The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-06-30

CANT dill SlSDeIll vi great
which was after the invention Of the
Bessimer steel rail, the evils of dis
elimination sprang up. Immediately
after the war the great army, so ac-
customed to the roar of cannon, struck
up now more peaceful and enchanting
music, the hum of industry. The
sound of the woodmans AK re-
wilderness, and was the 4harbinger
of better days. Forests were
felled, fens reclaimed, registers of the
United States land office were kept
busy in receiving homestead and pre-
emption applications. When but a few
years ago nothing but the voice of the
moaning winds among the nodding
branches of the trees broke through
the silent forests, there was now the
buzz and hum of the reaper moving
over vast fields of grain, playing its
industrial strains to the unbounded
delight and satisfaction of the locomo-
tive. We soon produced a great sur
plus of agricultural products, which
found sale in European markets. This
increased the Importance Of through
freight. More lines were eXteHded, and
it was not long before a system of
cut throat competition was engender-
ed between the competing lines. Pool
ing was the inevitable outgrowth. AS
a rule, the companies individually were
not strong enough to compete each
other out of existence, the result was
agreements in the nature of pools.
First Great Pool.
The first great trunk line pool was
established in 1870; freight rates i'm
mediately raised, and discrimination
began to assume revolving proportions.
The Granger agitation sprang up dur
ing this period. The state of Mime
sofa was foremost in this movement
and desired totre urn to state control. 1t
resulted in a declaration by the courts
of the constitutionality of state own
ership. The evils Of discrimination con-
tinued and the people during all these
years wherever inland tranSporta-
ton facilities have been provided,
have remained impressive and silently
submitted to the selfish and arbitrary
dictates of these railroad autocrats.
AS an example of the power of the
railroads to tear down one portion of
country and build up another at the
expense of the former, there are the
Mississippi and Missouri river towns.
Des Moines, Dubuque, Burlington, etc,
situated along the Mississippi before
Omaha, Kansas City and other towns
came to be registered as favorable
shipping centers, were for years en-
joying a very healthy development, but
as SOON DIS Tic ~hAooOoA 1
towns were made competitive CEN
tiers, thereby obtaining better and
cheaper rates. The Mississippi towns
began to decline or experience but a
very discouraging growth. The rail
road thus discriminating against the
non-competitiVe in favor of the COM
petitive towns in the carrying OF
freight offered superior inducements
for capital to locate in those thus IA
those
towns have grown into magnificent
cities in a. comparatively short period,
while the non-competitiVe points that
have had to pay higher freight
charges, as, for instance, to chicago
and other points east though the dis
tance is shorter, have experienced but
an abnormal development.
The foregoing illustration tends TO
show the great power of the railroads,
bv this weapon of discrimination, in
running one section and building up
another. all for the selfish realization
of individual wealth. This same char
acter of railroad engineering IS car
ried on all ever the United States, and
as a result the land is dominated with
gigantic monopoIes, which prevent the
natural operation of the principe Oh
competition.
1t is Il Power.
To show what a powerful instrument
tally the railroads are in building mo-
nopolies, look at the great meat firms
of Chicago, the Armour's and Swifts.
Their rapid stride to enormous for
tune is indeed marvellous, but we can
understand how it occurred when we
ascertain what hand the railroad play
ed. The Armour company has fre-
auently bought up all the pork in Chi
nT-11 IA d1lAn
the other companies. They are enabled
to do this, for the railroad in ship
ping their pork, say to New YorE
gives them a rebate. The result is they
drive their competitors from the mar
ket who cannot secure the rates, and
while it is to the temporary adVan-
tage of the people, by getting a be@-
ter price for their produce, yet as soon
as competition is throttled by the
stronger company, that company i'm
mediately secures a monopoly and
prices sink abnormally low, to the inn
measurable satisfaction of the corpora
ton.
Competition cannot work under our
present system of railroad manipula-
tion, for they destroy the very con-
dition that make it possible.
The Standard OIL company is an
other illustration of great capital and
power that has been built up by this
process of special contracts and re-
bates. This mammoth concern was en-
abled by these concessions to sell their
oil cheaper than their competitors, re-
sulting in their retirement from bust
ness or absorption into the surviving
company.
These examples serve to show how
wonderfully instrumental the railroads
are in destroying the conditions under
which competition will work, and,
therefore, in establishing monopol1es,
and we may assert with reasonable
truthfulness that there are but two
factors in the United States that are
in the main responsible for the exist
ence of monopolies. One is the rail-
road by it's system of special con-
tracts and rebates, and the other is
the system of handicapping imported
goods by the imposition of excessive
duties. and we may say further as a
conclusion deducible from the forego-
ing statement. If these conditions are
permitted to continue, that in a COM
paratively brief period individualism
in industry q refer to the individual
as against the corporation) will be a
thing of the past, and the people of the
United States will be the property of
a few gigantic trusts and syndicates,
who will rule the land as with an iron
hand, at which juncture there will be a
partial realization of Bellamys pro-
phetic vision. The lines of battle will
be Enthusiastically and distinctly drawn
between capital and labor, and then
unless the clamors of the people are
granted, vengeance will be admins
tered in all it's aWfulness.
Control Should Be Changed.