The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-03-04
SATURDAY, March 4. 1899.
PASS THE STEVENS ANTI
TRUST LAW.

IhocI LAW.
know that in 1900 one of the overshad
owing questions before the American
people will be the declaration that the
National Democratic Convention will
make against trusts. From one end of
the country to the other the cry will
resound, Down with the trusts and
then, as in 1896, all the trusts and all
the men they can control will be united
in the support of Mckinley under whose
If by magic. Every man in that great
contest will have to take sides. either
for the protection of the trusts or against
them. There is scarcely an article in
common use, from the wheat that sup
ports life to the coffin that contains the
last remains when life is extinct. that
have seen the trusts rob the farmer
by controlling the market for his sup
plies and rob the consumer by sitting
competition. They have plead with the
Federal Government to give relief, but
with attorneys Of the trusts in the prose-
cutting offices, their plea has fallen upon
deaf ears. They have asked the State
to execute its laws, but corrupt or in
different officers have declined to enforce
the laws against them. They day is not
far distant when these lawless corpora
tions, fattening on the robbery of the
masses, will pray for the rocks and hills
to fall upon them and hide them from
the wrath of the people.
The Wilmington Star, in recent ella
borate and able editorial on the growth
of trusts, states more fact and truth
about the evils of these illegal combina-
tons in shorter space than we have
seen. We quote:
Growing as they are, becoming more
numerous as they are, how long will it
be before they own the country, dictate
its legislation and make the ballot box
a mockery? They do this to large
extent now, for there never yet was an
attempt made to hold them in restraint
that they did not defy, and no law
passed to curb them that they did not
ignore With their millions they en-
ploy and keep constantly in their ser
vice the best legal talent in the country
and pay it princely salaries. They own
many of the best lawyers in the coun-
try, whose business it is to watch legis-
latures, to note the laws enacted and if
there be any santi-trust legislation, to
proceed at once 10 make their plans to
nullify it if the attempt be made to en-
force it. There are United States
statutes and State statutes to curb
them, but they have gone on increasing
in number in proportions and in pow
er, and no successful effort has yet
been made to bring them within the
bounds of the law.
And they have able newspapers de-
tenders, too, as well as able lawyers
The business of the newspapers is to
work on public sentiment, to prevent
restraining legislation. They argue
that the trust instead of being an
enemy of the people is friend of the
people, instead of being a price-raiser
it is a price-lowerer, and instead of be-
ing an enterprise crusher by monopoly
it is promoter Of enterprise and de-
veloper of resources. And that's all
that can be said for them, and this is a
mere assumption, for if some articles
sell for less now than they did some
years ago it does not follow that we
owe this to the trusts, for it is the re-
suit simply larger production. BY
1. Al, i,r. ~ thn tytyc
may sell for less. but when it sees fit
it can raise prices and almost invariably
does when there is large demand for
a scarcity of the. article which it CON
trolls. When the weather gets cold
enough to create an extraordinary de-
mand for fuel the coal trusts run up the
prices and the consumer must shlver or
pay them. for the trust controls the
coal market When the weather gets
warm enough to create an extraordinary
demand for ice the ice trusts run up
the price and the consumer must pay ii
or suffer, for the ice trust control the
ice market. And so with everything
else. with everything we eat, drink, wear
or use.
while it has the power to fix the
nrice of what it sells, so has it the pow
err to fix the price of what 1t buys, for
II is the only buyer and has no compe-
titor. and also the power to fix the
price of the labor it employs. 1t names
its own price for the raw material il
rises and for the labor it employs, and
this is one of the reasons why it can
afford to sell for less than others can, but
il is thus robbing the producer of the
raw materials ii uses and the skilled
and unskilled labor that converts this