West Virginia Democrat. [volume] (Charles Town, W. Va.) 1885-1890, 1888-05-11

generation at least follow only the
record of it's transactions, need hope
to see more than the nebulous out
lines of the expressions and corrup
tions which the laws of free civil
lied republic have permitted it to
commit untrOubled.
Their monopoly of the oil trade
over sixty millions of people and
four millions square miles Of terri
tory is as complete as could be made
by the ukase of an autocratic car.
A man who attempts to sell oil OBJ
tanned through any other source or
at any other price than the one fixed
by themselves receives at once an
inauisitorial visit from the Standard
Oil Company, whose apparitor noti-
fies him to quit. If he be wise, he
obeys and lives; if he refuses to
obey, relying upon the laws of his
country to sustain him in his rights
as a man and acitizen, he is doomed.
Profiting by this pernicious exam
pie, the brood of vipers has multi
piled and will multiply. The Cot
ton Seed Oil trust is another in
stance. When it was found that
this glorious Southern plant. which
not only clothed the greater part Of
the world, but furnished rich food
for animals and fertilization for the
fields, contained also rich and pal
atable oil, mills for it's extraction
were established all over the South
at once. Then the trust was organ
lied to monopolize the business. A
large combination of capital enabled
it to buy all the mills that were will
lingly offered for sale, and to force
the sale of the rest A story is told
of a mill-owner in Alabama which
is instructive. He refused to sell.
The vehm- gericht warned him. He
shipped ten thousand gallons of oil
from Mobile to Trieste; the vessel
which bore it touched at New York
for more cargo. The trust shipped
by the same vessel 10000 gallons
of oil to the same place and the
same consignees, with orders to sell
below the stubborn Alabamian's
prices so far as to leave him no pro-
| fit. A dead loss to him was the re-
suit, and he was notified that it
should be the same thing every time.
Not being able to keep up the fight
against so great a combination, he
surrendered and sold to it his mill.
Can anything more outrageous be
conceived short of highway robbery?
Then comes the Sugar Trust,
formed for depressing the price of
raw sugar and increasing that of the
refined article. Every refinery in
the United States but two, the news
papers tell us, has been subdued in
the same way and forced to join the
combination under penalty of bank
ruptcy and ruins. The Whiskey
Trust pursues much the same poll
CIV. One by one these combinations,
conspiracies against the public wei
fare and the freedom of trade, are
being formed in respect to the pro-
duction and sale of all the leading
necessaries of life. Step by step the
evil genius of monopoly is multiplying
that freedom of trade among our
own people which the policy of our
fathers established by the constltu-
ton, and which all men, of whatever
financial opinions, admit to be the
chief source of our prosperity.
Strange to say, whilst this tendency
on the part of capital to create mo-
nopolies and suppress competition
by combination is on the increase,
the tendency of our legislation and
administration of the laws is to ia
vor it. Their influence in the enact
ment and the execution of our laws
seems supreme. Those who favor
their enterprises are described as
practical statesmen, devoted to the
business interests of the country,
whilst those who oppose their
schemes as dangerous are called
cranks and demagogues.
Surely this state of things re-
quires correction. There is con-
seryative element in our business
society as in our political, and this
element should be invoked. There
are those who will give as well as
take, live and let live; who, looking
beyond the present things of selfish
ness, have respect unto the recon-
pense of reward; who wish to see
our country as free and its laws as
lust in fact as they are in theory.
There are citizens who desire to en-