We have already shown the value of the railroad property in the United States, and some of the practices of companies, and their abuse of the privileges granted them. We are now treating of their influence upon legislators and legislation, and of the great power their wealth and combination secure for the purpose of controlling legislation. In this connection we must not forget that the vast sums owed by railroad companies in the United States, for which their bonds have been issued and sold, is a powerful persuasion for legislation in their favor.
We look upon the national debt as being enormous, and are apt to complain of the burdens it imposes; but great as it is, these railroad corporations, after showing a paid-up capital equal to the cost of all the roads in the country, less $865,357,195, show a bonded indebtedness of $2,874,149,667, being two billions over and above the entire cost of all the roads in the United States, showing that the total amount chargeable against the railroads of the country, exclusive of floating debts, is the sum of $5,169,129,664. This vast sum, amounting to more than one-third in value of the entire taxable property of the nation, is concentrated in these corporations, whose interests are at war with the people's. Controlled as it is by a few leading men, who have their partners, agents, and servants everywhere, it is not strange that the champions of these monopolists should be found in congress. The power of this great monopoly is felt in the nomination and election of congressmen. One-third of the wealth of the nation combined under the control of a few men is a dangerous power in a republic. When the object sought to be accomplished by this power has been to take control of the government, and administer all its departments in the interest of anti-republican institutions, to build up monopolies, and trample upon the rights of the people, it has had no trouble to secure the number of congressmen sufficient for its purposes. In proof of this assertion we have only to look at the history of congressional legislation upon the subject of railroads as shown in a former part of this work. We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that the consolidation and combination of wealth and influence of railroad companies have procured the passage of acts of congress under, and by means of which, these corporations have added largely to their wealth, and strengthened themselves for the desperate struggle soon to come between them and the people. Mr. Henry Ward Beecher has had his attention drawn to some of the more alarming phases of our present political condition. In a recent address delivered in St. Louis, he used the following language: