Industrial freedom. [volume] (Edison, Wash.) 1898-1???, 1898-10-01
The Step That Must be Taken.


For the last twenty-five years or
more surging wave of discomfort
has been gathering strength and
power in the United States Its origin
is to be found in the constantly in
creasing inequalities of social condi-
tons, and in the encroachment of or
gained wealth upon the liberties of
the people.
| Before corporations consolidated
into trusts and monopoly was reveal
ed in all its malign proportions, the
causes that were at work producing
vast wealth and vaster poverty were
more or less shrouded in obscurity.
Only 4 few went down to the roots of
the difficulty and perceived that trusts
and monopolies we're the natural re-
suits of the competitive system; that
the same law that operated in the
animal world prevailed also in the
human: that as mature. red in tooth
and claw with rapine, in the terrible
struggle for existence destroyed the
weak and preserved the strong, so in
dustrially the same deadly conflict
has been waged and with the same
, results.
! Competition has arrayed man
against man, industry against indus
try; the strong have survived; the
weak have persisted. Out of the strife
resulted concentra ton of wealth.
Then followed the dawning era of
combination. Partnerships replaced
individual competition, and the joint
stock company or corporation prepar-
ed the way for the trust. Now a still
greater change is impending. Monop-
oily, the giant product of ages of COM
petitiye strife, has through its des-
potic power in controlling legislation
and also products and prices, render
ed a continuance of the competitive
system impossible. The turning point
of civilization has been reached, and
the republic must fall from its high
estate and become the helpless prey
of money, or adapt itself to new
system of industrial democracy, in
which cooperation will be the ruling
power.
, It is unnecessary to enter into de-
tails as to the extent to which wealth
is concentrated and its controlling
power over the government. Every
| Lo s h.
nation knows that it is in the clutch
OF monopoly, and that that clutch i;
deadly. He knows that free institu
tions are rapidly being transformed
into despotic ones, and that while
nominally republic. the nation is il
reality a plutOcracY with the wors.
features of n monarchy.
In place of one imperial ruler we
have Money Kings in the shape OF
trusts and monopolistic corporation.
acting as one man, and controlling
, our National Legislature. and oui
, State Legislature, and other lega
appliances, while the people are de
spoiled by every form of legalized rob
berry that is brought to bear against
them.
: Two alternatives are placed before
the people of this country the
steady encroach nent of organized
wealth upon our institutions, unit
{ every vestige of freedom is DESTROYED
, and the nation falls, to rise no more
or determined opposition to the dan,
gers confronting us. and the enact
ment of measures that will overthrow
/ chartered and artificial monopoue:
and convert them into public fuuc
= tions.
In the event of the former a seeming
but delusive peace will be purchased
p at the cost of national life, interna
. strife will hasten the destructive pro
cess, and the degeneration of the ma
r ton will be shown in the rapid I'M
crease of the vicious and destructive
, elements of society over the mora.
, and constructive ones; a movement
that even now is Enthusiastically appa
rent. The cruel selfishness of the
moneyed class in its inhuman effort,
to despoil a nation, in order to carry
out its purposes, is being repeated by
the lower classes of society, in acts OF
violence and crime that appall the
community and prefgure the down
ward trend of the nation.
should, however, the intelligence OF
the people react against the powerful
grasp of monopolistic rule, and over
throw the treacherous combination,
of the Money Power; If the trust i,
! made the stepping stone to the Co
operative Commonwealth, in which
the people will control all the mean,
} for the production and distribution OF
wealth, then out of temporary strife
and trouble will dawn the brightness