The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1884-01-10
Monopoly.
Monopoly.
A PROSPEROUS ASSOCIATION OF OTHER Eel.

LOWS.
Yes, my son, monopoly is a bad
thing, and | am glad to see the people
OF this country organizing against the
monopoles that are crushing the life out
OF honest and worthy competition. There
are several monopolies in this afflicted
land. Some of them are worth millions
All of them want to be worth twice as
much as that Vanderbilt and Gould
are famous monopolists. The Western
Union Telegraph Company is a gigantic
monopoly; and there are several other
monopoles.
When you employ 300 or 30 or 10 work
men, and pay them with your own
money, and a committee waits on YOU to
tell you that if you do not discharge a
certain workmen, a good mechanic,
sober, quiet, faithful, whose only fault is
that he belongs to no labor organization,
the other 499, or %, or 9 will quit work
in the midst of your busy season. YOU
are in the clutches of a monopoly. a
monopoly as grinding, grasping, and
cruel in its way as the Western Union
1t is called a trade union, but it is a
monopoly.
When a committee of WOrkmen come
to you and say that, as you have a great
many contracts half finished, 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,
that is monopoly that acts Just precisely
as the Western Union does when it ab-
serbs a rival line and tells YOU that as
nn1 in, + 80 ~,
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 striker y monopoly is a chronic
| striker. 1t is always watching chance
to pinch you and squeeze Just little
more work or money out of YOU for it's
own benefit.
And the lady who burns steak and
| chips china for you at So a week is a
monopolist. You spend six weeks look
ing for her, she stays with you two
weeks, breaks $ worth of china and
glass, and loses - Wortn of spoons and
forks, collects So for wages and goes off,
with tWenty-tour hours warning, to
| place that offers her more china to smash
and S3.50a week for smashing it.
You see, my son, in looking about for
a monopoly to denounce or demolish, our
naturally envious dispositions lead us to
assail the monopoAes that are more for
tunate than our own. We clamor
against Vanderbilt and Jay Gould and
Western Union, and fail to observe the
smaller monopolies that differ from the
great ones, not in spirit but only in
wealth and power,
\ monopolst isn't necessarily 4 mil
lionaire. He is simply the man at the
Whiphandle. 1t is derived from two
Latin words-M0Ro and pole, meaning
the man at the pole And the man at
the pole. you know, knocks the pcrslm-
mons. lie may knock a million of them
or he may knock only two but while he
is knocking YOU don't get any.
Hence, my son, a monopoly is a pros
porous combination of which We are MOI
one.
This makes it very wicked, ayarieious,
and dangerous
" hen we get into it, it ceases to be a
monopoly, and becomes union, a
brotherhood, a firm, an association or a
corporation This change of title also
involves a great moral change, and it be
comes Z mighty engine Of progress, ii
developer Of our own country's resources
factor in the national prosperity, and
all that sort of thing.
A monopoly isa thing which it is hard
to get into.
There is no monopolst 50 greedy and
dangerous as the Nhilst. The ordna-
ry monopoIist is content to control one
thing. The Nihilist wants every thing,
and a three ttths share Of " that is left
Ii You live to be }3 years oId and
have not been able to get into any other
monopoly by that time, would advise
You to 90 to the north pole and start an
ice-saloon. Burlington Iawkeye.