Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-02-12
Anarsw carnegie on Trusts.


Mr.. ANDREW CARNEGIE, in the Febru-
ary number of the North american
Review, contributes an article on
TRUSTS" which he holds to be highly
affairs, or, as Mr.. Blaine put it,
on his return from q coaching trip
Scotland with Mr.. Carnegie.
"largely private affairs with which the
public has nothing to do" There is a |
remarkable community of sentiment be-
tween these two well-known gentlemen.
The great maker of steel rails and bars
holds that combines are created through
a law of trade, and will be abolished
through the same agency. This is all
very pretty talk, but it buffers no pars-
nips for community which is rapidly
finding itself helpless in the grasp of the
great capitalistic octopus. Mr.. Carnegie's
ideas would have left the world at the
mercy of every usurer and tyrant from
the day of that Roman Emperor who
said that he allowed people to
fill up like sponge, in order that
he might wiring them out, to the present.
The power to wiring the substance out OF
their subjects has been taken away from
these arbitrary gentlemen of the kingly
persuasion. In fact not only their power
but their personality has been largely
abolished. But every victory in the in
terest of the masses has been won by
hard knocks. Failure to resist the insid-
ious advances of unscrupulous tinanciers
is at the bottom of all the watered stocks
that the people sweat in paying interest
on. Jay Gould was created by corrupt
Legislature and an enfeebled public SEN
timent. Vanderbilt worked the watering
cart to the extent of increasing the capi-
tai stock of the New York Central Rail
way from $2S,OOO,OOO to SIP, 900, 900,
and on this "demnition total, to employ
Mantalini's fervent language, the masses
have had to pay right royal dividends.
No wonder that the collective wealth of
the Vanderbilt family is now estimated
at $500, ,0O0,0 900. Such methods as the
American people permit their finan-
ciers to adopt enable ordinary men
to outstrip the Count of Monte Cristo.
They make the stream of Pactolus resem-
BILE river in the arid portion of Cali
fornia in midsummer, and convert the
tabled wand of Midas into the baton Of
an ordinary impresario.
Mr.. Carnegie is the veritable smooth
Ephraim of his fellow plutocrats. He
was a creature, originally, of the famous
Col. Thomas A. Scott, the longtime
President and Vice-President of the
Pennsylvania Central Railway. Col.
Scott, also, had fashion of writing for
periodicals. In this same North american
Reuiey he published an article, shortly
after the celebrated Pittsburg riots, advo-
eating the establishment by the National
Government of standing army of
| 5000 men, in order to hold the people
in check while they were being uncon-
scionably robbed. This was the same
Tom scott-personally the most amiable
and winning Of men-who bribed the
passage of bill through the Pennsyl-
vania Legislature giving the whole mag
nifcent system of public works to his
company canal and improvements that
had cost the people $40,000,000 for
So 900, 200, payable in thirty years in the
sum of 100000 per annum without in
terest, and who Immediately allowed
them to fall into decay. This is the way
the master proposed to allow the natural
economic laws to do their noble function.
Like master like man. Mr.. Carnegie
has turned out to be an apt pupil of the
genial, unscrupulous and peremptory
Scott.
Mr.. Blaine's friend has himself done
reasonably well by his tender regard for
the laws of supply and demand. Hon.
William L. Scott stated on the floor of the
House of Representatives that Mr.. Car
negie had admitted to him that he (Car-
negie) had made So 900 day net profit
out of his Pennsylvania steel works the
previous year. No wonder he thinks that
trusts ought to be left alone, to be regu-
lated by the laws of supply and demand.
1t is fortunate, however, for the masses,
that they do not take this view of the
matter. Fortunately for them, also, some
of the most eminent statesmen
in the country are of the
same mind, and q public
sentiment is being aroused which cannot
fail to result in remedial measures.
Things have been done in republican
America which, if they had been at
tempted in monarchical England, or in
quasi-republican France, would have re-
suited in revolution. This manifold
millionaire shows sublimated cheek in
venturing into magazine article on such
a subject. and in characterizing as
"bugaboo" grave peril which threatens
to take from the people the little that
the Goulds, Vanderbilts, their imitators
and henchmem, have left to them.
The American people, though often
foolish, are not fools, nor is their patience
absolutely inexhaustible. The men who
increased the capital stock of the New
York Central Railway from $2S 900, 900
to $112, 200, ,000-a fourfold gouge-ought
to have died in the penitentiary. The
men who wrecked the Erie Railway, and
defrauded its English stockholders in Or
der to oppress the American producer
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