The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1888-05-24

| III all IIldL pertains 10 CHe dCCuuulhtlOi
of wealth as this association of indi-
vidual effort which charters of incor-
poration afford. But the greater the
benefits of the system, the greater the
need to see that they are not permitted
to convert these benefits into positive
evils-the more urgent the duty of
legislators to keep them the servants,
and not the masters, of the people.
Among the few and highly intelligent,
these combinations are easily effected
and this is seen daily. Not only do
the corporations created for the same
purpose conspire to influence legisla-
ton or to control trade in the absence
Of legislation, but, as general rule,
all other corporations whatsoever do
the same. The banks, the railroads,
steamship companies, the manufactur-
ers and trust companies all make COM
mon cause, and that cause is to shape
legislation and public policy in their
interest. This gives to their peculiar
interest such an apparent approval Of
| public opinion that it is often mistak
en- for public interest, and legislators
not seldom believe that in following
their suggestions they are serving the
| public, when, in fact, they are simply
serving the corporations.
Here is room for reform-quIte as
badly needed as in tariff taxation
| The one is an outrage by commission
and the other by the omission of the
law. The one plumbers by the direct
command of the law the other plum
ders because the law does not step in
and forbid. Some idea can be obtain
ed of the amount of unjust taxation
collected from the people by protect
| i've tariffs, because the statistics per-
tanning to that part which goes into
the public treasury enables us to form
an approximate estimate of the vas
remainder. But who can give rea-
sonable estimate of of the untold-be-
cause nknown-amount OF iniquitous
taxation levied upon the American
people and collected by distress by
the great transportation companies,
rings and trusts of this country? They
keep no books open to the public,
they furnish no statistics, they are re-
| sponsible to nobody, they are amena-
bic to no official visitation. Yet they
collect more taxes. and by methods
more discriminating and unjust, year
by year, than is collected for all State
and Federal purposes in these United
States. To all complaints by the
public they reply by simply inviting
the public to help itself. Things are
perpetrated dailv which, if done by
officials who were responsible in any
way to the people or dependent on
them, would hurl the perpetrators
from their places with a velocity
which would scarcely be expended
until it reached convenient tree with
outspreading branches.
The first great illustration of a mo-
nopoly which exists by the omission
of the law to interfere, which natural
ly suggests itself as a villainy of un-
rivalfed proportions in all this earth,
is the Standard Oil Company. Its
history is we'll known to the public,
thoug the quantity and profundity of
its iniquities, like the diversified mys-
ticismS of the Talmud, can only be
fathomed by the life long study of
great and patient scholars. No man
who is not willing to forsake both
father and mother, family and friends,
and for one generation, at least, follow
only the record of its transactions,
need hope to see more than the nebu-
lous outlines of the expressions and
corruptions which the laws ola free
civilized republic have permitted il
TO commit untroubled. Their mono
poly of the oil trade over sixty mil
lions of people and four million square
miles of territory is as complete as
it could be made by the ukase of an
autocratic czar. A man who attempts
to sell oil obtained through any Other
source or at any other price than the
one fixed by themselves receives al
once an inquisitorial visit from the
t standard Oil Company, whose appa.
ritor notifies him to quit. If he be
wise, he obeys and lives; if he refuses
> to obey, relying upon the laws of hi:
, country to sustain him in his rights a.
a man and citizen, he il doomed
Profting by this pernicious example
3 the brood OF vlpers has multiplied anC
r will multiply: The Cottonseed Oh
= Trust is another instance. When i
r was found that this glorious Southern
e plant, which not OILY clothed tn,
: greater rart OF the world, but furnish
o ed rich TODD for animals and fertiliza
i tion for the fields, contained also
S rich and palatable oil, mills for its ex
h traction were established all over tn
= South at once. Then the trust wa
z organized to monopoli4e the business
s A large combination of capital ena
is bled it to buny all the mills that wer
n willingly offered for sale, and to fore
o the sale OF the rest. A story is told {
: a mill-owner in Alabama WHICH is in
e struetive. /, He refused to sell. Th
, vehm- gericht warned him. He shil
y ped ten thousand gallons of oil frol
It Mobile to Trieste; the vessel whie
l. bore it touched at New York for MOI
y cargo. The trust shipped by th'
: same vessel ten thousand gallons Of Q
IS to the same place and the same col
l. signees, with orders to sell SO far belo
le the stubborn Alabamian's price so ia
, as to leave him no profit. A dead 10
e, to him was the result, and he was n
s, titled that it should be the same tbiT
u every time. Not being able to kee
is up the fight against SO great a CONT
IL nation, he surrendered and sold to
ID his mill. Can anything more outr
ut geous be conceived short of higwi
y. robbery?
n Then comes the Sugar Trust, form'