Great Fortunes from Railroads Part 16

The propitious occasion soon came. It was in Chicago that the blow was struck which succeeded in discrediting the cause of the workers, stayed the progress of their movement, and covered it with a prejudice and an odium lasting for years. There, in that maddening bedlam, called a city, the acknowledged inferno of industrialism, the agitation was tensest. With its brutalities, cruelties, corruptions and industrial carnage, its hideous contrasts of dissolute riches and woe-begone poverty, its arrogant wealth las.h.i.+ng the working population lower and lower into squalor, pauperism and misery, Chicago was overripe for any movement seeking to elevate conditions.

In the first months of 1886, strike followed strike throughout the United States for an eight-hour day. At McCormick's reaper works in Chicago [Footnote: The McCormick fortune was the outgrowth, to a large extent, of a variety of frauds and corruptions. Later on in this work, the facts are given as to how Cyrus H. McCormick, the founder of the fortune, bribed Congress, in 1854, to give him a time extension of his patent rights.] a prolonged strike of many months began in February. Determined not only to refuse shorter hours, but to force his twelve hundred wage workers to desert labor unions, McCormick drove them from his factory, hired armed mercenaries, called Pinkerton detectives, and subst.i.tuted in the place of the union workers those despised irresponsibles called "scabs"-- signifying laborers willing to help defeat the battles of organized labor, and, if the unions won, share in the benefits without incurring any of the responsibilities, risks or struggles. On May 1, 1886, forty thousand men and women in Chicago went on strike for an eight-hour day. Thus far, the aim of inciting violence on the part of the strikers had completely failed everywhere.

The Knights of Labor were conducting their strikes with a coolness, method and sober sense of order, giving no opportunity for the exercise of force. On May 2, a great demonstration of the McCormick workers was held near that company's factories to protest against the employment of armed Pinkertons. The Pinkerton detective bureau was a private establishment, founded during the Civil War; in the ensuing contests between labor and capital it was alleged to have made a profitable business of supplying spies and armed men to capitalists under the pretense of safeguarding property. These armed bands really const.i.tuted private armies; recruited often from the most debased and worthless part of the population, as well as from the needy and s.h.i.+fty, they were, it was charged, composed largely of men who would perjure themselves, fabricate evidence, provoke trouble, and slaughter without scruple for pay. Some, as was well established, were ex-convicts, others thugs, and still others were driven to the ign.o.ble employment by necessity. [Footnote: The prevailing view of the working cla.s.s toward the Pinkerton detectives was thus expressed at the time in a chapter on the mine workers by John McBride, one of the trade union leaders: "They have awakened," he wrote, "the hatred and detestation of the workingmen of the United States; and this hatred is due, not only to the fact that they protect the men who are stealing the bread from the mouths of the families of strikers, but to the fact that as a cla.s.s they seem rather to invite trouble than to allay it.... They are employed to terrorize the workingmen, and to create in the minds of the public the idea that the miners are a dangerous cla.s.s of citizens that have to be kept down by armed force.

These men had an interest in keeping up and creating troubles which gave employers opportunity to demand protection from the State militia at the expense of the State, and which the State has too readily granted."--"The Labor Movement": 264-265.] During the course of the meeting in the afternoon the factory bell rung, and the "scabs" were seen leaving. Some boys in the audience began throwing stones and there was hooting. Fully aware of the combustible accounts wanted by their offices, the reporters immediately telephoned exaggerated, inflammatory stories of a riot being under way; the police on the spot likewise notified headquarters. [Footnote: In a statement published in the Chicago "Daily News," issue of May 10, 1889, Captain Ebersold, chief of police in 1886, charged that Captain Schaack, who had been the police official most active in proceeding against the labor leaders and causing them to be executed and imprisoned, had deliberately set about concocting "anarchist"

conspiracies in order to get the credit for discovering and breaking them up.] Police in large numbers soon arrived; the boys kept throwing stones; and suddenly, without warning, the police drew their revolvers and indiscriminately opened a general fire upon the men, women and children in the crowd, killing four and wounding many.

Terror stricken and in horror the crowd fled.

There was a group of radical spirits in Chicago, popularly branded as anarchists, but in reality men of advanced ideas who, while differing from one another in economic views, agreed in denouncing the existing system as the prolific cause of bitter wrongs and rooted injustices.

Sincere, self-sacrificing, intellectual, outspoken, absolutely devoted to their convictions, burning with compa.s.sion and n.o.ble ideals for suffering humanity, they had stepped forward and had greatly a.s.sisted in arousing the militant spirit in the working cla.s.s in Chicago. At all of the meetings they had spoken with an ardor and ability that put them in the front ranks of the proletarian leaders; and in two newspapers published by them, the "Alarm," in English, and the "Arbeiter Zeitung," in German, they unceasingly advocated the interests of the working cla.s.s. These men were Albert R. Parsons, a printer, editor of the "Alarm;" August Spies, an upholsterer by trade, and editor of the "Arbeiter Zeitung;" Adolph Fischer, a printer; Louis Lingg, a carpenter; Samuel Fielden, the son of a British factory owner; George Engel, a painter; Oscar Neebe, a well- to-do business man, and Michael Schwab, a bookbinder. All of them were more or less deep students of economics and sociology; they had become convinced that the fundamental cause of the prevalent inequalities of opportunity and of the widespread misery was the capitalist system itself. Hence they opposed it uncompromisingly.

[Footnote: The utterances of these leaders revealed the reasons why they were so greatly feared by the capitalist cla.s.s. Fischer, for instance, said: "I perceive that the diligent, never-resting human working bees, who create all wealth and fill the magazines with provisions, fuel and clothing, enjoy only a minor part of this product, while the drones, the idlers, keep the warehouses locked up, and revel in luxury and voluptuousness." Engel said: "The history of all times teaches us that the oppressing always maintain their tyrannies by force and violence. Some day the war will break out; therefore all workingmen should unite and prepare for the last war, the outcome of which will be the end forever of all war, and bring peace and happiness to mankind."]

The newspapers, voicing the interests and demands of the intrenched cla.s.ses, denounced these radicals with a sinister emphasis as destructionists. But it was not ignorance which led them to do this; it was intended as a deliberate poisoning and inflaming of public opinion. Themselves bribing, corrupting, intimidating, violating laws and slaying for profit everywhere, the propertied cla.s.ses ever a.s.sumed, as has so often been pointed out, the pose of being the staunch conservers of law and order. To fasten upon the advanced leaders of the labor movement the stigma of being sowers of disorder, and then judicially get rid of them, and crush the spirit and movement of the aroused proletariat--this was the plan determined upon. Labor leaders who confined their programme to the industrial arena were not feared so much; but Parsons, Spies and their comrades were not only pointing out to the ma.s.ses truths extremely unpalatable to the capitalists, but were urging, although in a crude way, a definite political movement to overthrow capitalism. With the finest perception, fully alert to their danger, the propertied cla.s.ses were intent upon exterminating this portentous movement by striking down its leaders and terrifying their followers.

THE HAYMARKET TRAGEDY.

Fired with indignation at the slaughter at the McCormick meeting, Spies and others of his group issued a call for a meeting on the night of May 4, at the Haymarket, to protest against the police a.s.saults. Spies opened the meeting, and was followed by Fielden.

Observers agreed that the meeting was proceeding in perfect quiet, so quietly that the Mayor of Chicago, who was present to suppress it if necessary, went home--when suddenly one hundred and eighty policemen, with arms in readiness, appeared and peremptorily ordered the meeting to disperse. It seems that without pausing for a reply they immediately charged, and began clubbing and mauling the few hundred persons present. At this juncture a small bomb, thrown by someone, exploded in the ranks of the police, felling sixty and killing one.

The police instantly began firing into the crowd.

No one has ever been able to find out definitely who threw the bomb.

Suspicions were not lacking that it was done by a mercenary of corporate wealth. At Pittsburg, in 1877, as we have seen, the Pennsylvania railroad hirelings deliberately destroyed property and incited riot in order to charge the strikers with crime. In the coal mining regions of Pennsylvania, subsidized detectives had provoked trouble during the strikes, and by means of bogus evidence and packed juries had hung some labor leaders and imprisoned others.

The hurling of the bomb, whether done by a secret emissary, or by a sympathizer with labor, proved the lever which the propertied cla.s.ses had been feverishly awaiting. Spies, Fielding and their comrades were at once cast into jail; the newspapers invented wild yarns of conspiracies and midnight plots, and raucously demanded the hanging of the leaders. The trifling formality of waiting until their guilt had been proved was not considered. The most significant event, however, was the secret meeting of about three hundred leading American capitalists to plan the suppression of "anarchy." Very horrified they professed themselves to be at violent outrages and destruction of property and life. Their views were given wide circulation and commendation; they were the finest types of commercial success and prestige. They were the owners of railroads that slaughtered thousands of human beings every year, because of the demands of profit; of factories which sucked the very life out of their toilers, and which filled the hospitals, slums, brothels and graveyards with an ever-increasing a.s.semblage; every man in that conclave, as a beneficiary of the existing system, had drained his fortune from the sweat, sorrow, miseries and death agonies of a mult.i.tude of workers. [Footnote: This seems a very sweeping and extraordinary prejudicial statement. It should be remembered, however, that these capitalists, both individually and collectively, had contested the pa.s.sage of every proposed law, the aim of which was to improve conditions for the workers on the railroads and in mines and factories. Time after time they succeeded in defeating or ignoring this legislation. Although the number of workers killed or injured in accidents every year was enormous, and although the number slain by diseases contracted in workshops or dwellings was even greater, the capitalists insisted that the law had no right to interfere with the conduct of their "private business."] These were the men who came forth to form the "Citizens' a.s.sociation," and within a few hours subscribed $100,000 as a fighting fund.

JUDICIAL MURDER OF LABOR'S LEADERS.

The details of the trial will not be gone into here. The trial itself is now everywhere recognized as having been a tragic farce. The jury, it is clear, was purposely drawn from the employing cla.s.s, or their dependents; of a thousand talesmen summoned, only five or six belonged to the working cla.s.s. The malignant cla.s.s nature of the trial was revealed by the questions asked of the talesmen; nearly all declared that they had a prejudice against Socialists, Anarchists and Communists. Soon the blindest could see that the conviction of the group was determined upon in advance, and that it was but the visible evidence of a huge conspiracy to terrorize the whole working cla.s.s.

The theory upon which the group was prosecuted was that they were actively engaged in a conspiracy against the existing authorities, and that they advocated violence and bloodshed. No jurist would now presume to contend that the slightest evidence was adduced to prove this. But all were rushed to conviction: Spies, Parsons, Fischer, and Engel were hanged on November 11, 1887, after fruitless appeals to the higher courts; Lingg committed suicide in prison, and Fielden, Neebe and Schwab were sentenced to long terms in prison. The four executed leaders met their death with the heroic calmness of martyrdom. "Let the voice of the people be heard!" were Parsons' last words. Fielden, Neebe and Schwab might have rotted away in prison, were it not that one of the n.o.blest-minded and most maligned men of his time, in the person of John P. Altgeld, was Governor of Illinois in 1893. Governor Altgeld pardoned them on these grounds, which he undoubtedly proved in an exhaustive review: (1) The jury was a packed one selected to convict; (2) the jurors were prejudiced; (3) no guilt was proved; (4) the State's attorney had admitted no case against Neebe, yet he had been imprisoned; (5)the trial judge (Gary) was either so prejudiced or subservient to cla.s.s influence that he did not or could not give a fair trial. Even many of those who denounced Altgeld for this action, now admit that his grounds were justified.

THE LABOR UPRISING IN NEW YORK.

In the meanwhile, between the time of the Haymarket episode and the hanging and imprisonment of the Chicago group, the labor movement in New York City had a.s.sumed so strong a political form that the ruling cla.s.s was seized with consternation. The Knights of Labor, then at the summit of organization and solidarity, were ripe for independent political action; the effects of the years of active propaganda carried on in their ranks by the Socialists and Single-Tax advocates now began to show fruit. At the critical time, when the labor unions were wavering in the decision as to whether they ought to strike out politically or not, the ruling cla.s.s supplied the necessary vital impulsion. While in Chicago the courts were being used to condemn the labor leaders to death or prison, in the East they were used to paralyze the weapons of offense and defence by which the unions were able to carry on their industrial warfare.

The conviction, in New York City, of certain members of a union for declaring a boycott, proved the one compelling force needed to ma.s.s all of the unions and radical societies and individuals into a mighty movement resulting in an independent labor party. To meet this exigency an effort was made by the politicians to buy off Henry George, the distinguished Single-Tax advocate, who was recognized as the leader of the labor party. But this flanking attempt at bribing an incorruptible man failed; the labor unions proceeded to nominate George for Mayor, and a campaign was begun of an ardor, vigor and enthusiasm such as had not been known since the Workingmen's party movement in 1829.

The election was for local officers of the foremost city in the United States--a point of vantage worth contending for, since the moral effect of such a victory of the working cla.s.s would be incalculable, even if short-lived. To the ruling cla.s.ses the triumph of the labor unions, while restricted to one city, would unmistakably denote the glimmerings of the beginning of the end of their regime.

Such rebellious movements are highly contagious; from the confines of one munic.i.p.ality they sweep on to other sections, stimulating action and inspiring emulation. The New York labor campaign of 1886 was an intrinsic part and result of the general labor movement throughout the United States. And it was the most significant manifestation of the onward march of the workers; elsewhere the labor unions had not gone beyond the stage of agitation and industrial warfare; but in New York, with the most acute perception of the real road it must traverse, the labor movement had plunged boldly into political action. It realized that it must get hold of the governmental powers.

Its antagonists, the capitalists, had long had a rigid grip on them, and had used them almost wholly as they willed.

But the capitalist cla.s.s was even more doggedly determined upon retaining and intensifying those powers. Government was an essential requisite to its plans and development. The small capitalists bitterly fought the great; but both agreed that Government with its legislators, laws, precedents, and the habits of thought it created, must be capitalistic. Both saw in the uprising of labor a prospective overturning of conditions.

From this ident.i.ty of interest a singular concrete alliance resulted.

The great capitalists, whom the middle-cla.s.s had denounced as pirates, now became the decorous and orthodox "saviors of society,"

with the small capitalists trailing behind their leaders.h.i.+p, and shouting their praises as the upholders of law and the conservators of order. In Chicago the same men who had bribed legislators and common councils to give them public franchises, and who had hugely swindled and stolen under guise of law, had been the princ.i.p.als in calling for the execution and imprisonment of the group of labor leaders, and this they had decreed in the name of law. In New York City a pretext for dealing similarly with the labor leaders was entirely lacking, but another method was found effective in the subjugation and dispersion of the movement.

CAPITALIST TRIUMPH BY FRAUD.

This was the familiar one of corruption and fraud. It was a method in the exercise of which the capitalists as a cla.s.s had proved themselves adepts; they now summoned to their aid all of the ign.o.ble and subterranean devices of criminal politics.

In the New York City election of 1886 three parties contested, the Labor party, Tammany Hall and the Republican party. Steeped in decades of the most loathsome corruption, Tammany Hall was chosen as the medium by which the Labor party was to be defrauded and effaced.

Pretending to be the "champion of the people's rights," and boasting that it stood for democracy against aristocracy, Tammany Hall had long deceived the ma.s.s of the people to plunder them. It was a powerful, splendidly-organized body of mercenaries and selfseekers which, by trading on the principles of democracy, had been able to count on the partisan votes of a predominating element of the wage- working cla.s.s. In reality, however, it was absolutely directed by a leader or "boss," who, with his confederates, made a regular traffic of selling legislation to the capitalists, on the one hand, and who, on the other, enriched themselves by a colossal system of blackmail.

They sold immunity to pickpockets, confidence men and burglars, compelled the saloonkeepers to pay for protection, and even extorted from the wretched women of the street and brothels. This was the organization that the ruling cla.s.s, with its fine a.s.sumptions of respectability, now depended upon to do its work of breaking up the political labor revolt.

The candidate of Tammany Hall was the ultra-respectable Abram S.

Hewitt, a millionaire capitalist. The Republican party nominated a verbose, pushful, self-glorifying young man, who, by a combination of fortuitous circ.u.mstances, later attained the position of President of the United States. This was Theodore Roosevelt, the scion of a moderately rich New York family, and a remarkable character whose pugnacious disposition, indifference to political conventionalities, capacity for exhortation, and bold political shrewdness were mistaken for greatness of personality. The phenomenal success to which he subsequently rose was characteristic of the prevailing turgidity and confusion of the popular mind. Both Hewitt and Roosevelt were, of course, acceptable to the capitalist cla.s.s. As, however, New York was normally a city of Democratic politics, and as Hewitt stood the greater chance of winning, the support of those opposed to the labor movement was concentrated upon him.

Intrenched respectability, for the most part, came forth to join sanctimony with Tammany scoundrelism. It was an edifying union, yet did not comprise all of the forces linked in that historic coalition.

The Church, as an inst.i.tution, cast into it the whole weight of its influence and power. Soaked with the materialist spirit while dogmatically preaching the spiritual, dominated and pervaded by capitalist influences, the Church, of all creeds and denominations, lost no time in subtly aligning itself in its expected place. And woe to the minister or priest who defied the att.i.tude of his church!

Father McGlynn, for example, was excommunicated by the Pope, ostensibly for heretical utterances, but in actuality for espousing the cause of the labor movement.

Despite every legitimate argument coupled with venomous ridicule and coercive and corrupt influence that wealth, press and church could bring to bear, the labor unions stood solidly together. On election day groups of Tammany repeaters, composed of dissolutes, profligates, thugs and criminals, systematically, under directions from above, filled the ballot boxes with fraudulent votes. The same rich cla.s.s that declaimed with such superior indignation against rule by the "mob" had poured in funds which were distributed by the politicians for these frauds. But the vote of the labor forces was so overwhelming, that even piles of fraudulent votes could not suffice to overcome it. One final resource was left. This was to count out Henry George by grossly tampering with the election returns and misrepresenting them. And this is precisely what was done, if the testimony of numerous eye-witnesses is to be believed. The Labor party, it is quite clear, was deliberately cheated out of an election won in the teeth of the severest and most corrupt opposition. This result it had to accept; the entire elaborate machinery of elections was in the full control of the Labor party's opponents; and had it inst.i.tuted a contest in the courts, the Labor party would have found its efforts completely fruitless in the face of an adverse judiciary.

THE LABOR PARTY EVAPORATES.

By the end of the year 1887 the political phase of the labor movement had shrunk to insignificant proportions, and soon thereafter collapsed. The capitalist interests had followed up their onslaught in hanging and imprisoning some of the foremost leaders, and in corruption and fraud at the polls, by the repet.i.tion of other tactics that they had long so successfully used.

Acting through the old political parties they further insured the disintegration of the Labor party by bribing a sufficient number of its influential men. This bribery took the form of giving them sinecurist offices under either Democratic or Republican local, State or National administrations. Many of the most conspicuous organizers of the labor movement were thus won over, by the proffer of well- paying political posts, to betray the cause in the furtherance of which they had shown such energy. Deprived of some of its leaders, deserted by others, the labor political movement sank into a state of disorganization, and finally reverted to its old servile position of dividing its vote between the two capitalist parties.

From now one, for many years, the labor movement existed purely as an industrial one, disclaiming all connection with politics. Voting into power either of the old political parties, it then humbly begged a few crumbs of legislation from them, only to have a few sops thrown to it, or to receive contemptuous kicks and humiliations, and, if it grew too importunate or aggressive, insults backed with the strong might of judicial, police and military power.

When it was jubilantly seen by the coalesced propertied cla.s.ses that the much-dreaded labor movement had been thrust aside and shorn, they resumed their interrupted conflict.

The small capitalist evinced a fierce energy in seeking to hinder in every possible way the development of the great. It was in these years that a mult.i.tude of middle-cla.s.s laws were enacted both by Congress and by the State legislatures; the representatives of that cla.s.s from the North and East joined with those of the Farmers'

Alliance from the West and South. Laws were pa.s.sed declaring combinations conspiracies in restraint of trade and prohibiting the granting of secret discriminative rates by the railroads. In 1889 no fewer than eighteen States pa.s.sed anti-trust laws; five more followed the next year. Every one of these laws was apparently of the most explicit character, and carried with it drastic penal provisions.

"Now," exulted the small capitalists in high spirits of elation, "we have the upper hand. We have laws enough to throttle the monopolists and preserve our righteous system of compet.i.tion. They don't dare violate them, with the prospects of long terms in prison staring them in the face."

THE SMALL CAPITALISTS' LOSING FIGHT.

The great capitalists both dared and did. If specific statutes were against them, the impelling forces of economic development and the power of might were wholly on their side. The compet.i.tive system was already doomed; the middle cla.s.s was too blind to realize that what seemed to be victory was the rattle of the slow death struggle. At first, the great capitalists made no attempt to have these laws altered or repealed. They adopted a slyer and more circuitous mode of warfare. They simply evaded them. As fast as one trust was dissolved by court decision, it nominally complied, as did, for instance, the Standard Oil Trust and the Sugar Trust, and then furtively caused itself to be reborn into a new combination so cunningly sheltered within the technicalities of the law that it was fairly safe from judicial overthrow.

But the great capitalists were too wise to stake their existence upon the thin refuge of technicalities. With their huge funds they now systematically struck out to control the machinery of the two main political parties; they used the ponderous weight of their influence to secure the appointment of men favorable to them as Attorneys General of the United States, and of the States, and they carried on a definite plan of bringing about the appointment or election of judges upon whose decisions they could depend. The laws pa.s.sed by the middle cla.s.s remained ornamental enc.u.mbrances on the statute books; the great capitalists, although hara.s.sed continually by futile attacks, triumphantly swept forward, gradually in their consecutive progress strangling the middle cla.s.s beyond resurrection.

Such was the integral impotence of the warfare of the small against the great capitalists that, during this convulsive period, the existing magnates increased their wealth and power on every hand, and their ranks were increased by the accession of new members. From the chaos of middle-cla.s.s industrial inst.i.tutions, one trust after another sprang full-armed, until presently there was a whole array of them. The trust system had proved itself immensely superior in every respect to the compet.i.tive, and by its own superiority it was bound to supplant the other.

Where William H. Vanderbilt had thought himself compelled to temporize with the middle cla.s.s agitation by making a show of dividing the stock owners.h.i.+p of the New York Central Railroad, his sons Cornelius and William ignored or defied it. Utterly disdainful of the bitter feeling, especially in the West, against the consolidation of railroads in the hands of the powerful few, they tranquilly went ahead to gather more railroads in their owners.h.i.+p.

The Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (popularly dubbed the "Big Four") acquired by them in 1890 was one of these. It would be tiresome, however, to enter into a narrative of the complex, tortuous methods by which they possessed themselves of these railroads. By the beginning of the year 1893 the Vanderbilt system embraced at least 12,000 miles of railways, with a capitalized value of several hundred million dollars, and a total gross earning power of more than $60,000,000 a year. "All of the best railroad territory," says John Moody in his sketch ent.i.tled "The Romance of the Railways," "outside of New England, Pennsylvania and New Jersey was penetrated by the Vanderbilt lines, and no other railroad system in the country, with the single notable exception of the Pennsylvania Railroad, covered anything like the same amount of rich and settled territory, or reached so many towns and cities of importance. New York, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, Omaha--these were a few of the great marts which were embraced in the Vanderbilt preserves." So impregnably rich and powerful were the Vanderbilts, so profitable their railroads, and their command of resources, financial inst.i.tutions and legislation so great, that the panic of 1893 instead of impairing their fortunes gave them extraordinary opportunities for getting hold of the properties of weaker railroads.

It was now, acting jointly with other puissant interests, that they saw their chance to get control of a large part of the fabulously rich coal mines of Pennsylvania. These coal mines had originally been owned by separate companies or operators, each independent of the other. But by about the year 1867 the railroads penetrating the coal regions had conceived the plan of owning the mines themselves. Why continue to act as middlemen in transporting the coal? Why not vest in themselves the owners.h.i.+p of these vast areas of coal lands, and secure all the profits instead of those from merely handling the coal?

The plan ingratiated itself as a capital one; it could be easily carried out with little expenditure. All that was necessary for the railroad to do was to burden down the operators with exorbitant charges, and hamper and beleaguer them in a variety of compressing ways. [Footnote: See testimony before the committee to investigate the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company, and the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company, Pennsylvania Legislative Docs.

1876, Vol. v, Doc. No. 2. This investigation fully revealed how the railroads detained the cars of the "independent" operators, and otherwise used oppressive methods.] As was proved in subsequent lawsuits, the railroads frequently declined to carry coal for this or that mine, on the pretext that they had no cars available. Every means was used to crush the independent operators and depreciate the selling value of their property. It was a campaign of ruination; in law it stood as criminal conspiracy; but the railroads persisted in it without any further molestation than prolix civil suits, and they finally forced a number of the well-nigh bankrupted independent operators to sell out to them for comparatively trifling sums.