terrible hardships to the wage workers. Did the Government step in and assist them? At no time. But during all those years the Government was busy in letting the shippers dig into the public funds and in being extremely generous to them when they failed to pay up. From 1789 to 1823 the Government lost more than $250,000,000 in duties,1 all of which sum represented what the shippers owed and did not, or could not, pay. And no criminal proceedings were brought against any of these defaulters.
This, however, was not all that the Government did for the favored, pampered class that it represented. Laws were severe against labor-union strikes, which were frequently judicially adjudged conspiracies. Theoretically, law inhibited monopoly, but monopolies existed, because law ceases to be effective law when it is not enforced; and the propertied interests took care that it was not enforced. Their own class was powerful in every branch of Government. Furthermore, they had the money to buy political subserviency and legal dexterity. The $35,000 that Astor paid to Cass, the very official who,