The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-04-29
Costs 25 Per Cent More to Build
Houses.
Advance In Lumber and Nails
Is the Cause.
PEOPLE HELPLESS.
Must Pay Premium to the Com
binatiOns or Quit.
Time For People to Rise and
Demand a Change.

Every frame house built in Topeka
this year will cost the builder just %
per cent more than the same house
would have cost if built last year. This
is not a fact in Topeka alone but in
every city in the country as well.
Those gigantic combinations of cap
ita1 that have been formed with almost
lightning rapidity during the past few
months are responsible for it. There is
hardIy building material that there
Is not now trust upon, and it lies
within the power of the heads of the
various combines to advance the cost
of a home to so or 100 or more per cent.
The output of the white pine and yell
low pine forests is controlled by a COM
bination. The less plentiful woods that
are used in finishing work are sold at
prices dictated through an understand
ing between the men who control them.
The nail trust controls those most nee
essary articles in the building of
mouse and sunshine is secured only at
an advanced price because the glass
manufactures of the country have
combined on their products. Down to
the door locks and the window weights
and catches there is an advance this
year all because combinations for the
regulation of prices have been effected.
If a man wishes to build a house now
he must pay not only the actual price
of the various building materials but
a handsome revenue to the few who
control their production. He is abSo-
lutely at the mercy of the building ma
ter1al trusts and if he puts off his
building this year because of the ad-
vance in prices he may find next year
trebled.
White and yellow pine is now being
sold on the wholesale market at an ad-
vance of from Is to 20 per cent. On the
retail market the advance is slightly
more than this. The percentage of ad-
vance on finishing woods is about the
same. Nails have gone up in price fully
5o per cent and the advance on glass is
considerable. Cement and plaster are
about the only building materials that
have not been advanced in prices
Contractors are this year basing their
estimates on entirely new schedules
The calculations of a year ago would
leave them sadly in the lurch- Topeka
contractors say that the advance in
the price of building material is having
the erect of influencing workmen to de-
mand advanced wages. They feel that
IT the combines are to be enriched by
the sale of building material they have
an equal right to claim an advance for
the work of putting it up. The spirit
which prompts it is a reasonable one,
but it only increases the hardship to
the builder. Carpenters are now being
paid better wages than they were q
year ago.
The history of trusts is that the first
advance is only inkling of what is to
follow If this is sustained in reference
to the combinations on building ma
ter1al 1T will have the effect of curtaiI-
ing building work. A man who under
reasonable circumstances would be able
to build home will find it impossible
because of the advance in prices of the
necessary material. He will find it
cheaper to pay rent than to put up a
new building. But while a curtailment
would result, buildings would have to
be erected and the cities and towns and
not the trusts would be injured by it
There is an organization in this city
that means to do all in its power to cor
rect this condition of things This is
the Topeka Commercial club 1t is a
great undertaking, and it is only with
the hope that similar organizations will
follow it's example that the battle with
trusts will be taken up. The club will
ask the Kansas senators and represen-
tatives to wage an unrelent1ess war on
combines in the national congress. Me-
MORALS asking the cooperation of other
commercial clubs will be sent out The
work of the trusts has been felt direct
ly in Topeka by the shutting down of
several industries that if allowed to
prosper would have in time amounted
to important commercial items and the
club, as a commercial organization, has
in a sense a revenge to satisfy The
possibility of the building material
trusts affecting the advancement of the
city gives the club another sufficient
reason for taking up the fight
The movement against trusts will be
started in earnest at the opening of the
winter meetings of the club.