The Topeka state journal., 1897-06-05
To Throttle the Government at
Washington.
OF MONEY
Form Its Citadel of Defense
Against Law.
A Trust the Deadly Enemy of
Liberty.

with but one or two exceptions, have
! been pointing out the evils of the sugar
! trusts methods. The Journal also
| gives a history of the trust, together
with its public and private acts. 1t
! says:
In 1887 fifteen sugar refining com
| panieS combined in New York The
ref1neries of some of these companies
were located outside of the state-in
Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey, Mis-
| souri, Louisiana and California. All
/ ehese companies bound themselves to
| act in concert for the purpose of con-
| trolling output and prices. The total
/ capital stock of the companies forming
/ this trust was about 81, 900. 900, but the
/ combination was capitalized at $50 OOO,-
/ 900, a valuation based upon their earn
1 ing capacity, and the estimate in this
/ regard was not extravagant.
In 1888 a legal attack was made upon
1 the trust. The attorney general OF
| New York brought an action against
| the North River Refining company,
| praying for the revocation of its char
| ter for entering the combination. The
| circuit court of appeals decided that the
( trust was a monopoly within the mean
ing of the law. A monopoly, Judge
( Barrett declared to be amy combina-
ton, the tendency of which is to pre-
vent competition in its broad and gen
eral sense, and to control and thus at
will enhance prices to the detriment
Oh the puDlC- ne COIlIlGIClal power
of the sugar trust he thus described:
1T can close every refinery at WILL
close some and open others, limit the
purchases of raw material, thus jeOp-
ardizing, and, in a, considerable degree
controlling, its production, artihcially
limit the production of refined sugar,
enhance the price to enrich themselves
and their associates and depress the
price when necessary to crush out and
impoverish a fOolhardy rival"
Placed thus under the ban of the
law, did the trust dissolve? 1t gave an
exhibition of how easily the law may
be made to defeat its own ends The
trust simply stepped over the North
river to New Jersey and Incorporated
there under the name Of the American
Sugar reineries company, and came back
to New York to do business at the old
stand in the old way, claiming to be
no longer a trust combination, but
| single corporation and therefore legal
| This was as if a New York court had
| forbidden Brown to practice the profess
| sion of a highwayman and he had got
| the New Jersey legislature to alter his
| name to Jones and returned with a
! horse and pistol to the roads of New
York, secure in his own respect as a
| laW-respecting citizen.
Later the Philadelphia rehneries were
| brought into the trust and the capital
| stock was increased to SIS, 600 600, the
| basis being as before, not the actual
! value of the property, but its earning
| capacity BY the inclusion of the Phil
adelphia concerns the trust made about
| 90 per cent of all the refined sugar made
in the United States.
Then began another round with the
law. The United States district attOr-
ney of Philadelphia brought an action
] against the E. G. Knight company, one
of the absorbed reineries, for violation
| of the Sherman antitrust law. The
| case went to the United States supreme
! court. Richard p. Olney was the at
torney general Profitable practice as
| an attorney for corporations had rid
| him of the ability to see any harm in
| trusts. So his prosecution was Iangu1d.
| The supreme court decided that the su-
! gar trust had not been shown to be a
| monopoly in the commerce of sugar,
| but admitted that it was a monopoly in
manufacture, and therefore under state,
| not federal Jurisdiction.
| The trust has, consequently, contin-
| ued to corner the sugar market, to its
own great advantage.
| What its profits are is not known with
| exactitude to any save it's benehciaries.
! It is calculated that any half cent up
! or down in the price of sugar makes
| loss or gain to the combination at the
/ rate of $40 OOO, 900 a year The value
| of the refneries is put at 81 ,O0O 900 only
| The trust has a surplus of $10,00O.OOO
| at the end of 1888, after paying its 10
! Der cent dividend. The profits for the
/ succeeding five and half months were
| s13 600 GOO. That was doing well on less
/ than a year and a half's business. In 1898
! the trust paid in regular and extra div
/ idends $1O.S75,000 and had still a sur
/ plus of S. 0OO, 900 in the treasury. The
/ value of all its plants is more than COW
| cred by bonds to the amount of $4,000
| OOO The dividend-paying $l5,OOOOOO
! stock is all water. The total profits on
| refined sugar, according to President
/ Havemeyer when upon the witness
| stand from 1885 to 1896 inclusive, were
$3.50 666, ,966. from rs to 80 per cent OF
/ which went to the trust.
/ The mountain of money which the
/ people have to fight when they go up
/ against the sugar trust towers formid-
| ablv- and behind it are piled unnum-
| bered millions more for defense. The
! cause of this one trust. when IT gives
| battle to the assaiing pubhc, Is the
/ common cause of the whole host OF
| privilege and pillage.
| No matter how fear or predatory
| wealth or lacl1ey respect for 1t may re-
! fine phraSeOlOgy, the men VINO operate
| through the sugar trust to despo1I the
/ people are thieves.
| Yet the colossal thieving of this COM
| bination which possesses the power TO
| levy taxes for private gain is not by Tar
| the worst of the trusts effects. 1t IS
| the means by which II has secured ana
| retains its taxing privilege which rem
der il an enemy to the republic much
! more dangerous than an invading for
| eign army would be. As the condition
! of its continued existence, it must wage
| persistent and relentless war upon free
| government. The managers of no trust
| can afford the luxuries of conscience,
! honesty and patriotism, without which
| qualities the individual citizen IS rec
| Ognized as a person dangerous to SOct-
| ETY. A trust whose managers will stop
| at cruelty oppression, treachery, chi
| cane or corruption when profit calls
| would be obliged to surrender to the
! rivals who are always ready to spring
up and supplant. That is the law of
| business life as it is written in the his
tory of the upgrOwth of the trusts The