unpleasantly near, and early on the succeeding morning, they called upon and cheerfully informed us, by unmistakable sign language, that any prolonged visit in this propinquity would result in a loss of hair by a method of "barbarism" entirely aboriginal; in short, that we

would lose out scalps. This hospitable reception caused us to regret that we had important business at home, and abbreviated our sojourn so suddenly, that in ten hours we had arrived at a point where Nebraska City now stands. Then the buffalo, the wolf; and the Indian, here held indisputable title. But the buffalo has gone, the Indian has followed him, as other warrior are apt to follow their quartermasters and commissaries, and the wolf tagged at the heels of the Indian as a camp follower. The rustle of their foot-steps in the tank prarie (sic) grasses has hardly died in the air, the embers of their camp fires have scarcely gone out, and vet the rumble of the cars and tile din of active commerce go up here night and day from towns and cities. The splash of the mill wheel, the puff of the steam engine, and the hum of contented industry, mingle together in every valley and make that music to which marches the civilization of the age,

     Just as the human mind, with all its wonderful and almost infinite faculties without cultivation remains, though created in the Divine image. a barren blank, so then these fin' undulating land oceans. peopleless, plowless and undeveloped, concealed their fertility and usefulness.,. As education leads out the mental powers and grows great thoughts, so does intelligent and skillful tillage elucidate the productive capacities of new lands and bring bountiful harvests and beautiful homes into being, as trophies of the conquests of human labor. The orchard, the forest, the field, and the hedgerow. have usurped the places of the primeval prairie, and a generation hence, even the picture of the plains will only he faintly limned in legend and in song. Even now it is difficult to recall the image of that treeless, houseless plain which stretched its flower spangled verdure from time rivet to the mountains in 1855. Upon that vast volume of barrenness has now been imprinted, by the plowshares the autograph of agriculture. All over its leaves are written in the rugged hand of toil, its wonderful adaptability for culture and production. Everywhere in the State, in plethioric granaries, in laden trains of hurrying ears, in waving fields of corn, in prosperous homes, and in human faces radiant with health, one reads in strong italics, the glorious story of a glorious change for the prairies of Nebraska:

---

5

      You remember those signs which, in your youthful days, were an artistic mystery, because in one light they read "glazing," in another "painting," and instill another, in golden colors "gilding." To-day the memory of that sign comes back to us, and we may sincerely congratulate ourselves that while along the avenues of commerce in many of the older States the sojourners read glazing only, in the prosperous progress of Nebraska is beheld the brighter words, painting and gilding. It is new; its embellishment is just beginning. The dormant powers of its soil are just arousing from the sleep of centuries. As the infant in its cradle wakes to smile at the imprint of a mother's kiss, so these sleeping prairies, touched by the deft and kindly hand of human labor, wake to smile with harvests and with wealth.

Has been ; the Indian has been, but Nebraska, as a swiftly growing commonwealth, now is a conceded fact in the popular mind all over the Union. No State excels it in the rapidity of material advancement. A few years hence, and every valley will be musical with sounds of the shop and the railroad. Every stream will be at work as a power-agent, turning mills, and scarcely a single drop of water shall escape to the Gulf that has not been vexed by our water wheels. These water courses are no longer subject to aboriginal control; the ingenuity of the white race has forever usurped, with works of utility and beauty, the Indian canoeity of its former copper-colored proprietors, and the lands are ours and our descendants' forever--heritage of health and wealth to the end of time!

     It is a singular fact, and one to which general attention is not often called, that land, in and of itself, has no more exchangeable value than air and water. The soil, however good and fertile it may be, is utterly without value until some human effort has been expended upon it or about it. In 1855 the soil of Nebraska was the same as in 1873, and yet these lands were without any market value whatever, and one might as well have offered for sale a barrel of water, to be taken on the run in the Missouri river, at that time, as an acre of land in Nebraska. Then the offer to sell, in New York. a prairie thunder storm or a northwest wind would have been entertained with the same degree of cordial consideration that a proffer

to convey, for a value, a quarter section of land where Kearney City or Lowell or Columbus now stands, would have been taken under advisement. In the clear language of Prof. Perry, in his admirable work upon Political Economy::

     "We conclude, then, that the value of land follows the law of all other values; that it arises only in connection with human efforts; that the utility in land sold is due in part to nature, in part to man; that landed property rests back, like all other property, its ultimate defence (sic) upon the right of making efforts for one's own welfare, and of not parting with these efforts except for an equivalent; that land and the use of it have value because the proprietor can by them render a service to somebody else: and finally that the value and the rent of land vary like all other values, under the law of supply and demand."

     In 1860 the supply of land in Nebraska was seventy-five thousand square miles, but the demand was limited, because, by the United States census of that year, there were less than 29,000 men, women and children in the territory, less than half a human being to each section of land. There are here present many familiar faces. The eyes to those faces wearied many times during the last eighteen years, in looking out over these houseless, furrowless plains. They saw utility in this soil, but no value. They would purchase no more of it than their necessities required them to hold for home and comfort. Many men whom I sec here to-day have said, time and again, "I want no land west of Weeping Water, certainly none so far out as Salt Creek, the Loup Fork, Republican, or even the Blue; it is valueless.":

     But there have been put forth such human efforts in reference to these lands, such gigantic exertions of muscle, mind, money and steam engines, that value has accrued with a rapidity which makes one doubt the veracity of his own five senses, and almost realize the golden dreams of the Alchemists of the middle ages.

     Accessibility to markets makes lands valuable. The railroads in Iowa and Illinois, which reach out from the head of the great lakes and hand the Chicago grain price to the farmer in the Missouri Valley, less the cost of carriage, will, unless prevented by protective legislation in those States, continue to enhance the value of

real estate upon the west side of the Missouri river. Unrestricted and ungoverned as to freight tariffs, except by the law of competition, they will continue to give us, in the future as in the past, such reasonable rates of transportation that we cannot afford to fail to use them as our carriers in taking our surplus breadstuffs and meats to market, and in bringing our lumber, iron and other commodities from the great commercial centers.

     In 1855 it cost more dollars in gold to build a house in Omaha or Nebraska City or Plattsmouth or Brownville than a facsimile of that house can to-day be erected for, in currency, at Kearney Junction. In those days we paid from seventy-five to one hundred dollars per thousand, in gold coin, for pine lumber, and ten dollars per thousand, in the same old-fashioned circulating medium, for pine shingles.

     Freights of whatsoever kind were brought us by steamers on the Missouri river. The low rates of tariff were sixty to seventy-five cents per one hundred pounds, and in the fall of the year we frequently paid two dollars a hundred pounds from St. Louis to Omaha and Nebraska City; and at one time I remember exceedingly well we paid five dollars per hundred pounds freight upon paper which we consumed in issuing a journal which advocated the speedy settlement of Nebraska, and exhorted capital to build hither railroads over which might be sent us coal, lumber, groceries and manufactured articles at less rates. In those days it was more than two hundred miles to any point at which you could hear the rumble if cars, or look upon even a grade for a railroad. This land cried aloud for efforts which should make it valuable and place it in connection with the commerce of the world. A human being with the best of legs, but those legs having no blood circulating in them, and entirely cut off from vital communication with the heart, will prove a cripple, will limp until paralysis is removed by restoration of the circulation. Nebraska and her productive lands were so cut off from the commercial heart of the busy outside world. Nebraska was paralized and crippled because there were no veins and arteries of commerce which permeated her lands and led back to the vital centers of trade and prosperity in the East.

---

8

     In 1868 the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad Company, having expended more than twenty millions of dollars in the construction and equipment of a line of road from Chicago to Omaha, steamed the first locomotive to the eastern bank of the Missouri. This gave to Nebraska her first connection with the pine lumber regions of Wisconsin. This made coal an article of common consumption, by bringing the coal beds at Boone, in Iowa, into railroad communication with the Missouri Valley. It gave the first impetus to the enhancement of landed values in this State, and was the early dawn only, of the bright day, in the forenoon of whose light we now stand.:

     Then, on June 7th, 1869, was opened up from Chicago to the Missouri river, a distance of five hundred miles, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, at a cost of twenty more millions of dollars. Then began competition for our carrying trade: and new lumber marts and coal fields were made accessible, and thereby a new enhancement was given to real estate values.:

     Again, there came the B. & M. R. R. from the Mississippi, giving Nebraska still another connection with Chicago, over a line of road costing millions of dollars and covering more than five hundred miles. And again new coal fields and lumber markets are developed for us, and more competition created for our benefit an! the enhancement of our lands.

     Here, very briefly, I have noticed three corporate and gigantic efforts made in reference to our lands, and with the immediate effect of giving them value. These efforts alone involved the disbursement, or rather the investment, of more than seventy millions of dollars. And that they have added twice that sum to the taxable value of lands in this State, no sane man can contradict. But this is not the end of human effort in this regard; the railroad along the Missouri River, from St Joseph and Kansas City, giving us commercial relations with St. Louis, is another magnificent achievement in our behalf. And after these lines to the east and south come the roads in Nebraska. In 1865 we had the commencement of the Union Pacific, and only 122 miles of that; in 1866 we had

---

9

grown to 305 miles; in 1867 to 473 miles; in 1870 to 705 miles; in 1871 to 943 miles; and now, within the limits of this State, we have the A. & N. Railroad, the M. P. Railway, the O. & S. W. Railroad, the B. & M. Railroad, and the O. & N. W. Railroad, which, with the Union Pacific, aggregate more than 1,500 miles of track, and represent an expenditure of more than one hundred millions of dollars. These are among the principal causes of value to our lands. They have made them inhabitable. They have made them accessible. They are the iron tonic which has given a new life and vigor to our commerce and industries. Without these and similar efforts our prairies would be as valueless to-day as they were eighteen years ago. As in Omaha and other centers of trade the horse railways have equalized the values of residence lots, bringing up the prices of those remote from the heart of business, so the great railroad lines which pierce the United States from the Atlantic to the Missouri and the Pacific coast have proved themselves the great levelers and equalizers of land values, bringing up the lands of the West to co-equal worth with those of the Eastern and Middle States. They create land values by making markets for products possible and practical.:

     There is said to be a man in the moon. If that man be some celestial Tom Scott or Vanderbilt, and a lunatic upon the subject of owning railroads, he may devise means, by some lunar science to us unknown, through which, in the night time, he may let down from his union depot in the moon a vast grappling-iron, and pull up all the railroads between us and the great lakes, between us and the Gulf, and all within our State and hence to the Pacific Ocean. It is not likely that such an occurrence will transpire. But imagine that we should wake up some bright morning and find the railroads mentioned all gone to the moon. What value would there be in your lands or their surplus products? But enough of lands and the efforts which make them valuable. After land made valuable, we need

     Physical labor consists in moving things. The expansion and contraction of muscles, either to produce or to resist motion, make up the material labor of the world.

     Professor Perry illustrates this idea most perspicuously thus::

     "When the pioneer fells a tree, he moves his axe through the trunk, and then the power of gravitation seizes the tree and brings it to the ground. He produces a series of motions upon the tree, but the final motion, by which the century-girdled oak comes crashing to the earth, is not of his producing. Nature does that. Wool, cotton, and flax have by nature a certain tenacity of fibre. Man moves these fibers in certain relations to each other, by an instrument called a spindle, and the result is thread. Then the threads are moved in certain relations with each other, by an instrument called a shuttle, and the result is a web of cloth. The tailor moves his shears through the cloth and then his needles, and the result is a coat-the object of utility for which all these processes are gone through with. The farmer first moves the ground, then moves his seed into it, moves his sickle through the standing grain, moves the grain to the thresher, moves it from the thresher to the mill, moves it from the mill to the larder in the form of flour, at which point the housewife begins to operate upon it with a new series of motions. She moves it to the kneading-trough, and having well moved it there, moves it to the oven, and from the oven, after due interval, moves it to the table, at which point production ceases and consumption begins."

Being the primal and essential element in labor and production, man looks for aid in bringing about motion. The domestic animals, since the earliest times, have been used for this purpose. Then wind and water, and latterly steam and electricity. And yet all these axuiliaries (sic) to human effort produce no other motions than those of which the human arm is capable. The most complex enginery (sic), urged by the heaviest pressure of steam, can only reproduce simple motions such as are within the capability of the muscles of the small arm of a little child.:

     Material production will always depend upon Labor (Power-Agents) and Capital. "It is only exertion which demands for itself something in exchange which is technically Labor." It may be mental or physical exertion. Now, a serious question, and one which is to-day being pondered by thousands, is how shall the eqitable (sic) remuneration of labor be fixed? How shall justice in this regard be attained?

---

11

THE PURCHASING POWER

Of labor must be determined as the purchasing power of all other things is determined. And now I shall speak only of physical or common labor, and not of what is termed professional. That employment which is agreeable, healthful, cleanly, not very confining, reputable and safe, will have more persons engaged in it than one which is disagreeable, unhealthy, dirty, confining, disreputable and unsafe. Then, other things being equal, the wages of that employment will be cheapened by an abundant supply.:

     The scavengers the powder mill operative, the glass blower, the miner, each receive and compel larger wages because the disagreeableness of those occupations, lessens the supply of such laborers. The more easily an occupation is learned, the greater the number who engage in it, and the cheaper the compensation. The greater the difficulty in acquiring a knowledge of any avocation, the fewer who enter upon it and the greater the wages. Stable boys are plenty, the duties of stable boys are easily learned, and the wages of stable boys are low. The engraver's art is not readily acquired, engravers are not plenty, and the compensation is exceedingly remunerative to those who attain excellence therein.:

     The compensation for agricultural labor is the compensation upon which the prosperity of this State must, in a great measure, depend. The better that labor, the better its wages. The more the intelligence which directs farm work, the higher the perfection attained, and, therefore, the more satisfactory the wages. The day of muscular farming, without mental motion, is gone. The time of making wry faces at "book firming" has expired. Reading and thinking are as essential to the farmer as to the lawyer and physician. His avocation requires mental as well as muscular effort. As the machinery of soil tillage is improved, so must

Of agriculture develop and advance. The knowledge which could control the muscle to wield the sickle and the scythe, will not suffice for the reapers and mowers with their levers and cogs and complex wheels. While the demand for bread and meat is transmitted from the old world to the new, under the waters of the Atlantic by means of the telegraphic cable, and in an hour's time reiterated from

New York to San Francisco, the old-fashioned way of "writing to town" or riding over to a neighbor to learn the value of your products, will not answer. A ceaseless vigilance over the newspapers of the country, a steady eye upon the market reports, and a constant posting upon the supply and demand in all portions of the civilized globe, will alone place producers on equal vantage ground with other laborers.:

     Reading, reasoning, remembering, are exercises of the mind which will elevate the character and value of this labor. Too little of this exercise is indulged in by farmers, and too much of it never has been. In a country so free as ours is to labor, and so partial to those who conquer success for themselves, any laborer may become a capitalist, and in the vicissitudes of commerce, any capitalist may become a laborer. Demagogues small-fry politicians, crosses between the fool and the knave, are always endeavoring to illustrate the utter want of identity in the interests of capital and labor-always striving to show that the former is murdering the latter. But, really and truly,

Are brothers mutually dependent upon each other. Labor renders a service for wages, and capital does the same thing for profits. Had we a million of laborers in the State, and no capital out of which to create a wages fund, we would make no advancement and achieve no improvement. And had we, on the other hand, millions of capital and no laborers, our affairs would be equally at a standstill. In a representative democratic government, like ours, there is only one well-grounded cause of alarm among laborers, as to the demands and powers and encroachments of capital. That cause exists in the willingness of legislatures to grant special privileges to corporations. Extraordinary rights and immunities, by means of corporate charters conferred upon aggregated capital, are dangerous to the welfare and to the liberty of the people. Educate the masses who labor, and they will attend to it that their representatives squander no time in special legislation. Educated laborers-men whose thinking powers have been led out and exercised will take good care that capital has no advantages in legislation over labor. If agriculture would keep pace with the world of commerce

and secure for itself reasonably remunerative wages, agriculture must read, write, reason and advance the quality of its services.:

     "Capital and labor should both have the utmost liberty of action compatible with social security; and the equal rights of each will, in general, best be reached by leaving both to take care of themselves, subject only to general laws relative to persons and property."

     If capital may control legislation, labor may demand the same prerogative. When capitalists "strike" for higher profits through the enactment of protective legislation, through special charters and through high tariffs, they may reasonably expect that, emulating Their pernicious example, laborers will "strike" for higher wages. The primary cause of the agitation and discontent of labor to-day, is found in that insatiable greed of capital which has demanded and secured for itself special and unjust privileges at the hands of national and State legislatures.:

     This must be ended, and ended quickly, too. There is no lawmaking power beneath the sun wise enough to enact and declare how many hours a day labor shall strive, nor how much capital shall pay for the day's compensation. To attempt to do either is to go out of the province of legislation, to create social discord and commercial disaster. The channels of commerce have their clear and well-defined courses. wherein they pour along as strongly and naturally as do the waters of the Blue or the Elkhorn, through the beautiful valleys which they embelish (sic) and enrich. Occasionally upon the banks of those streams may be observed a convocation of grave and noisy frogs. They look into the crystal waters, wink wisely, and finally jump in, apparently to clarify the stream. The moment they are in, there is mud where was purity, blackness where was whiteness, and no bottom visible. Those frogs-in gravity, in winks, in wisdom, and the result of their plunging into clear waters--remind one very much of a State legislature diving bodily into the channels of commerce, arid attempting to regulate the relations of labor and capital, and the currents of trade, by statutory provisions. They muddy that which was clear, and foul that which was pure. Illinois has recently illustrated the folly of attempting

to repeal the law of competition and erect instead thereof the 1aw of self-protection in a statutory form.

     Because the railroads were carrying, on wholesale principle, the breadstuffs and meats of Nebraska and Western Iowa to Chicago--a distance of more than five hundred miles--for a less price per ton per mile than they carried Illinois products to Chicago-a distance of fifty or two hundred and fifty miles--the aggregate representative wisdom of Illinois passed the act which came into effect on July 1st, 1873. If you or I purchase one hundred yards of cotton cloth, do we not know that we get it at a less price per yard than we can procure a single yard for? And because we get a hundred yards at less price than A and B each buy one yard at, shall the Legislature be convoked to enact that. "Any merchant doing business in this State, who shall make any discrimination in the prices of cotton goods more favorable to a wholesale purchaser than to a retail purchaser, more advantageous to the rich buyer than to the poor buyer, shall be deemed guilty of extortion," etc., etc. Absurd as such a proposition appears, it is just picture of the railroad legislation of Illinois. The real object of the Illinois statute may have been a protective one. Under the freight tariffs upon the three great roads which connect Nebraska and Western Iowa with Chicago, our products were reaching that city at an average cost of transportation, from the Missouri river, of less than thirty cents a hundred pounds.

And donated homes of Nebraska were pouring their never-failing and abundant productions into a market, where they came into competition with the same sort of products, gathered from less fertile and much higher-priced farms. Of course, Nebraska land, yielding always as much wheat and corn to the acre as Illinois land, obtainable at one-half, one-third, or one-tenth the price per acre of Illinois land-in fact, obtainable as a free gift--and then having, in proportion to the distance from market, a much lower rate of product carriage, could deliver wheat and meat in Chicago, and make money, at a price which would preclude poorer and higher-priced soils from competition with them, except at a reduced profit or at

an absolute loss. Hence, possibly, this legislation to shut us out from Chicago and protect themselves against the fertility of Iowa and Nebraska. But the result is to

In Chicago. If we can sell that city no grain, no beef, no pork, that city shall sell us no dry goods, no groceries, no manufactures. If it were possible, by legislation, to fence out our products from the great lakes and cheap water transportation from Chicago to New York, while it would depreciate the value of our lands, it would not enhance the lands of the State which spawned the law. Then, if Illinois is obliged, through her own farmers and her own productions--having driven all inter-State commerce from her borders to support her own railroads, Illinois lands will go down in price, because of the additional cost of transportation, which must ensue when her railroads are forced out of the wholesale carrying trade of the entire Northwest, and into the retail carrying trade of a single State. As merchants like Stewart, or Claflin, or Peake, Opdyke & Co., of New York, can afford to sell twenty or thirty millions of dollars' worth of goods per annum, at a profit of 10 per cent. better than a merchant at North Platte, in Nebraska, can afford to sell eleven or twelve thousand dollars' worth a year, at a profit of 3,313 per cent., so can a railroad afford to carry the products of five States to market, at a less cost per hundred pounds per mile, than it can transport the products of a single State. As it would bankrupt any county in Nebraska to be obliged, with its marketable products, to maintain, by freight tariffs upon such products, a railroad from its county seat to Chicago or St. Louis, so will

Bankrupt itself; if, by its own legislation, barring out the carrying trade of all other States, it attempts to support, by the hauling of its own productions to market, the six thousand six hundred miles of railroad track and twelve hundred locomotives and thirty odd thousand cars which belong to that track, within its own borders, and the total gross earnings of which, to make five per cent. dividends on the capital invested, must be more than $40,000,O00 a year.

---

16

     In the Western States, including all northwest of the Ohio river to the Rocky mountains, there are 28,778 miles of operating railroad, which cost, per mile, $50,550, while those in New England cost $50,418, and those in the Middle States $79,427 a mile. The ratio of net earnings to cost in the Western States, was 4 57-100 per cent. against 6 26-100 in New England, and 7 24-100 in the Middle States. To each mile of road in the Western States, there are 433inhabitants, and in the New England and Middle States there are 770. In 1872, the receipts per mile, in the Western States, were $6,735, against $10,636 in New England and $14,565 in the Middle States, and the dividends were less than 3 per cent. on the capital stock. Now, then, if the State of Illinois has the right to enact laws to compel our products to help pay the costs of carrying her products to market, why has not Congress the power, through the majority of New England and Middle State representatives, to enact that the earnings, per mile of railroads, shall he equal all over the Union?:

     The Western State railroads only earn $6,000, while New England earns $10,000 and the Middle States $14,000 per mile per year. Here is what Illinois wisdom would term an

In favor of the people who use railroads in the West, as against those who use them in the East. And therefore shall Congress legislate the West up to paying railroads as much a mile a year as the East pay", them, or shall Congress legislate to average the expenses to all the people, and thereby bring the East down a little and the West a good deal?

     Is it not better to leave the service of railroads to be governed by the law of supply and demand? Are they not subject to the laws of competition? If the roads of the West pay exceedingly well, will not more railroads be constructed to struggle with these already operating, in a contest for our carrying trade?

     Thus far 1 have not alluded to one advantage which the people of this State, and, in fact, of nearly all the States, seem willing, too

willing, to bestow upon corporate capital in the form of railroad companies. I mean the vicious and inequitable custom of donating evidences of county debt, in the form of interest bearing bonds, to these corporations. Whatever specious arguments may be used in favor of the practice, it is one which cannot be too soon abandoned in Nebraska, and everywhere else. If the counties will vote bonds to no corporations whatever, the solid ones will develop the country and construct lines of track wherever the demand for the investment promises a profit thereon. Now, the giving away of bonds being decided lawful, the rich corporations demand subsidies from the people as vehemently as those composed of adventurous and saucy speculators demand them. Their excuse is that if they build good roads, and the counties are not in debt to them, they will certainly soon run in debt to speculative lines, and the real ones will be taxed to help pay for their construction. There ought to be a

To the issuance of donations of county bonds to railroad companies. As there is none, there, should be a public sentiment so strong against the practice as to end it now, before the realty of the entire commonwealth, and the labor of a generation to come, have been mortgaged to railroads.:

     I would make no unjust war upon capital, but I am always ready and willing to resist its unjust demands. Capital and labor should have equal rights before the law-nothing more for either, and nothing less for either.:

     The railroads without your farms well-tilled and brought to a high state of production would be worthless indeed, and your farms, however bountiful the return of product for your labor, would be valueless without the track, the engine and the ear, which connect you with the markets of the world.

     In 1830 there were only 28 miles of railroad in the American Union. In 1854, when the Territory of Nebraska was opened to settlement, there were 16,720 miles. In 1867, when this State was admitted, there were 39,276 miles, and to-day there are more than 68,000 miles of operating railroads within the United States. This

is the work of only forty-two years. In magnitude it matches the territorial magnificence of the American Republic, which has a total area of 2,983,153 square miles; is almost ten times as large as Great Britain and France combined; is three times as large as the whole of France, Britain, Austria, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland and Denmark together; one and a half times as large as the Russian Empire in Europe, and one-sixth less only than the area covered by the sixty Empires, States and Republics of Europe.

     But of all the Western States Nebraska has the least amount of railroads in proportion to her square miles of land. At this time Nebraska has only one mile of railroad to each seventy-two square miles of land, and only 157 inhabitants to those seventy-two square miles. Their, as a people, our own selfishness prompts us, laying aside all principles of justice which should govern, to deal fairly and equitably with capital, either in the form of railroads or other shape. We cannot afford to denounce those things which develop the State and benefit its citizens so long as the laws are just, honestly administered, and equally obligatory upon the poor and the rich--upon the individual and upon the corporation.:

     When the laborer, the cultivator, and the harvester have still further subjugated the lands of Nebraska and increased their capacity of production, we shall feel more keenly than now the absolute necessity of another outlet to the seaboard.

Is less than eight hundred miles. Hence to Beatrice, on that route, the cars already run; thence, to a line which is already completed, to Galveston, is less than one hundred and twenty miles. It is important to every citizen of the State that this thoroughfare to the ocean, permeating non-corn growing latitudes, and opening up to us the rich markets of the cotton-raising States, be constructed and operated at the earlist (sic) possible moment. The manifold advantages which it would bestow upon our producers are patent to the most casual observer. Let legislation not block, nor popular frenzy retard, by bat-blind prejudice, which is the child of ignorance, the speedy inauguration of this enterprise, which shall prove a blessing to us and a perpetual legacy to our children.

Is the impress of the great seal of this State. It means equality for corporations and individuals alike. It means that taxes, which are gathered to pay for the service of protection which civil government renders to property, to life, and to liberty, shall be paid equally by all. It means that the homesteader, whose land has been to him a free gift, shall pay taxes for the protection which Government affords him and his property. It means that the railroad company, to whom countless acres have been donated, shall also pay taxes for the service which the laws render it in the protection of its property. That only those who have bought and paid for land in the State shall pay the expenses of maintaining schools and courts, roads and bridges, and, in short, bear the whole burden of civil government, is unrightrous (sic) and unjust.

To so amend all the land-donating laws, which exempt either individuals or corporations from paying their just proportion of the expenses of the civil government, which protects them and their property, ought to be circulated and signed in every portion of the State, and forwarded to our members of Congress at once. Neither fear of unpopularity nor aspirations for political power should prevent any grown person of sound mind from doing that which he knows it is just and right to do. Let us ask for an experimental knowledge of "Equality before the Law" as regards taxation of lands in this State.:

     In an effort of this sort, before a promiscuous audience, if one suggests thoughts rather than attempt to elaborate them, he, in my judgment, has achieved the highest object of popular speaking. Therefore I pass hurriedly to a word which occupies vast space in the newspapers and leaps often from the tongues of men in the year 1873. That word is

     It is derived from two Greek words, "monos," sole, and "poleo," to sell, and literally mean the sole right to sell any given article or commodity.

     Excepting the axe, the common plow, the hoc, the rake and the pitchfork, nearly all the implements of modern husbandry are patented. The Constitution of the United States, in Article I., Section 8, "Confers upon Congress power to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." Under the abuse of this power monopolies have sprung up which are exceedingly burdensome to farmers everywhere. The sole power to sell mowers and reapers, and threshing machines and cultivators, sewing-machines and improved plows, is vested in a few thousand persons in the Union, who compel the millions who use them to pay an exorbitant price for the privilege. The ever-recurring

By Congress, is an imposition upon labor and an unmitigated and inexcusable swindle upon the producing classes. The patent law of the United States, grants to the patentee, a monopoly and not only awards damages, but inflicts a penalty for the violation of his exclusive privileges; page 471, vol. 1, Abbott's U. S. Practice. That the stimulation of invention, by proper legislation, is a most beneficent and wise prerogative of the law-makers, no thinking man will dispute. But, that patents which have already made millions for their inventors or proprietors, shall continually be extended, is an outrage upon equity. The shameless use of money to obtain these extensions, is notorious. To such legislation is due the expensive fact that a reaper, which costs the manufacturer only $65, is furnished farmers at a no less sum than $200, and a sewing machine costing $15, must wring $90 from the woman who subsists from its use. The attention of farmers everywhere is called to the abuse of the patent law of the United States. A general discussion and agitation of this question will be productive of much good. Members of Congress should be instructed as to their votes upon the extension of those patents which have already accumulated for their owners, the most collosal (sic) fortunes. We need cheaper improved implements. We have paid hundreds of millions of dollars already to the monopolists of patents, and it is time that the tribute should abate. No one system of laws lays such burdens upon agriculture

as this patent system inflicts. Not only directly for farm implements are we robbed under this system, but indirectly the farmer pays a large share for all the patent rights which enter into the use of railroads, factories and mills. Every royalty for a swedgeblock, a brake, a coupler, a buffer or a car spring, is in part taxed up to the shipper. Let this monopoly of monopolies be looked into and examined, and it will be found to be the source of many woes.

May be studied to advantage by all the people. And if any man shall find out how any one branch of industry or manufacture can be protected, by legislative enactment, except at the expense of all other branches of industry, let him publish his discovery to the world, and get a patent for it at once.

     In the language of another: "It is foolishly claimed by some that protective duties always shortly lower the prices of protected articles. If they do, where does the protection come in? Or what is the motive for levying such duties? Or why has the Onondaga Salt Company been selling salt in Canada at 40 per cent. less than in Syracuse itself? Why did the same company offer salt to fishermen duty off, and only sell it to landsmen duty on?

     Is pig iron, is marble, rubber webbing, is salt, are wood screws, are carpenters' squares, are coarse blankets, cheaper than in 1860? In a natural coarse of things they would be cheaper; according to the price lists they are dearer; and it is an unnatural and iniquitous force that makes them so.

     The proper way to deal with protective duties is to abolish them simultaneously and instantaneously. The abolition of a tax on industry can do no harm to industry. If every tax of every name in all the earth could be abolished to-morrow, what harm would ensue? Taxes are, indeed, necessary for the support of Government, but even, when wisely laid, for that they are a necessary evil.:

     They take just so much out of what would otherwise be the gains of exchanges.

     But protective taxes are the worst possible form of taxes, and the only thing to do with them is to abolish them. When protective

duties become numerous, as with us, they become a universal burden; and there are only a few protected interests themselves which would not be instantly relieved by their abolition. To taper off in protection is much like the drunkard tapering off in his cups. It would, indeed, be unjust to abolish a part of these duties and leave the rest in force-to strike out, for example, the duty on woolens, and leave the duty on wools; they should all go by the board together. Science and experience alike demonstrate that this is the best way to do it. Protection cannot complain of it; for when did itself ever give previous notice to the people that its taxes were coming?:

     Edward Harris paid $58,000, in gold, duties on wool bought, paid for, and on its way to this country when the wool tariff of 1867 came in. If, however, ignorance and prejudice hedge the way to this simultaneous abolition, let the worst go first; those on coal, on pig iron, on salt, on wool, on lumber, on materials generally.

     The changing tone of New England on protection is very noticeable. Many of her prominent manufacturers are earnest for free trade, and very few of the rest have much zeal for the opposite.

     They have found out that they have to pay more protection than they get. Exclusive protection of one interest is a very different thing from the protection of many interests. New England is accordingly swinging back to her old position. Unjust discriminations in duties are helping this forward. The duty on coal is an abomination in New England; so is the duty of about 110 per cent. on fine wools, while carpet wools come in for about 15 per cent., and so is the fact that of the whole cost of producing a yard of the finer woolens, 76 per cent, has been paid out in duties. The English manufacturer, for example, is wholly relieved of these duties, and his advantage of four per cent. in labor, if it exists, is a mere nothing to his advantage of 76 per cent, in cost of materials. No wonder our woolen manufacturers are going forward under discouragement. The tariff is their foe, and they are becoming a foe to it. The shoemakers-the largest single interest in the United States next to farmers-are indignant at the tariff taxes on their webbings, lastings and other materials. Much of the present dissatisfaction of labor in New England is derivable from causes which have their seat in the

tariff, and that will ultimately feel the force of their opposition. Moreover, Boston is anxious to regain its ocean traffic, and an obstacle to this is the tariff.

     The progress that public opinion generally, throughout the country, is making in this matter of duties, is very cheering. Light is breaking in. The people are understanding better than ever before the nature of these taxes that are laid, not to produce, but prevent revenue. They are even asking whether Congress has any constitutional right to lay taxes for any other purpose than to get money with which to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States. The issue of present discussions, both on the constitutionality and expediency of "protective" taxes, is sure to be favorable to commercial freedom. The present tariff rests on false principles throughout, and cannot, therefore, be permanent. To relax commercial systems, and not to restrict them, is alone in accordance with the spirit of this age.":

     The abolition of this tariff' would reduce the price of railroad iron. Railroads would reduce the prices of transportation, because more railroads could be built, and competition would grow. Give the country the iron-prices of 1860, when rolling mills made good profits, and the rates of freight will go down all over the Union, and land values go up all over the Western States. Hundreds of mil lions of dollars would be added to the value of your farms in Nebraska and Iowa alone, by the erasure from the statute books of the present protective tariff on iron. To work for that erasure, and thus honestly endeavor to better your own condition and that of your children, is not merely "politics," but it is straight, sensible business. If you will all read and reason relative to this matter, you will soon conclude that the time for anti-protective tariff work is now, and that every day of delay costs the West a million more of dollars.

     Are those who specially countenance and support the business of the farmer "comprehending agriculture or tillage of the ground, the raising, managing and fattening of cattle and other domestic animals,

the management of the dairy and whatever the land produces." Accepting this definition, from Webster, as correct, it follows that the intelligent and reasoning Patron of Husbandry, will also, "specially countenance and support," and be in fact a Patron of Free Trade, selling and buying to the best possible advantage in all the markets of the world, unfettered by the restrictions of protective legislation.

     The mammoth musical entertainment, in which Boston not long since rejoiced, filled the ears of the whole world with its din; but the great jubilee of labor and the harmonies of the unwritten music of successful and contented industries in this new land of ours, are nobler and grander than the artistic triumphs of the Coliseum.:

     Among the earliest flowers of spring, the opera of Nebraska opens with the prelude of the plow. During the bright summer are grand interludes of thunder and storm, with sweet symphonies of rustling leaves and flowers and rain-drops dancing on the roofs, by that great Master who arranged the music of the spheres and taught the morning stars to sing; then the sonorous overture by thousands of reapers upon the hillsides; and, in the valleys, the far sounding chorus of hundreds of busy threshers; and at last, bursts upon the senses, the grand finale of screaming locomotives and roaring cars, bearing the golden harvest to market.:

     This opera of Nebraska will be enlarged, improved and reiterated from year to year. In its refrain, a generation hence, will be the story of the mental, moral and physical health and wealth of more than a million and a half of human beings.:

     They will be here. Already their footsteps and their voices break upon our consciousness:

"Like the march of soundless music
 Through the visions of the seer,
 More of feeling than of hearing,
 Of the heart than of the ear.":

     

---

© 2002 for the NEGenWeb Project by Pam Rietsch, Ted & Carole Miller