The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-06-09
MORE ABOUT TRUSTS.
Reply to DR.. 7. ". Brooks.
HYCO. Va. April 2

that there was a growing lnequa1ty
in the condition of the citizens of this
republic that augured no good to society
or government; that trusts were harm
full and ought to be suppressed or kept
by law within safe and harmless
| bounds
There have been many echoes in the
history of the world, variously styled
as the primitive age, the dark age, the
| age of renaissance and the modern and
enlightened age. We read, too, of the
iron age, the golden age, the poetic age,
and the age Of chivalry. We live in
the industrial age, an age of develop
ment and utilitarianism above all
others, and, as savants tell us, as par
excellance, the intensely egoistic or
selfish age.
The ruling dominating principle in
the ages of the world, melting and
stimulating and governing mans activi-
ties, is the love of power, 1.-The desire
of the Individual to impose his will, his
personality, his views, his individuality
in the widest sense of the word upon
every one within the sphere of his ex-
istence." The consequence of such
achievement of dominance and power
in the individual means arrogating to
himself something that belongs to
others, and just in proportion to the
deprivation of independence in others
will be the usurpers increase of power
to first subjugate and reduce others to
subserviency, to be followed afterward
by oppression and spoliation. On this
principle originated the nobility and
aristocracy of the old world, and on this
same principle has been built up plu-
tocracy in this country. The one a no
bility of blood, the other a snobocracy
of wealth, and just as the people found
it necessary to cuftail the assumption
and power of the nobility and ruling
class of the old world, will they surely
find it imperatively necessary to cir
cumscribe the power and arrogance of
money under the control of plutocrats
in this republic. The safety, aye the
salvation of the republic demands it,
and it is only question of time, and
to prove effectual must be of short
duration.
Some men may sneer at the impend-
ing consequences of the unbridled lust
for power through the aggrandizement
of the wealth of this country into the
hands of few designing and unscru-
pulous individuals of the character of
one, who, when demonstrated with in
regard to his policy being hurtful to
the people replied, "the people be
damned" And this utterance of itself
demonstrates a cause for the low NUT
tering thunder that is being heard from
time to time all over this land and
liable to burst forth like volcano and
carry destruction and death before it.
Nero fiddling while Rome was
burning.
ALL SEE DANGER AHEAD
The situation is evidently a grave
one, when we see the ablest defender
of the existing economic condition in
this country, Mr.. Carnegie, finds it
necessary to write a long apology on
wealth and the methods of the wealthy
in this republic. Mr.. Carnegie, it must
be remembered, is, to some extent a
scion of nobility, financially at least
if not by blood. A Scotchman by
birth, an American nobleman by de-
velOpment, he views the question only
from one standpoint, and that per-
sonal. He is assuredly an able, shrewd
man, and has amassed a fortune that
would have endowed the kings of old
Scotia for generations under the ancient
dynastics of her brave and chivalrous
race. But an able English humani-
tartan. DR.. Hughes styles Mr.. Car
negie an anti Christian phenomenon, a
social monstrosity, a grave political
peril. Thanks to unrestricted compe-
tition and the tariff, he has pOcketed
much more than his equitable share
of the joint product of labor and capi-
tai. If he thinks that he has made
this great pile, SO to speak, on his own
bat let him set up business on a soli-
tary island and see how much he can
net annually without the cooperation
of his 10000 men and the ceaseless
bounties of the vanishing Republican
maiorities in Congress. The toilers
of this country send grateful thanks to
the noble hearted divine for his brave
true words, and to the Democratic
party that helped to make them true /!
Cardinal Gibbons, in his. most able
and suggestive paper in the April