The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-08-20
Sound HdViCe TO
The Disconnected

From a Speech Delivered by ex-Gover-
nor Flower Before the New York State
Grange.
Hard times are responsible for great
deal of suffering, but the worst feature
of them is that they give opportunity
for so many demagogues and unsound
thinkers to wrongly influence public
opinion. In such times seeds of discon-
tent and prejudice are planted which
germinate and grow like poisonous
weeds in a garden, until common sense
and industry pluck them out and cast
them aside. We have been through such
a period during the last few years, and
the demagogues have had so much to
say that some people fear the very bot
tom of society is falling out. Because
people have been poor the rich are
blamed. Business was dull, it was
no money There was no money be-
cause the money power had 1t all locked
up. Industrial competition had been
killed by the combinations of capital.
Thus, at the doors of the rich was laid
the responsibility for misery, and the
hard times have been used to excite pre-
judice against all who hold property,
whether acquired by inheritance or by
hard work. This feeling will certainly
diminish with the return of good times,
but such sentiment is a firebrand whose
smouldering embers will work injury
even after the flame has been quenched.
Among those who come to our shores
from foreign lands indoctrinated with
socialstic or anarchistic ideas such a
prejudice is not unnatural, but there
should be no chance for 1t to spread
or grow in genuine American hearts, and
those who, for selfish or political rea-
sons, stir it up deserve the shame, not
the favor, of the people.
"In discussing trusts or similar COM
binations of capital we must lay aside
suchprejudice and passion as demagogues
like to arouse, and measure their evils
or their benefits by ordinary standards
of intelligence and common sense. We
find by such observation that the trust
is not in itself necessarily bad; but what
ever it's nature it has come into exist
ence in strict accordance with the law
of social progress-the law of co-opera-
tion and organization. To inveigh
against trusts merely because they are
trusts is to cry out against combna-
tions of human effort and possession in
every field of activity-to set ones self
against the laws of progress and in
favor of retrogression and anarchy. The
tendency of the times in industry and
commerce, in charity, or in science is all
toward cooperation and organization;
and that tendency, exhibiting itself in a
small and comparatively unimportant
way at first, has become more and more
an important feature of our civilization
| and an essential accompaniment in every
| field of effort.
"The Standard Oil company. harsh as
| 1t may have been in competition with
| rivals, has certainly not taken advant-
| age of its monopoly TO exact higher
prices from the public. So thorough and
| comprehensive has been the organiza tion
| OF this tremendous industry that oil Is
| delivered by the company direct to the
| door of nearly every vinager IN the
| land at the lowest price ever known.
| As an example of successful business
organization after the modern method
| of combination this immense corpora
| tion has no equal We have heard q
| great deal said about the Sugar Trust
| which is a combination of formerly in
| dependent sugar refineries that alone by
themselves could hardly make both ends
| meet. The result OF pooling their inter-
ests seems to have been to turn unprof-
| liable business into profitable, to give
| employment to more men, and to re-
| duce the price of sugar to the consumer
| about 80 per cent. l can see no public
| injury from these results. / could men,
| tion many more instances where cor
| porate combinations, or combinations OF
| capital have accomplished good results
but have given enough TO illustrate my
| suggestions, Corporations will be greedy
and selfish, just as individuals. They
will deserve criticism, just as indivld-
uals. But because they represent greater
aggregations of capital they should not
be denounced, no more than a man
should be attacked because he has a
fine house, They are. as have pointed
| out, legitimate and logical outgrowth
of modern industrial and commercial
conditions. They have mot been shown
to have done much harm. 1t is rather
the harm people imagine they might dc