andlords have shown in the past to get the last pound
of flesh and the last drop of blood out of their tenants that is the
cause of the present detestation in which they are held by the
latter."

In the United States the public domain has been criminally surrendered
to monopoly. Commissioner Sparks speaks in his reports of the
"widespread, persistent land robbery." The fences of land robbers have
been removed from 2,700,000 acres, and over 5,000,000 will probably be
redeemed. In fifteen years, 179,000,000 of acres have been given by
Congress to various railroad corporations, a larger territory than the
empire of Germany. Before these wrongs were consummated, nearly forty
years ago, I called a public meeting in the Cincinnati court house,
which protested against this surrender of the people's domain. The
present agitation will probably bring it to an end. In the
Congressional debates last June Mr. Eustis said "the railroad men had
made fortunes as mushrooms grow in the night; a coterie of such men
had enriched themselves at the expense of the people of the United
States. They did not observe equity, honesty, or good faith, and only
came here to assert their legal rights and to defy the authority and
power of Congress and the people of the United States to deal with
them. The great question to-day was whether the government was
superior to the corporations, or the corporations superior to the
government. The corporations had exhibited shameless and unpardonable
oppression and extortion, as well as effrontery in their dealing with
the people and the Government of the United States." "Our people and
our country," said the speaker, "were only able to stand the drafts
thus made on their liberties because they were yet young and strong
and vigorous." Mr. Eustis advocated the forfeiture of every acre of
land that had not been earned according to the strict limitations and
conditions imposed in the grant.

In the house of Representatives, December 11, 1886, Mr. Payson of
Illinois, on behalf of the Committee on Public Lands, called up the
bill declaring a forfeiture of the Ontonagon and Brule River land
grant. In detailing the circumstances of the grant Mr. Payson declared
that from the organization of the Ontonagon and Brule River Company no
step had ever been taken by it which did not indicate that that
organization had been purely speculative and effected for the purpose
of getting land from the General Government. It had be