Workmen's advocate., 1889-11-02
HOW IT WORKS.

AS Pallas- Athena, full-armed and all wise, sprang out of Zeus' head, so did the Standard Oil Trust emerge one day from mighty lawyers brain, model of capitalistic wisdom and power.
 Standard" is it's right name, for all other trusts are limitations of it, and their success may be reckoned by their degree of perfection according to that standard.
 Volumes might be written in praise of the Oil Octopus without doing it justice, and the vain attempt of Pop Gunton to sing it's exploits in twelve cantos warns us from like enterprise and consequent failure. We shall, however, in our modest way, call at- tention to beautiful feature of this typical trust, which has heretofore been singularly overlooked by the gen. eral public.
 As fast as Nature pours oil from her own reservoirs into the tanks of the Octopus, the Octopus in turn pours cer- tifcates of oil into the money market. Millions of gallons are thus daily bought and sold, not by legitimate dealers, but by spectators who hardly know the smell of petroleum. In other words, the speculators-and the banks who lend them money-are the natural agents through whom the great monop- oly is enabled at any time to convert it's stock of merchandise into cash. And as it controls the supply it can also, to a large extent, control the price; the only intervening factor of prime importance being the condition of the money mar ket in Wall street, whereas the require ments of consumption throughout the world are secondary consideration.
 This is, to be sure, most elegant in, vention. It might be described by a patent lawyer as money pumping ap- paratus worked by the banking power for the benefit of monopolized indus. try.
 But it is not patented, and the wonder is, c prio,i, that it has so far remained an almost exclusive feature of the Stand ard Oil Trust. Upon reflection, how ever, it becomes quite plain that the first requirement of success in the ap. plication of such process to the prod ucts of any given industry, is the con- plete monopoly of that industry.
 That in the course of time all the staple articles of commerce-especially the raw materials-will undergo the same speculative operation on the money market before reaching the ac- tual market of commodities, cannot be doubted by those who observe the ten dencies of capitalistic combination. The Cotton Exchange, for instance, Is issuing cotton certificates, and the Metal Exchange is endeavoring to grade iron and steel with a view to the adoption of the same system. The difficulties are greater or less, according to the nature of the merchandise, but they will be overcome.
 Of course, as soon as a product can thus be dealt with, great facilities of "cornering" it are thereby afforded to cliques of spectators who enjoy stuff. cient credit, or who in some way can command the support of banks and other financial institutions originally designed, or supposed to be designed, for the promotion of legitimate trade. Of these facilities the trusts in turn will avail themselves to slaughter the cli9ues that they do not control; sc that, after first having absorbed or re. moved their competitors in production, tbev will GEawise ahsorh or rap,ova ,I