Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1888-04-06
AGRICULTURAL.
Observation-Disclosures.

iIIionaires.
The y. h. Farmer has the ability to per
ceive that combination among farmers to
govern the price Of their products is quite
similar in principle to other combinations
for the same purpose among other classes,
aud remarks upon the inconsistency Of
sweeping condemnation in one case and APP
prevail in the other The Farmer may be
answered that. though the abstract princi
pie may be the same in each case practi-
cnlly the circumstances may be such as 10
justify one while the other deserves all the
condemnation it gets-and more. There is
wide difference between the hard labor
ing producers Of the nations food-the
mass Of whom are struggling without hope
of much, if anything, beyond comforta-
BILE living, many of them failing even of
thnt-and millionaires who are using, indi-
vidually or in combinations, the leverage
Of their vast wealth 10 add millions upon
millions to possessions already too large.
At the rate that wealth has accumulated in
a few hands during the past twenty years,
there is real danger that the people will
finally have, for their own, about what the
wealthy classes choose to permit them to
retain Congress could remedy at once, if
it would, some Of the evil ways by which
the milonaires exact millions of tribute
from the people but it will not. The mill
ionaire influence controls it,
In reply to an article in the New Eng
land Farmer, referred to above, DR.. Hos
kins says in the Rural Vermonter
eve protest against the advancement of
the astonishing proposition that there is
substantially no difference between these
secret conspracies of monopolists, under
the name Of trusts TO rob the public,
and the open combinations of the people
for self protection against such high hand
ed aggressions. Take the case of the
Standard Oil Trust the pioneer and the
great exemplar of this nefarious method of
plundering the public To any one who
has ever read the exposure made in the
Atlantic Monthly few years ago, of the
way in which this highly trustworthy trust
bought up railway managers, legislators
and courts, and by their aid extinguished
all competition, and, with slight exceptions,
took the whole business of making trans
porting and dealing in petroleum products
into its own hands, the claim that it is a
public benefactor because it makes good
and uniform products, and sells them at a
not very eXorbitant price, is surprising be-
You'd measure. The rapidity with which
the members Of this trust have become bill
lionaires milionaires shows that, cheap
ms their goods may be- they are sold at an
immense profit, which would be impossible
under free competition. Good kerosene
may be cheap, compared with other ilu-
minating substances, at ten cents gallon
but if, at that price, the monupolists who
make it are getting an enormous profit
through the extinction of competition it is
pretty apparent that the public is being
steadily robbed.
But still further, is not this plea in favor
of trust monopolies in oil, sugar. and the
other leading staples, a plea for paternal
ism in trade, in a community which has
fOndly believed that it has finally and for
ever abolished paternalism in government
II the production of and trade in all the
great staple and necessary products of the
earth are to he committed to great organ
lied monopoles, without competition and
without control, what is the difference in
our social and business condition from a
more than Russian absolutism Allowing
that these trusts do supply us with all the
necessaries of life better in quality, more
moderate and uniform in price than ever
before, are we to have no fear of them Is
the whole thing anything but the reippear-
ance of the old robber baronage in new
form. adapted to the new times The old
harons Of Europe did afford certain pro
lection and safety to their serfs, in return
for the servitude under which it brought
them The people did not sell themselves
for nothing They got some poor pottage
for their birthrights of land home and per
sonal freedom. Suppose somebody land
perhaps somebody, say the clergy, did told
the people how greatly they were benefited
10y the preservation of order. Suppose
somebody told them that the very fact that
they tried to protect themselves, by some
slight organization, against baronial ag-
gression, took away all right to object to
the leagues between the barons to subject
the people Very specious arguments have
been built up by sOphistical reasoners, in
which it almost seemed to be proved that
there is no real difference between right
and wrong. But we must Judge these
these things by what we see with our own
eyes of their tendency even before we
have fully realized their ultimate results
1t is 50 evident what this tendency is, that
there is nothing surprising in the rapidly
spreading sense OF great and imminent dan
ger which possesses the people The very
instinct of freedom senses in them the loss
of liberty. In how short time will these
trusts" place the great bulk of American
wealth in the hands of an untitled nobility
whose monopoly Of everything will equal
the English monopoly of land All other
questions pale before this one, and every
thing else may well be laid aside until this
great issue is met"