The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1889-08-31
VOLUME XIV.


would have the public believe, te
improve the manufacture of an arti
Gle, nor to secure to the public the
benefits that flow from production
on large scale. but to lower as fai
as practicable the price it pays fol-
its raw material and to raise as high
as possible the price the public pays
for the finished product. Expert
ence shows that the public can pro-
tect itself from frauds in the quality
of articles without recourse to the
expensive machinery of the trust.
As for the advantage of cheapened
cost, arising from production on a
large scale, a brief experience has
shown conclusively that, however
great that advantage is, it is always
appropriated by the trust and never
conferred upon the consumer. The
large dividends of the trusts on a
diminished production make it per-
fectly clear who the beneficiaries of
the new combination really are The
sugar trust, for example, operating
but eleven of it's refineries, earns and
pays large dividends on the watered
stock of sixteen refineries, and the
whisky trust, operating but twelve
distilleries, pays handsome dividends
upon the watered stock of eighty one
distilleries. Facts of this kind in
dictate beyond question that. what
ever else has been done, these trusts
have limited the supply of their pro-
ducts, and by means of such limita-
ton have been enabled to run up
prices. To control the supply is in
dispensable to the success of every
trust. This can be effected only by
destroying competition and the pos
sibility of competition in the open
market. In the natural course of
things the "higgling of the market
is the means by which prices of com
are fixed. That is to say,
its prices are the outcome of the
contest between the seller and the
buyer, the former trying to get the
highest figure for his wares and the
buyer trying to buy them at the
lowest. The holder of a given arti-
Gle, competing with each other to
effect sales, ultimately, if the supply
is ample, agree to take reasonable
profit; if for any reason the supply
runs short there is a possibility of
exacting larger profit, and the
seller avails himself of it. The
scheme of the trust is to produce an
scarcity, to keep the sup
ply of necessary article always
short, to suppress the "higgling of
the Market" to hold all retailers
under check-in a word, to possess
a monopoly. wherever competi-
ton is not" said John Stuart Mill,
monopoly is" No better definition
can be devised for the hateful thing
signifed by this hateful word. Few
words in our language conjure up
ideas more repugnant to equality of
citizenship and free institutions.
Monopoly, as signifying a privilege
of the few to exact unearned money
from the masses, is a term associat-
ed with all the wrongs and abuses
Of monarchical government The ex-
istence of a privileged class-men
wholly virtue of some artful manip
ulation of law, commercial or other,
reap the rewards of other mems Ia
Dor. That we have such class
among us in the organizers of trusts
is made very clear by Mr.. Wilson's
lucid account Of their suppression of
and the effect of that
upon the incomes of the
people Its baleful influence is felt
unfortunately not alone by the con-
sumers of the products of trusted
industries, but also by the producers
of its raw material. 1t impoverishes
at both ends of the industrial chain.
The standard-oil trust, for example,
having absorbed almost all the in
dustries of this country connected
with the refining of oil, dictates to
the owners of oil wells the price at
which they must sell. 1t is virtual
ly their only customer. So low is
the price it pays for the crude oil,
that to ''strike oir' is no longer a
phrase to denote the sure acquisi-
ton of great and immediate wealth.
On the contrary, the oil producing
territory is now in state of chronic
What the trusts in
their role of monopolists do at the
other end of the industrial chain
has already been indicated in the
higher prices consumers have to pay
for articles produced by these com
binations, and in the enormous pro-
fits the trusts divide among them
selves, Of course in limiting pro-
duction with view to higher prices,
the trusts come in conflict with la
Dor, whose interest it is that pro-
duction should reach its widest pos
sible limit. With this phrease of his
subject Mr.. Wilson will deal in his
next paper.-Bottimore Sun.
Senator Faulkner in an Encyclopedia.
New York Letter to Pittsburg Post