Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1899-04-28
Sarah Stone on Trusts.


1t was Hozea a-calling to me from the
sitting room. | believe | never, in all our
30 years of married life, come out to the
kitchen without Hozea a-calling to me just
as | had got well into my work, so this
time / didn't answer: but it wasn't long
before he called again, "Sary."
"Well Hozea, what do you want now?"
says I, testy-like.
whats the matter with this lamp"
says he.
"There amt nothing the matter with it,
as | can see."
"Well that's so, but amt it brighter
than usual"
Now, Hozea, amt an exception to the
general run of men, when it comes to pos
ing, as a better informed being than his
wife, and for long time before l went to
New York month ago, to visit our daugh
ter, he kept a.harping on one string, which
was about trusts. He thinks they're the
worst thing that ever happened, and when
he'd come home after a-sitting round Jim
Warren's store of an evening, I'd know
that 'the congestion that's what |
call them orators who congregate in Jims'
place-had been abolishing things. First,
it was railroads. Then it was telephones.
He didn't believe in one company owning
all the telephones. / never tried tele-
phone but once and then all | could hear
was a noise like water boiling; but il
seems to me if you want telephone you
want one that connects with all your
friends and the store. If there was two
companies every one would have to have
two instruments and I'd Just as soon have
two right hands. | told Iozea so, and he
amt said telephone" since l came back
from New York. Now, when | was down
there | looked into some things, and when
Hozea called me into the sitting room
about that lamp | thought I'd have talk
with him"
- "Hozea," says |, "that oil there was
made by the Standard Oil company, which
is one of the organizations you want to
abolish"
at amt Pennsylvania OIL anyway"
says he
"Maybe it amt, but the Standard buys
| five times as much Pennsylvania crude oil
| as every one else put together But sup
posing it wasn't made from the best crude
oil, as you call it, do you remember that
pearl tapioca we had the other day? You
said it was better than the old kind. Well,
/ pearl tapioca isn't genuine tapioca at all
| but made from potato starch. So, don't
see as it makes any difference what a
thing is made Of, if the results are better.
It's all rubbish about other people maxi. g
better oil than the Standard folks. They
have got more to lose in the business than
anyone else, and you don't suppose they
are so green as to throw away their bust
ness by making poorer oil, do you? Be
sides they sent the cheapest, yellowest
stuff TO Europe and Asia, while we Ameri-
cans get good oil just as clear as distilled
water"
"Sary," says he, "they want to sell all
of the oil and it amt fair"
"Hozea," says l, talk like a man.
| There is as many as hundred people,
right here in Vermont getting their living,
| or part of it, out of the Standard Oil COM
pany."
"Then the money don't all go to New
| York, eh?" says he, kinder waking up.
NO" says |, ait don't. They pay back
to the people here between $4,000 and
| 100000 that's for salaries, commits
/ sions, rent, taxes, hotel charges, livery
hire, horse feed and a hundred other
things. The money is spent right in Yer
mont; that expense is jest caused by sell.
! ing oil, and this is a small state. All told,
the Standard folks employ $4,000 men; as
many as were in the army before the wal
with Spain. They never have had strike
among their men, and the payroll il
enough to build two or three Brooklyn
bridges every year. Hozea Stone, that;
their Homelight oil dazzling your eyes, ant
so long as ii is as good as that I'm going tC
have ii if have to sent to Burlington fol
/ It,"