The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1896-03-13
THE MODERN TRUST.


tai to War on Labor's Divided Forces.
Some one may PROFOUND query
something like this: IF the COMPETE
ton is as fierce, relentless and brutal
as you say, why is it that the compe-
tition of the manufacturers with each
other does not reduce the profit to a
minimum" And that question opens
up a vista of infamy and fraud, and
discloses q policy of double dealing and
deceit. Posing as strict individual
lists and sticklers for personal lib
erty" in their dealings with their wage
slaves. these capitalistic exploiters are
communists in their relations with
each other. Our present system is
composite one, embracing the COM
munism of capital and the Individual
ism of labor. Capital combines-labor
completes. And this brings us to a
brief consideration of the modern
trust
shall here quote Mr.. Martin Quinn,
in an Grafton delivered on the fourth
of July, 1898, at Vancouver, state of
Washington, as follows:
will instance one more cause that displaces
labor. and that Is the trust Let US see how
trust comes into existence Say there are so
mills engaged In the manufacture of glass; the
competition finally becomes fierce and ruinous
One or more Of them conceive the idea that it
would be a good plan to stop competing and
cooperate meeting is called; the condition
OF the business Is plainly stated. It Is found
that the competitive method will and can only
end in certain disaster. Figures are produced
showing how much glass the market needs,
and a plan proposed that they only manufacture
as much as the market can stand. and thus be
enabled to get price sufficient to yield them
profit The plan IS adopted; the trust is born;
hereafter the gross profits Of the glass business
will be divided pro rata among the different
| individuals or corporations composing the
trust in proportion to amount that plant does
or can produce. As the product is to be limited
1t is found necessary to adopt one OF two
courses either to run all the mills part Of the
time or O certain number OF mills oil the time
| AS a matter Of economy the latter course is
generally adopted. AS we have seen there are
SO glass mills; 1t is found that 40 running all
| the time can supply the demand ten are shut
down Indefinitely. Quarterly or semt-annually
their proprietors draw their share OF the profits
made by the trust, but for the hands employed
in those ten mills there Is no division of profits
Oh, no: they must get out and look for work,
and as they find the labor market already sup
piled, the only way they can find employment
Is by Offering their labor for less than those re-
ceive who are already ut work. This results
| in fall Of wages and q decreased capacity to
| consume what the farmer has to sell, and SO 1t
| acts and reacts back and forth from one
branch Of labor to another prices falling ex-
cept where maintained by q trust aad wages
falling continually.
And this course of procedure is fol-
lowed continuously in all lines of man
ufacture, and has been SO systemat-
ically followed in the past, that there
all the principal avenues of production
49,
Germ should be so foolhardy as to re-
fuse to enter the com bine and dare to
compete. the trust simply brushes it
that's all. And with constantly in
creasing momentum our entire COM
mercial system is rapidly drifting to a
certain destination, viz, the complete
and final control of the field of COM
merce by a few gigantic trusts and
comb The percentage of Compel
tive establishments to the total popu-
lation is becoming smaller and smaller
and the army of wage slaves is rapidly
being recruited by erstwhile small
traders, proprietors and employers.
Wendell Phillips foresaw this condi-
ton of affairs, when in a speech at
Music hall, Boston. October 81, 1871,
said:
Our fathers, when they forbade en-
tail, and provided for the distribution
of estates, thought they had erected a
barrier against the money power that
ruled England. They forgot that
money could com bine; that a moneyed
corporation is like the papacy, a sue
cession of persons with a unity of pur-
pose. Now as the land of England in
the hands of 80, 900 land-owning fam
lilies has ruled it for 600 years, so the
corporations of America mean to gov
ern. The survival of republican in
situations here depends upon a success
full resistance of this tendency. The
only hope of any effectual grapple
with the danger lies in rousing the
masses, whose interests lie permanent
ly in the opposite direction"
There is no remedy but nationalism,
the happy means between individual
ism and communism. Competition has
evolved the communism of capital and
forced capitalists to com bine. Labor,
also, must become a member of the
firm and have an equal show. If the
machines are the key to the situation,
the people in their collective capacity
must own the machines
GEORGE c. WARD
.nIDENr CctCI Ari0M