The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1890-04-09
FRIENDS OF TRUSTISM.

Senators Dan Voorhees,, Vest. Eustis
and other Democratic leaders in Congress
who when on the stump bawl SO loudly
about the oppression of the poor by
monopolies, are now doing everything
they can to break down the sherman anti
trust bill and prevent its passage. This
bill, while IL COOS not % as far as might
be desired. is a practicable measure and
might be soon enacted into law if the
alleged Democratic enemies of trustism
were not determined TO play into the
hands of the open defenders of trust
monopoly. Having wholly failed to
adopt any antitrust legislation during all
the years the House was under Democratic
control the Bourbons are now determined
a Republican Congress shall not be per-
mitted to improve on their record. They
persist in piling crippling and destructive
amendments on the Sherman bill. They
claim trusts can be destroyed only by
radical reductions of the tariff when in
fact some of the worst monopolies set no
benefit from protective duties, and cannot
be reached by tariff legislation. The
Democratic Senators who have walled
loudest and longest on the stump and to
interviowers over trust monopolies are
now cooperating with the corporation
Senators" on both sides, and il antitrust
Legislation is defeated it will be owing to
their efforts to secure that result. Yoor
hees, Vest, ct. nj. could not be serving
the trusts better If in their pay.
Demagogues like Vest and Voorhees,
don't want the trusts abolished or their
extortions stopped, but would save them
for "campaigD material" in the Con-
gressional contests this fall and in the
next Presidential election, and, in fact,
as long as they would last and serve as
the pretext for an ontcry against the Re-
publican party. These hardened po-
litical tricksters and demagogues need
some pretext for the To ,rs they exude and
the lamentations they utter every cam
paign over the poor man." They have
wept over the national banks, the tariff,
and the gold standard, but owing 10 re-
cent results in Ohio and Iowa they seem
TO think uncontrolled trust monopoly is
the abuse that can be worked" to bring
them most votes. On no account would
they have the trusts abolished or COM
PEELED to moderate their demands. The
greater the number of trusts and the worse
the exactlons and extortions made by
them, the more political capital" these
Democratic demagogues expect to make.
They would like to see the trusts-es-
pecially Havemever's Democratic sugar
trust and the Standard Oil trust-grow
richer and the people poorer, since they
expect their ciamor TO be effective in
proportion to the poverty and dis
tress which monopolistic combines
may inhict on the voters. They
desire heavier mortgages, more men
out of employment, and higher prices
and harder living at least until afC, r the
next Presidential election. Crop failures
and insect plaques they think would help
them also, but one of their greatest dis
appointments and defeats would be in the
adoption of wholesome antitrust le0is-
lation by Republican Congress. But
they need not think their treachery and
base partisanship will remain masked.
The people want the trust monoI olies
repressed and practicable legislation en-
acted for this purpose at once irrespective
of party. They are not willing that
abuses and extortions should be pro-
longed merely that Voorhees,, Vest, OF al.
may trade in them and use them as avail
able political capital. These demagogues
may learn that a great many voters pre-
fer the public good TO mere partisan adj
vantage. Some Senators will defend the
trusts because they are pecuniarily inter-
ested in and derive profit from these COM
bines. bot such men are no more enemies
of the public interest than demagogues
who would preserve the trusts as party
capital and use them as a means to de-
ceive as well as injure voters AMI acquire
Office and emolument for themselves by
false pretenses. Chicago Tribune.