The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-03-31

0GONhss
Preferred
stock. -. 7O,575,20O 1913, 7e4, 033
Total stock $5,11S, 494, 181 1928, 531, 452
Bonded debt 714,3 88 SCI 378, 72O,091
Stock and
bonds :. $5,S32, 1892, S42 1862, PAL SAB
Did you ever heal of such growth?
The comment is:
These figures show an increase, over
those we published a year ago, Of 76
per cent in the number of institutions
and 60 per cent in the combined stock
and bonded debt; which indicates the
extraordinary rapidity with which the
movement has spread within the last
twelve months. What proportion of
the entire manufactures Of the United
States has passed under this new form
of organization may be inferred from
the fact that the census of 1890 values
the entire capital then employed in the
mani acturing and mechanical indus
tries at $6,525, 000, 900, which includes
all the minor or retail work done by
small individual proprietors. This
means that the total capitalization of
these combinations is equal to about
~ per cent OIL the enLlr0 manufacturing
investments of 1890"
II that does not awaken universal at
tention and arouse universal fear what
will do so? If such. vast growth, all
embracing and all absorbing, does not
excite public apprehension of coming
evil of some kind, what gigantic schems
md rnc11lfC q do co Iaro &c oI,ooef
complete control Of the manufacturing
Industries by consolidated manage
sEment." The huge Trust has played
the anaconda act and the boa-constric-
tor act to perfection. Nearly all the
great industries are swept into it's
huge, capacious NAV, and they are in
a grip almost as strong as death. The
change is most marvellous, most swift,
most complete.
What does it mean? What does il all
portend? If the Messenger, taking the
above figures as the basis of specula-
ton, should undertake to pronounce
upon the effects of such astonishing &C
GOpI1Si1ulcuL u 0uCA a LOW llO1iIuS, d1u
to foretell the future of a country I'M
der such despotic administration, such
complete, gigantic monopoly, it would
be accused of being ignorant or ex-
treme or both. So let the moderate
and informed New York exponent Of
business cast the horoscope Of the flu
ture and tell what is being done and
what may follow. We make a long
extract for nothing less will answer
and make the revelation satisfactory.
The Journal of Commerce says:
''The change is the most stupendous
revolution ever accomplished III the
history of the worlds industrial
growth. It's suddenness is as remarka-
BILE as it's magnitude. 1t has come
with non of the careful deliberation
that usually attends the investment of
great aggregation Of capital II has
been guided by no precedent expert
ence. 1t is no gradual result of a ma
tural evolution. 1t is an abrupt out
burst of resistance to an unusually Sc
we're pressure of the natural regulatory
force of competition. 1t is a reversal of
all that ECONOMISTS have accepted as
fundamental axioms of trade. 1t is an
u~ndeliberated revolt against the most
essential force in the regulation Of pro-
duction. distribution and values,-the
natural law of competition. 1t amounts
to a complete disruption Of the rela-
tons between the industrial forces and
classes of society. 1t is an extingu:sh-
ment of the voluntary exchanges be-
tween the producing and m~erchanting
interests, and the creation of one eX-
elusive producing organization for each
industry, to which all other material
interests must yield subsection. In
dustry at large is organized into a sys-
tenn of feudalized corporations, each
one of which enjoys absolute power
within it's special branch of production,
while, taken in the mass, the system
constitutes itself the supremest trade
power in the nation. These innova-
tics upon the fixed methods of ndus-
try, though fundamentally affecting
the C liens free access to the oppor-
tunities of industrialism, take little &C
cont or LOCALITIES, equally ignoring the
law as 1t stands and as it may possibly
be changed to meet the case. This
headlong precipitancy has pursued its
purpose almost without f~orethought;
certainly with slight consideration for
tr1de moralities Or for the weightest
of human liberties, and with little re-
gard for the perils to public order
which the outworkings of the system
are too liberal to evoke.
'In advance Of the event, it would
not have been deemed possible that the