The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1899-10-24

either sold their lands and invested
their capital elsewhere, or they have
become Employees of the corporation
thus formed. Some have been thrown
out of employment at that particular
place The disturbance of social con-
ditions is the same as when spinning
{; and weaving and threshing machines
came into existence, the only difference
being that in that instance machine
/ took the place of many men, while in
this case one brain takes the place of
many.
Just as the people not many years
ago were stirred up by demogogues to
resent with violence and riot the intro
duction of new machinery of manu-
facture, so now is the democratic party
trying to stir up the people against the
introduction of the modern machinery
of commerce.
A democratic politician of this coun-
ty recently said with hypocritical tears
in his eyes, that thousands of travelling
men had been thrown out of employ
ment by these modern business meth
| DDS. This may be true. But where
are these men. One would think from
the democratic speaker that they were
all idle paupers, with hunger staring
them in the face. This is not true, in
the general impetus, which every line
of business has received, these men
have found other employment. That
particular line of work, which many
did before is being done by fewer men
perhaps, but the average travelling man
is too brainy and too full of business to
be long out of employment, and thus
the time and energy of thousand men
has been saved and their strength has
gone into new wealth producing chan
nels. In reality this is distinct gain
to the body polite. In the far east the
water supply of cities is through an
army OF water carriers, who go from
house to house carrying water skins, in
the west we put in pumping station,
run pipes throughout the town and a
multitude of water carriers would be
out OF JOB of water carrying. Now if
they were to remain an idle throng to
be fed by charity. it would indeed be
doubtful if the pumping station would
be good Investment Instead we
should find that these water carriers
had found something else to do and the
balance OF social life would be again
adjusted to the new conditions.
The foregoing has all tended to prove
that the modern economical business
systems are just as inevitable as the
use of machinery after 1t was once in.
vented.
Why was it, that the man, who first
invented the weaving machine, did not
keep it to himself? Think how marvel
lousy rich he would have been. No
one could have competed with him, he
could have undersold any manufacturer
and still had an enormous profit. Why
did he not do it? For two reasons, ma
tural causes and legislative causes.
In the first place, he soon found that
if he made thousand machines and
each paid him royalty of one dollar,
per year he would have made as much
as IT by his own labor he had made
TIL II and dollars from his own machine
N"St he found, that he could not long
Ok .ct ~ extortionate price for his ma
chine, because his customers could not |
aff"rd to pay 1.-THE price had to be
nm led at least to the capacity of the
pn chasers purse. Next he found, that
some man, who had purchased ma
chine, was also of an inventive turn
and he had added an improvement to
the first invention, so he had second /
invention to reckon with and then
third and so on. Thus through many
natural causes the selling price of his
had been reduced. Another
thing now came to hamper him, the
people had seen that the monopoly of |
this invention might work great hard
ship upon them. The inventor had
needed protection from those, who
might infringe upon his ideas, and the
people while granting that, had exacted
some protection from the inventor, thew
had said that in q certain number of
years the patent should expire. When
it did expire, the price of that particu-
lar machine fell, the people got the
benefit, the inventor had been repaid
for his contribution to human progress,
the price of the manufactured article
was cheapened to the consumer and
the people, who had been thrown out of
employment by the invention, had long
found employment in other fields.
To cry out against all corporations as
does democracy is as senseless as the
the old cry "Down with the machine"
To try to stop them would be as bene-
fetal as to impose fine upon inven-
lions. What the people need to do, is
to recognize the new conditions and
then to pass such legislation as shall
regulate and control them. This is the
nOaitiOn nf Tho ronnhlioop portu ~