The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1881-10-28
WHAT MONOPOLY is Doing.

The Standard says: The Oregoaian
treats the anti-monopoly question in.
pretty much the same spirit that it
refers to John FL. Mitchel's ambition
to succeed Senator Grover-it pooh
poohs it; and in both instances it
assumes to ignore two very vital and
important facts.
Nopolitical movement inaugurated
since the close of the civil war is
fraught with so great consequences
to the American people as the move
nent against monopoly, which is just
beginning to receive an impetus at
the hands Of the people. There have
heretoforeSbeen occasional localized
struggles against some separate and
partly isolated limb of the hydra
beaded monster, but the resistance
has been of slight. avail because gen.
orally complicated with the extreme
economic heresies. The Standard
does not strike for any communistic
crusade of labor against capital; it is
the alliance of labor and legitimately
productives capital against mon
strous .despotism that is eating the
heart out of both.
1t is only within the past dozen
years or SO that the creation of titanic
monopolles has. been reduced to sys-
TEN in the United States, and it is
only within a still more recent period
that we have begun to gasp under
their pitlless clutch. This is no
vague demagogic rant, as the Orego-
nian seems to believe. To go even
farther than our contemporary and to
falsely admit that we are all monop-
olists, does this justify the continu-
| ance of the evil? This is no more
argument in defense of grasping cor
| porations than q corrupt Office holder
citing the conduct of his predecessors
to Justify stealing. The railroads are
the chief but by no means the only
offenders. Monopoly is protean in
its shapes. 1t levies tribute on the
bread we eat, on the wood We burn,
the oil in our lamps and the garments
we wear; it increases our rents and
taxes, diminishes our wages, chokes
off healthy competition, steals the
best part of the public domain, and
invariably corrupts both courts and
legislatures. A railroad king can at
his caprice in an isolated section like
ours, impose an extra toll upon grain
that would 90 far towards paying
the interest on the national debt. Jay
Gould and his copartners at a stroke
OF the pen create S25,ooo,ooo of fic-
titious telegraph stock and the public
must pay dividends on the inflated
value. This process OF wholesale
robbery must stop, not through the
| act of the blind Samson tearing down
the temple about his own head in
order to be avenged on his enemies,
but through the ballots of resoule
treemen enforcing justice and guard
I h,,, l,t,<, tx,aal II
ism that recognizes no law save its
own rapacity.
The subject of anti-monopoly
comes home to every man, woman
| and child throughout the country.
If we are ri business it discriminates
against us in favor cf its especial
pets-it seizes every one of us by
the throat and forces US to pay
tribute. 1t makes our rents dearer
by imposing intolerable burdens and
| excessive taxes upon the owners OF
property. 1t obliges us to disburse
exhor bitant sums for transportation
1t steals away the public lands which
| ought to be devoted to the payment
of the public debt. In short there
| is not moment in on lives when
| monopoly does not oppress and injure
us. The colossal fortunes of the
monopoly magma es are sufficient in
themselves to show that some one
has had to pay the iddlers-and that
some one is the people.