road Company to organize a corporation fund not only to kill the bills referred to in the letter above of the Denver attorneys, but also to promote their own bills and to kill other "objectionable" bills. Again, the journals tell us how well they succeeded. Senate bill No. 120, to prevent the destruction of baggage by railroad companies, was introduced by Senator Graves, January 29, 1903, and March 12, 1903, the chairman of the committee on Corporations and Railroads, J. Frank Adams, reported that it be "indefinitely postponed as needless legislation."*

Senate bill No. 195, to require railroads to pay damages for live stock killed by them, was introduced by Senator Drake, February 2, 1903, and referred to the committee on Corporations and Railroads. February 12, 1903, it was reported correctly printed, by the chairman, J. Frank Adams, and that was its end,

it was smothered to death in his committee.†

House bill No. 127, to release persons of assuming risk if injured while the railroads fail to block frogs, was introduced by Mr. Smith, January 28, 1903, and referred to the same committee on Corporations and Railroads and died the same death as the last bill above, after it was reported correctly printed February 11, 1903.1

House bill No. 215, to repeal certain sections of the revenue law relating to railroads and other corporations, was introduced by Mr. Max Morris, February 2, 1903, and referred to the Finance committee. February 23, 1903, it was referred to the committee of the whole without recommendation, and there it hung and strangled.§

But we come now to a bill that did pass both houses. House bill No. 48, to require branch or connecting railroads at the switch where they unite with a main road to keep a light burning from sun

*Sen. Jour., 1903, pp. 249, 770. †Sen. Jour., 1903, pp. 282, 434. House Jour., 1903, pp. 243, 419. ¿House Jour., 1903, pp. 274, 576.

66

year.

At the last session of the Legislature, which would greatly prejudice the railalthough many bills were introduced road company's interests, no legislation was enacted to our disadvantage. On the contrary, several acts were passed which were favorable to railroad companies, some of which had been caused to be in

troduced by the Union Pacific Railroad Company.

"With kindest regards, believe me,
"Yours very truly,

"CLAYTON C. DORSEY."

Note in this letter and in the letters above to President Burt how the underground wires run from the capital of Colorado to Omaha and New York. With a system so perfect and only seven systems to unite in order to control 65 per cent. of the railroads of the country, do you wonder, reader, as stated by Mr.

House Jour., 1903, p. 679; Sen. Jour., 1903, p. 1,245; Laws 1903, p. 405; 3 Mills Ann. Stat. (2 Eɗ.) Secs. 3751f-3751h.

Moseley, that 90 per cent. of the entire railmade of the nation are controlled by a pirtting cabal of a hundred men?

In the tremendous power so dangeri concentrated reflect, also, how, without any noise or publicity, these designing destroyers of the Republic can dictate our laws, make our constitutional amendments, influence public policies, corrupt public officers, pervert the functions of legislatures and courts, coerce the selection of the United States senators and congressmen, and of governors and judges and other officials in both state and nation.

How is there any room to doubt that the above House bill No. 48 was one of the acts passed "which were favorable to railroad companies,” and “which had been caused to be introduced by the Union Pacific Railroad Company"? What do the people think of their government and of their public officials when they see, as here they must, how the corporation corruption fund is raised, and, as shown below, how rebates and passes are used as opiates and bribes, and how the railroads gloat over their unprecedented successes in legislature and courts? See, too, how "labor representatives" are dickered with by the lobby to line them up with the interests of the corporations, and how, also, the railroads reach out to control legislation to the advantage of their patrons.

Here is a letter that lays bare this peculiar method of their legislative operations:

[Copy.]

"September 23, 1903. “THE LARIMIE BROOM CO., Larimie, Wy.

oming: "Gentlemen-During the last session of the Colorado Legislature a bill was presented and passed taxing convict-made goods* sold in this State, which is in effect a discrimination against these goods, which practically precludes their ship

*This was House bill No. 206, by Mr. Garman,

and is now Chap. 149, Laws 1903, same 3 Mills Ann.

Stat (2 Ed.), Secs. 3450a-3450k.

ment into and sale in Colorado. This bill we sought to defeat in your interests, but, as you know, labor conditions were such that this bill, with some others, was used as a compromise measure with the labor representatives to effect other legislation not entirely in their interest. We deeply regretted our inability to prevent the passage of the bill, but, since it has now become a law, we have investigated its validity and are firmly of the opinion that the bill is wholly unconstitutional, chiefly for the reason that it is a regulation of Interstate Commerce, which subject of legislation is vested solely in the National Congress. There is a way to raise the question in our courts and if you desire to continue to prosecute your business in Colorado after a legal battle, which we believe would be neither lengthy nor very expensive, we should be pleased to take the matter up with you and attempt to secure for you the rights which it was impossible to maintain owing to the circumstances above detailed in respect to the passage of the bill.

"Respectfully,

"TELLER & DORSEY."

What they lose in the legislature they propose to find in the courts even if, as it appears, they are compelled to suggest and solicit the litigation themselves. These letters afford the rare opportunity of seeing the "respectables" of corporation plunder mixing their own brew. What does the reader think of it?

At this point, as much as we regret to bring our railroad discussion to an abrupt end, it seems that space limits require it should be done. Our consideration of discrimination, rebates and passes, and their corrupting social and political effects, and the high-handed overthrow of the revenue laws of the state by the railroads in their pursuit of cheap taxation-all of which make a startling revelation in themselves-must, for the present, be put aside with the mere suggestion that if they can be equaled they

certainly cannot be surpassed in any other part of the country.

ADIEU TO THE PAGEANT OF THE

THRONE-POWERS.

The pageant of the Throne-Powers has now passed by and you have seen each dominant trust and corporation as it took its proud place in the line. You have seen the corrupting Utility-Trust of Denver, the water company, the tramway company, the gas and lighting company, and the telephone company; and you have seen their debauching methods and their tainted franchises and wealth. You have seen the blighting coal-trust with its national head, the defiant landgrabbing Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, and its lesser but equally ambitious companions in shirking taxes and queering elections-The Victor Fuel Company and The Northern Coal and Coke Company. You have seen the vampire Smelter-Trust enveloping in black clouds the mining industry of the entire country, and the mark of Cain put over the portals of our School of Mines by the Guggenheim gold. You have seen the railroads become vast landed proprietors dominating the state, and political masters wiping out laws with a whisk, and enacting and defeating legislation at will. You have thus seen the real powers that not only control, but that practically run riot in Colorado. They are barons of privilege with their distended maws maws stuffed full of the choicest franchises, lands and opportunities that are to be found in the West. These economic food-stuffs so essential to the industrial blood of the body politic cannot be appropriated and gulped down by a plundering few without seriously disturbing, even unto death, the alimentary life of the victimized many. Upon economic meat so choice and ample "do these our Cæsars feed" that they practically monopolize the whole supply. The anæmic masses must starve, or scramble for the scraps and bones that our Cæsars throw to their dogs. You have seen, too, the

way these Cæsars got this meat, sometimes by open deal, gift or blandishment, but more often by the spoliation of fraudulent devices, stock-jobbing, "watering" bonds and stock-wrecking franchises, receiverships, litigious overreaching in the gamut of the courts, legislative corruption, ballot-box stuffing, tax-dodging, bribery and fraud. But this meat is power, and having all the meat, of course they have all the power. They can make laws for others and break them for themselves. They sit above the law in the aula regis they have taught our highest courts to resurrect from the crumbling tomb of the ancient conqueror of England. Even now they, or some of them, wave their wand and tell us that at the municipal election in Denver, May 15, 1906, traction franchises must be renewed for the Tramway Company on every street of the city, good for twenty years, and good in Wall street for twenty-five million dollars of bonds, and without any surrender of the Tramway's insolent claim to a perpetual franchise, nor for any consideration whatever except the pittance of $55,000 a year; and we see they have both political machines kowtowing to the boss and zealously scheming to carry a favorable vote for this obnoxious franchise. They are also manipulating the registration in hostility to their opponents and are devising other methods to circumvent the adverse voter and if need be to count their franchise in at all hazard, as they have heretofore counted in a municipal charter and a mayor.

If they had any respect for the courts and loved liberty and law, would there have been any of the trifling with judicial warrants and process we are soon to write about at Telluride and Cripple Creek? And would we not have been spared the national disgrace of an official kidnaping of Colorado citizens in the night, to be torn by Pinkertons from friends and home and borne on a special train to a distant state? No all-important act like this could be done without permission of

vious year. They were unsuccessful, it is true, but they made a grand fight a fight which even to this day is looked upon with pride by the older school of trades-unionists. In due course, however, both won a place in the British House of Commons as working-class supporters of the Liberal party, and along with them went Mr. Macdonald, Mr. Joseph Arch -the faithful friend of the British farmlaborer-Mr. Burt, Mr. Fenwick, and a stalwart band of representatives of the mining electorate. But in every instance these members were returned as supporters of the official Liberal party. During the last Liberal Government Mr. Keir Hardie was the solitary representative of the independent Labor movement. On his hapless head official Liberalism poured the vials of its wrath. But in spite of bitter, even venomous, opposition the Labor movement grew, and its principles, as they were more clearly understood, began to find favor among the trades-unionists of the country. The Trades Congress, representing the great army of tradesunionists, declared in favor of the new party, and ten years of Tory rule and class-legislation did much to consolidate the progressive forces of the country. How significant has been the advance of the Labor movement during the past fifteen years will be readily gathered from the following tables:

Labor representatives in 1900: Miners, 5; Liberal Labor, 4; Independent Labor, 1.

Labor representatives in 1905 (previous to dissolution): Miners, 5; Labor Representation Committee, 5; Liberal Labor, 4.

Labor representatives in 1906: Labor Representation Committee (including 2 miners), 29; Other Miners, 14; Liberal Labor, 16.

To these may be added one Irish Unionist and five Irish Nationalists.

But from the progressive standpoint the chief feature of the election has been the success of the candidates of the Labor Representation Committee-the L. R.

C., as it is familiarly termed; and a brief statement of the programme, composition and policy of this organization may be of interest to American readers. It is no body of mushroom growth, but one that has been built up slowly, year by year with much shrewd foresight, so as to include in its ranks the best elements in the trades-union and progressive workingclass movements. It is a federation composed of trades unions, trades councils, Socialist societies, and coöperative societies willing to join and considered eligible for membership. Its object is: "To secure by united action the election to Parliament of candidates promoted in the first instance by an affiliated society or societies in the constituencies who undertake to form or join a distinct group in Parliament, with its own whips and its own policy on Labor questions, to abstain strictly from identifying themselves with, or promoting the interests of, any section of the Liberal or Conservative parties, and not to oppose any other candidates recognized by this committee. All such candidates shall pledge themselves to accept this constitution, to abide by the decision of the group, and to appear before their constituencies under the title of Labor candidates only."

The affairs of the Labor Representation Committee are transacted by an executive committee of thirteen members (and the number has not proved unlucky so far as the recent elections have been concerned). Of these, nine represent the Trades Unions, three the Socialist societies, and one the Trades Councils. The committee has a membership of 1,000,000 and it is the proud boast of its leaders that the working classes of Britain are now in a position to maintain 200 of their number in Parliament. A party fund has been established in order to assist in defraying the election expenses of the candidates and in contributing to the support of those who may be successful at the polls. According to the present arrangements the L. R. C. pays 25 per cent. of the returning officers' expenses