The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1897-07-28

trusts Dulll uI Anu Iuo growth O1 SuC1
| trusts is further facilitated by their abil-
| ity to control the power of our railroads
| for the crushing out Of rivals. The
trust controlling a great amount of traf-
fc can command lower freight rates
than it's competitors. Carry the trust
products at lower rate than given our
competitors, say the trust managers to
one road, and thus enable us to market
our goods cheaper and undersell our
rivals, or we will take away our busi-
ness and give it to a competing road.
And the ISIS are in position to thus
play off the railroads upon one another
| and secure rebates from the fact that
their plants are located in the large
centers.
But to return to the influence of fall
ing and rising prices on the formation
of trusts. When prices fall we have
seen producers are impelled to combine
in trusts as measure of self defense
On the other hand, when prices are ris-
ing the legitimate production profitable,
lhSl z 10 III ltlCSullNt lOT pIOUuccTS 10
enter into trusts, and the stimulus given
TO industry and competition by rising
prices paves the way, we repeat, for the
destruction of trusts. So it is that the
reconciliation nof silver would de-
| crease the "robberies of corporations.
rings and trusts" Then take from the
trusts the support given them by rail-
road determinations and they would fall
to the ground :
In conclusion we have just one more
word. To quote again from the Nash
vile address,
I'VE are engaged in the most des-
perate battle ever waged in the world.
1t is the conflict of the few, armed with
] gigantic powers, aginst the many. It
signifies the exploitation of labor by the
idle rich, so that those who toll not.
neither do they spin,' shall rob in
dustry of it's reward and leave those
who produce all wealth without homes.
clothes or food. The eight million farm
ers who have just perished of starva-
OF drouth alone, but Of cruel misgovern-
ment also, by the English masters; who
SO Impoverished them that they had no
resources to fall back upon when a
failure of crops occurred. In their mis-
cries we read our own danger; in their
present we see our future unless we
| possess more than Hindoo capacity to
defend ourselves against the despoilors
of the world
This sounds like exaggeration, but
it is not. The late famine in India was
veritably famine from poverty not a
famine of food. There was a suftici-
ency of food in India. The vicerov
vouches for it. Those who starved,
, starved because they were too poor
to buy food, because they could not
| buy so much as two cents worth of
| rice per diem. And two cents a dav
would have purchased sufficiency of
rice in the famine districts to sustain
life. Think Of the poverty that con-
demned men to starve for the want of
two cents day. The price of rice as
quoted in the famine districts averaged
.68 OF penny, or about 1-3 cents per
| pound, and from one to two pounds of
rice per day is sufficient to maintain
an individual In health The price OF
wheat in New York today is about Ia
cents per pound and yet there was
starvation in India when rice sold in
the famine districts at a less rate per
| pound. Verify the Indian famine was
one of poverty, not of food.