Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-03-23
THE ABUSE OF THE WORD MoaoPoLY.'

monopoly is speclally worm asseneioh,
for one reason because it serves to show
how fimsy and insubstantial are the found
atoms upon which the anti-railroad agita-
ton is built. The fact is that, as the Gin
cinnati Commercial observes, Sc the word
monopoly is much misused. The true de-
" finition of the word is the exclusion OF
competition. Where there are half a
dozen great railroads competing with
each other there is no monopoly. At
"present there is one telegraph company
sin possession Of all the wires, but the
"earth and air are free, and if the com.
"pany is exacting and unaccommodating,
"poles and wire are cheap, and money and
intelligence abundant. As long as the
Western Union Telegraph Company
" gives US better and cheaper service
than the Government could give we need
mot heed the cry Of monopoly though one
company does all the business" In truth
this can't about railroad monopolies is but
another evidence of the reluctance or inca
pacity to think at all, which is the real ex-
PLANTATION of what are often enormously
called popular mistakes of judgment. 1t
is not that the people make mistakes Of
Judgment, for that would imply delibera-
ton and the balancing of views. 1t is that
they decline for the most part to think in
any way, but accept the statements which
are set before them with the blind unques-
tioning faith which was formerly exhibited
most in regard to religious creeds.
It is doubtful whether popular intelli-
gence is indeed very much advanced. 1t
has changed the direction of its credulities,
but that is about all it has done. 1t re-
quires as much abnegation of individual
intelligence to credit such wild and pre-
posterous statements as are just now being
advanced by the anti-railroad demagogues
as it formerly did to secure the acceptance
of monkish legends and superstitious
fables. The popular talk about "monop.
"olies " is directly in point. What is a
monopoly? The public as rule have not
the remotest idea. The word has come to
be simply abusive, in fact. A monopoly is
an arrangement by which certain parties
are given the exclusive right to do or make
or hold something. No such thing as a
monopoly, either in fact or analogy, exists
in the United States to-day. 1t is not in
the least true, as has been alleged, that
railroad and other corporations exercise a
virtual monopoly. They do nothing of the
kind. There can be nothing in the form
of monopoly while the right to build rail
roads anywhere is free to every citizen of
the United States. The pretense that es-
tablished lines monopolize trade is equally
false and fabulous. To monopolize trade
means so to control it that competition is
impossible, and no such condition of
things exists or ever has existed in this
country.
The only virtual monopoly possible I'M
der the American form of government is
that which divests the condition of all
sinister significance. That is to say that
the only possible monopoly is that which
is created by doing something SO much
better than anyone else does it, that all the
world will desire to have it done in that
particular way. The truth is that there
has hitherto been much more evil caused
by the absolute freedom of competition
among us than by any other agency. Our
railroads have frequently bankrupted one
another by their fierce and relentless rival
ries, and large proportion of all the rail-
road embarrassments which have occurred
during the last thirty years owe their
origin to this reckless competition. The
very freedom of trade and enterprise un-
der democratic institutions has in this way
been productive of harm, and to those who
look beneath the surface nothing can be
more absurd than the current notions on
this subject. There is no railroad in
America which is or can be secure against
competition. There is no railroad occu-
plying an advantageous position which is
not certain to invite competition by its
prosperity. Wherever a road has been
built and is seen to be paying well, there
other capital is certain to set up rival
transportation route. This is one of the
laws of trade and of enterprise as uniform
as the laws of nature, and it constitutes
complete protection against any real mo-
nopoly.
If the people would only take the trouble
to think when propositions arraigning great
industries and interests are put before
them, they would avoid many disastrous
entanglements. In this anti-railroad lwar
they are practically invited to array them
selves against line of enterprises abso-
lutely essential to the existence of civil
ization, and in which at least three thou
sand million dollars of American capital are
invested at the present time. The chief
excuse for assaulting the railroads is that
they are monopolies )" and this pretense
Is d stuplu anu SudllOW talSeE0OQ. 1ley
are no more monopolies than the groceries
or the butchers or the dry goods stores.
They are legitimate and wholesome man
ifestations of enterprise and intelligence,
and those who are attacking them are
ranting, canting demagogues who desire to
lift themselves into power by dipping the
people, and who are supported by set of
anarchists whose chief aim is the upsetting
of all existing rational methods of govern
ment, and the substitution of chaos for
order.
THE PRESIDENT ON PoLYGAMY.
We are sorry to see disposition in
President Garfield to "protest too much.
If what he is reported as saying about the
question of polygamy be true, we shall
not anticipate any practical measures from
his administration in that regard. As a