Mexico weekly ledger. (Mexico, Mo.) 1855-1956, 1883-11-22
Who are Menspslists :
BY a Neva,aper Nronopossst

Who are Menspslists Z
By Newspaper Nonopoliss
Yes, my son. . monopoly is q bad
thing, and 1 am glad to zee the peo-
pie Of this country organizing them
selves against the monopolies that
are crushing the life out Of honest
and worthy competition. There are
several monopoles in this afflicted
land. Some Of them are worth mil
lions. ALI Of them want to be worth
twice 80 much as that. Vanderbilt
and Gould are famous monopolists.
The Western Union Telegraph COM
pany is a gigantic monopoly. And
there are several other monopolies.
When You employ 800, or thirty,
or ten workmen and pay them with
your own money, and a committee
waits on you to tell you that II you
do not discharge q certain workman,
a good mechanic, sober, quiet, faith
ful, whose only fault is that he be-
longs to no labor organization, the
other 399, or twenty-nine, or nine
viii quit work in the midst Of ysur
busy season; you are in the clutches
Of a monopoly monopoly ssgrind-
ing, grasping, and cruel in its way as
the Western Union. 1t is called a
trade-union, but it is monopoly.
When a committee of workmen
come to you and say that, as you
have great many contracts half-fin-
ished, and as men are scarce and hard
to get, and as they have you on the
hip, they will strike in ten minutes
unless you allow them to set their
own pay at the highest figures; then
that is monopoly that acts just pre-
cisely as the Western Union does
when it absorbs rival line and tells
you that as there is emily one office in
this town they will raise the rate a
little.
When you tell your workmen that
times are dull and the market is
stagnant, and that you don't need
them anyhow, and they can work on
half time or none, then you are the
monopoly-that is, you are the strik-
er. A monopoly is chrome striker.
1t is always watching chance to
pinch you and squeeze just little
more work or money out of you for
its own benefit.
The tramp who airs his rage at
the kitchen door while his breakfast is
preparing is monopolist. He knows
that you hate him, and don't want to
feed him. But he knows that you
are afraid il you don't feed him he
will set fire to the stable some night.
So he makes you give him q breakfast
for nothing.
The honest farmer who holds back
his wheat until he can squeeze 81. 40
lper bushel out Of you for it, not be-
cause it is better wheat than you get
for ninety cents, but because wheat
is so scarce, is as mean monopolist
as there is In the lot. Jay Gould
couldn't gre him any points.
The man who charges FORTY cents
a pound for butter just because the
roads are so bad the people who are
lselling their butter in the villages for
twenty cents can't 60 to the city with
lit, be, too, is o monopolist. When
you buy a jar of lard of him poke
into it with a ramrod to feel for a
boulder.
| And the lady who burns steak and
chips china for you at So a week is a
tmonopolist. You spent six weeks
looking for her, she stays with you
1.-TWO weeks, breaks So worth of china
and glass, loses 81 worth Of spoons
and forks, collect Sc for wages and
goes off, with twenty-four hours
warning, to a place that offers hel
more china to smash and $3.50 8
week for smashing it.
: You see, my son, in looking about
: for a monopoly to denounce or de-
. molish, our envious dispositions lead
US to assail the monopolies that arr
more fortunate than our own. w.
clamor against Vanderbilt and jay
: Gould, and Western Union, and fan
. to observe the smaller monopolie'
that differ from the great ones, no
In spirit, but only in wealth and pow
Ter. You are not monopolist? {
no, because you are clerk In
store, and there are fifty young mel
i watching you for your place, cage
; to do for S25 month what you ar
paid $40 for doing. There is no mo
nopoly in your business; but tina
] isn't your fault. Let the merchan
! over the way offer you S45, and il
twenty-four hours you would leav
= the man who took you in a raw cul
}. of boy, doing more damage thai
8 good to the business who taugll
a you, and trained you, and made yo'
8 worth s45 q month. You'd do it to-
: quick, my son; that's the kind of
b man you are.
A monopolist isn't necessarily
s millionaire. He is simply the ma
IS who holds the whip-handle. 1t !
y derived from the two Latin words
5 mono and pole, meaning the man Q
the pole. And the man with th
r. pole, you know, knocks the persin
II roona uo Ypay knaclr q million n