Arizona silver belt., 1883-01-20
An Anti Anti-MOnOpOly Talk.

What is an anti-monopolist? The answer is plain: A man who is op- posed to aggregationS of capital. Who are the great apostles of that heresy? F. B. Thurber, who crowds the tax payers of New York from the side walks which surround his grocery store; Henry George, who does not be- lieve in vested rights, because he has none, and good old Peter Cooper who controlled the glue business of the United States till he built colossal fortune out of it. Take individual effort-outside of mere matters of sen timent-and what has it done? In the year 1880, there were only twenty three miles of railroad owned in the United States; last year there were Il ,00O miles built, and 115,000 owned. In 1914 only fifty-slx miles of road lay west of the dividing line between Ohio and Indiana, now the majority of it is in that direction. In the year 1840 there was not telegraph pole in the United States, now they support wires which reach every town, even in the mountains of Arizona, then a terra incognita, and one corporation owns 100000 miles; enough to go fifteen times around this earth. In the first half of this century, manufactures were struggling for a market at home, now they have the whole world. What has made the change? Is it the genius of enterprise which is the par amount power in the land? Brains may be never so fertile, courage may be never so magnificent, desire may be never so potent factor in human action, but without concentration they could do nothing at all. Monopolies have grown out of urgent necessities. Without therl and the needs they have created, and the facilities they have given, the line of civilization would be resting east of the Rocky mountains to-day, instead of beyond the banks of the Colorado; without them the population of this country |.could never have increased, in twenty years, from thirty-eight to fifty mil lins; without them the prices of ex- change in London, and the news of a battle on the Nile would not be known in Globe on the same day; without them water would not run through the streets of cities, or the subtle spir- its of coal and the air light up dark places with their brilliant luminosity; f; without them mines would be hidden in the bosom of the hills; without them the millions of letters that are written would journey in old fash toned hulks across the ocean, or lum- bering stage coaches over the prairies; without them there would be stagna- tion in business, fossilism in society and state and national insulation states would not know each other, and the world would not know us; without them the increase of $1OOOO,OOO over former years, placed in the savings banks of the country by workingmen and women would be impossible.
 Who is it that finds fault with cor porations? Demagogues. Men with the spirit of Johan Most-the apostle of without his courage men who are not petted or made rich by corporation pap, or men who, being rich, want to ride into public honor and place, by swelling cry which they think will be popular with the masses. It is not popular--in New York the masses repudiated anti-mo- nopoly at the polls, and wherever fair play and common sense prevail so hagrant heresy can find no disciples.