representative to the people who gave or assented to his official term. In short, he was honest, and believed in the rights of the people, and not in assumed or arrogated power as against them. He was a democrat who not only held office and represented the people who sent him, but lived in public and private life, a democrat; who, when he could have amassed a large fortune, was happy and contented in plain, simple living; who, like Lincoln, left the lasting example of honorable service, and believed that there are better things than wealth or usurped authority that always oppresses

some one.

I had several talks on occasions with these men-truehearted patriots, as they were on the subject of vast accumulations of wealth and property. They both held the belief that the vast accumulations of those days and the granting of almost unlimited franchises were threatening dangers, and that, as soon as the slavery issue was settled, the people should set about the work in earnest to restrict them. All in office or authority should be held to a strict accountability to the people. Especially railways and public carriers of all kinds should be brought under unqualified obedience to law, and should render good service at reasonable rates, and bear a pro rata tax similar to that required by the charter of the Central Railroad Company. The plan of this tax on the gross earnings of this road was approved by both of them. No plan so fair and just to all concerned has been made since. It was made as the result of combined wisdom and experience, and approved by all in the State as the best plan under which to grant valuable franchises.

In conversation concerning the reckless granting of franchises, lands, and public privileges, Judge Douglas said: "The British people, in order to relieve themselves of the oppressive rule of the Stuarts, invited William III to the throne, that they might have peace, protection, and civil

liberty, as kings of that day doled out rights and favors to their subjects when they were so minded. William came, and with him came a host of Hollanders, Lower Rhinelanders, Belgian, and Swiss mercenaries. For a time many Britons feared that they had chased out a fox with the help of a wolf. Nevertheless William was there and, with the people divided, had brought force enough with him to stay and maintain himself. He restored civil order with the grip and strength of a hand of iron, where it could be done no other way. Peace soon prevailed throughout the kingdom, enforced on the Russian plan by the sturdy burghers of the Lower Rhine wherever there was opposition.

"With the settlement, oppressive as it was to many, the Nation soon reached better conditions. Industries, commerce, and prosperity predominated that were impossible under the corrupt and tyrannical rule of the Stuarts. One of the worst evils of his reign, and a glaring bad one in precedent and example, became its lasting means of corruption. This was the profuse generosity, if it can be so called, by which he distributed favors, offices, lands, properties, and franchises to his kindred. He gave lavishly and abundantly to a few hard-hitting and hardheaded Hollanders—Mynheer van Rysdycks, Orange, and Bentinck families-what belonged to others, taken by confiscation. With it he conveyed the right of power, in greater wealth, substance, and franchises than all of the province of Orange, in which his ancestors contended with the Germans, French, Spanish, and the waters of their rough seas for their lives and something of human liberty.

"This scion of a brave and heroic line was elected to the British crown in the contingency, and, by the tyranny and the corruptions of the Stuarts, fell to giving away Englishmen's possessions in quantities that would have been realms to him or his ancestors in their little Duchy of

Orange. In this way, probably, the pernicious example of giving away the rights, franchises, and properties of the public to a few was fixed and settled on this continent, as well as in Britain. New Holland, later New York, was parceled out in lands, freeholds, and privileges to the few who had the strength and courage to maintain their gifts. Britain held to and extended this plan of giving away the lands and belongings of the people to a favored few, who were granted the authority to tax and govern them. In this way African slavery was brought over and established in every colony before our ancestors had or could have settled and established systems of government. These evils and others that are the legacies of tyrant kings and aristocrats in less or greater degree, are with us, and will remain until they can be peacefully legislated out of existence, or go down piecemeal in a war of sections, or in a general revolution."

The aggregation and concentration of wealth, as we have recited, filled the hearts of these wise and eminent men with anxiety and alarm for the safety of our Government and the perpetuity of our free institutions one short generation since. If they were living to-day, with the lessons and experience of the flying years to their enlightened wisdom, what would they think when, in all sorts of questionable ways, the concentration of wealth in the hands of fewer men and the power it carries have been many times quadrupled?

In the time of William III and his Holland families a few thousand controlled Britain; but here in our own country, as boastingly declared by a railroad lawyer recently, "we have reached a point in development and enterprise where less than fifty men control every wheel and every industry in the United States, and can stop every one of them within twenty-four hours whenever they may wish." Reflecting on VOL. II.-24

the words of Lincoln and Douglas, it is high time to think over and consider this unexampled piling up of wealth that belongs of right to all men, now in the hands of a very few, and what the others of our more than seventy-five millions will or can be doing when these "less than fifty" stop or say they can stop all our carrying and industrial operations.

CHAPTER XLII.

HE men of the great States of the West were descended from the stalwart, most rugged, and strongest nations

THE

of the earth. They should be known intimately and well; for these sturdy, lithe-limbed, full-breasted, and hardheaded millions were the most overwhelming and irresistible military and industrial actors in one of the most notable nations of all history, who, near the period of which we write, were to pass through the most desperate war of modern times. They were victors in an advancing revolution and development of freedom in which God planned the destruction of slavery.

All of them-farmers, artisans, men of commerce, and the liberal professions-were trained and skilled to labor, and in the toil of a faithful day's work earned an honest man's bread. They were brought up in useful occupations and grounded in the belief that the best in life required steady and constant performance of duty. With only an occasional exception they were not rich, not powerful, nor were they disposed in any way to oppress or distress their fellow-men. There were none who were industrious, temperate, and worthy, and who had health and strength for it, that did not have opportunity to earn an honest living.

It was rare indeed that any worthy person ever lacked a comfortable habitation or needful subsistence. The few unworthy ones could live, if they worked as others did; but even these, when needy and helpless, were not neglected. Schools, colleges, and institutions of learning were established wherever there were pupils and the shadow of coming necessity.