Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1889-07-30
MISCELLANEOUS
The Sugar Trust and Growth
OF MonopoIies.
LFrom the Rnltimore SIM

AS we note from day to day the de-
velopment of trusts and the creation
of new combinations to control one
after another the productive indus
tries of the country, we see growing
up under our free Republican system
of government a monopolistic influ-
enre which, vast and despotiu rs it is
to-day, is but on the threshold of
power, and but beginning to play its
part in business and public affairs
Not a day passes but some new trust
absorbs an important industry, and
makes itself felt in the markets. 1t
was only yesterday that we gave our
Philadelphia correspondent the de-
tails concerning plan for the asso-
citation in q trust of ''all reputable
gas and electric light fixture manu-
facturers in the United States. And
SO we may go on until every manufac-
turing industry is controlled and the
protective idea reaches its full meas
ure of development. In the admira-
BILE series of papers on the trust, as
it is applied to our business affairs,
from the pen of Representative Will
son, of West Virginia, which we are
publishing, the writer, proceeding
from the Standard Oil scheme, goes
on to the consideration of the other
trusts which affect the pockets of the
peopIeEnotably the sugar trust
showing how they operate to make
consumers pay more for the commod-
tiles of life now than before the
trusts began to get their grip on the
business of the country. Before do
ing this, however, he shows that in the
six years from 1882 to 1888 the Stan
dard Oil trust, besides paying twen-
ty millions in stock dividends, aver
aged u per cent. yearly in money
dividends, reaching 10 per cent, in
recent years, and that the trust cer-
tificates, beginning below par, had
gone up to S165. In other words,
a capital of seventy millions, with a
less market value, grew in six years
to ninety millions, with a market
value of one hundred and fifty mil
lions, having in the meantime paid
regular and liberal dividends
"Ihese facs," Mr.. Wilson says,
(which sound like Eastern fables
rather than a chapter from our re-
cent commercial history, will prepare
us for the spread of the new inYen-
tion rs soon as its nature could be i'm
derstoood. The cottonseed oil
trust was the next great combination
to be formed by the spectators, and
some of the Standard were among its
managers, if they were not its engi-
neers. 1t was a very natural step
from the petroleum to the cotton oil
trust, but not being q necessary of
life, it has impressed people more as
a Wall street speculative movement
than anything more serious. This,
however, is not tile case with sugar,
of which we require nearly third of
the worlds product, and the con-
sumption is fifty pounds year per
capita. When the sugar trust was
formed, therefore it became directly
a matter of concern to every house
hold, and the rise in the price of the
commodity, which has followed the
combination, was felt in every fam
lily, exciting public feeling to the
point where Legislatures and courts
were invoked to uncover and, if pos
sible, to suppress the monopoly
The plan of organization agreed to
in 1887 required the transfer of the
stock of all the separate refinery cor
! poratiOns to eleven trustees. who in
turn received their quota of the S5O,-
000,000 certificates issued by the
trust, leaving fifteen per cent. of the
shares thus allotted with the board
to acquire other refneries. Each
corporation in the trust pre-.
serves as before it's identity ard
separate management, but tile board.
as the common and exclusive stock
holders of them all, elect their direc-
tors and receive all the dividends, out
of which in turn they declare and pay
dividens on the trust certificates
There were sixteen refineries original.
ly in this alliance, headed by the
Havemyer C Elder concern in New
York. and including refineries in Bos.
ton, st. Louis, New Orleans and Port
land, Maine. 1t has been only within
the past few days that the st. JOSEPH
(Mo. refinery was reported to have
been absorbed in the trust. Five O
the original sixteen reffneries were al
most Immediately closed, three o
them in New York and two in Boston
Various excuses were alleged for thi
prompt diminution of production, bu
as Mr.. Wilson shows, it is hard I,
explain why the only shutting dow
IN the country was among trust ref
neries, which, as a whole, produced
two-thires of the refined sugar in tn
3 country. Another immediate resuI
; was an increase in the cost to the con
! sumer, which has gone on steadily Il
ineraose aoob ,zas'r zi,oo II 1879