The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1896-09-11
THE GROWTH OF MONOPOLY
IN AMERICA.

One of the last great speeches made in
Congress by the veteran Thurman was a
protest against the corruption of politics
by the growing power of trusts and mo-
nopolies 'Syndicates purchase the peo-
pies agents" he said, land honest men
stand aghast.'
He did not exaggerate-he could not
have exaggerated-the occasion for alarm.
The conditions which awakened him to
the danger threatening the country have
grown more familiar, but they are all the
more dangerous because of being so.
To feel as he felt it is only necessary to
recall the reason for his alarm and indig-
nation He had seen most unmistakable
evidence of the power of the Standard Oil
Companv-the first and most dangerous
of the modern American monopolies-tO
override the laws and to usurp from the
people the control of governmental ma
chinery.
In 1884, when the Standard Oil Com
pany bribed balance of power in the
Ohio Legislature and bought the Senator
ship, it is part of the recorded evidence
that in Standard Oil campaign headquar-
tiers at Columbus canvas bags and coin
bags and cases for greenbackS were scat
tered around the room" A visitor who
picked up package from the floor with
something green sticking out of it found
that it was a large sum of money. So
recklessly were the trusts corruption
funds handled at the crisis that the pre-
tense of concealment was virtually aband-
Oned and every one at Columbus knew
that the Senatorship was on sale-that
votes were being purchased by wholesale
at Standard Oil rates. And yet the de-
cadent Senate of the United States declined
to make an investigation of this scandal.
This was neither the beginning nor the
end. 1t was merely an incident of the cor
rupting power of incorporated monopoly.
conspiracy with fraudulent railroad direc-
tors obtained control of the oil trade in
America, has habitually packed courts and
bought legislatures to sustain itself in the
enjoyment of its unjust privileges and
wrongful gains.
Fifteen years ago, when it was still the
sole trust in America, the American pub
lie was not long in concluding that its
purposes were fraudulent and its methods
Infamous. But this public opinion did
not prevent it from finding imitators.
The number of these has increased until
they now represent between thousand
and two thousand millions of inflated cap
ital, every dollar of which is an agency
for the decentralization of business as well
as for the corruption of politics. The
Coal Trust, the Sugar Trust, the Dressed
Beef Trust, the Steel and Iron Trusts, the
Rubber Trust, the Flour Trust, the hun.
dred great monopolies which have learned
from the Stand Oh, Company how to make
fraud successful in business and politics
are now SO insolently assertive of their
right to dominate the country as the Stand
ard Oil Company was when the good and
sturdy old Thurman stood aghast' at the
open display of money which purchased
the Ohio Senatorship, the prostitution OF
popular government and the degradation
of the United States Senate.
Banded together in national politics
these great and powerful monopolies are
acting together as one man, asserting will
frank insolence that their interests are the
best interests of the country, that monopo
ly has become the new rule of trade, and
that combination is both inevitable anC
bencticent-N y. Uorid
The American farmer who votes Will
the Wall Street banker deserves to have
wheat 90 down to 30 cents a bushel.