The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1888-05-22
RoBBING THE POOR BY LAW.
Senator Vance on Combinations to
~ tf'set Plumber the People. +~=

1iuuueI the
o'a We make the following extracts
from Senator Vance's last article in
the Baltimore Sun, which will no
doubt be read with great interest
by the patrons of The PROGRESSIVE
FARMER: aEHt1 eds 90 us5-a ''5b 1aE1"a
"But who can give a reasonable
estimate of the untold-because un-
known-amount ofiniquitous 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 respon-
sible to'nobody, they are amenable to
no official visitation. ri 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 daily 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 velocity which
would scarcely be expended until it
reached a convenient tree with out
spreading branches.
The first great Illustration of a
monopoly which exists by the omis-
sion of the law to interfere, which
naturally suggests itself as a villainy
of unrivaled proportions in all this
earth, is the Standard Oil Company.
Its history is we'll known to the pub
lie, though the quantity and profund-
ity Of it's iniquities, like the diversified
mysticisms of the Talmud can only
be fathomed by the lifelong study of
great and patient scholars. No nan
who is not willing to forsake both
father and mother, family and friends,
and for one generation at least follow
only the record of it's transactions,
need hope to see more than the nebu-
lous outlines Of the expressions and
corruptions which the laws of a free
civilized republic have permitted it to
commit untroubled. Their monopoly
of the oil trade over sixty millions of
people and four millions square + miles
of territory Is as complete as could be
made by the ukase of an autocratic
car. A man. who attempts to sell oil
obtained through any other source or
at any other price than the one fixed
by themselves receives at once an in
quisitorial visit from the Standard Oil
Company, whose apparitor notifies
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 nan and a citi-
zen, he is doomed. Profting by this
pe~rnicious example, the brood of
vipers has multiplied and will multi
ply. The Cottonseed Oil Trust is
another instance. 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 a rich and
palatable oil, mills for its extraction
were established over the South at
once. Then the trust was organized
to monopolize the business. A large
combination Of capital enabled it to
buy all the mills that were willingly
offered for sale, and to force the sale
of the rest. Q A story is told of a mill
owner in Alabama which is instruc-
tive. 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
ten thousand gallons of oil to the same
place and the same consignees, with
orders to sell below the stubborn Ala
bamian's price so far as to leave him
no profit. A dead loss to him was
the result, and.he was notified that it
should be the same thing everyatime.
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 newspapers tell
us, has been subdued in the same way
and forced to join the combination
under penalty of bankruptcy and ruin.
The Whiskey Trust pursues much the
same policy. One by one these com
binations, conspiracies against the