Arizona republican., 1899-02-10

| DIGSSlOn union, has it attained the rank of a Ifrst-class power When Benjamin Franklin put at the head of his news paper the figure of a serpent divided into pieces, with the motto, Join or die" he showed the sagacious percep- ticn for which he is celebrated ID obedience to the same principle his successors acquired Florida and the territory west of the Mississippi and we are now on the eve of extending our dominion over Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines. Some of our citizens denounce as imperialism" this ire pressible growth, but they do it ignor- antly.
 Human industry has undergone a like development from the isolated and independent labor of individuals and families, into the organized activity of great factories and workshops. Spin ming and weaving are no longer, as they were, down to a comparatively recent date, household occupations, but are carried on by multitudes of work CTS gathered together in mills equip ped with machines which accomplish III an hour what formerly was the task or weeks. The rural blacksmith has ceased to forge horseshoes and nails | by hand, but buys them ready made. | man requires is turned cut for him in quantities, instead of being made sin | gly by slow and laborious processes. | The result has been an enormous in crease in the supply of the articles used in daily life and an equal diminution of their money cost.
 From concentrating into great fac tories and workshops the labor previ- ously scattered among thousands of lit tie households, to further concentrat- ing under single heads the numerous factories and workshops themselves, previously managed independently, is evidently nothing more than a step forward in the same path of improve ment. The same saving of labor and. reduction of cost that are secured by spinning and weaving in a factory in- stead of in the homes of the spinners and weavers are secured in a greater degree by combining a number of fac tories, as far as practicable, into one IF place of competition we have unity of enterprises The cost of the raw ma terial is reduced, and likewise the ex- penSeS Of management and of diStribdt- ing the product, and the industry, from being weakened by being split up among a number of conflicting owners, becomes an industrial empire, with all the advantages that imperialism pos sesses over divided sovereignty.
 Against this industrial imperialism the complaint Is made, as has been mentioned that it prevents men of small means from undertaking manu- factures on their own account and compels them to become dependent for employment upon monstrous aggrega- tions of capital; So that they are no longer free labOrers, but slaves. This same complaint was made and with as little reason, when what are now small factories superseded the home workshop and collected the workmen under one roof, instead of leaving them scattered over the country. The poor man who used to make cloth or nails or hCrseshOes ID small quantities gave way to the factory owner who paid him wages and profted by his toll. That the same factory owner now in turn gives way to the mammoth company owning many factories, is a hardship to him, perhaps, but to the community at large it is a benefit.
 It is also said that the result of the.a imperial industrial combinations is to eXtOrt from consumers of their prod ucts higher prices, and, consequently, to secure for their owners excessive profits. This is not true as a matter
 
 the weaving of cotton cloth in mills, instead of having it woven by hand on a small scale, renders it more costly to the consumer and unduly profitable to the mill owner. As the individual weaver by hand turns out less cloth by his days work than the same weaver does in a mill, so number of single mills produce less by the same expen- diture of time and labor, when run separately than when they are run in a combination. Instead of paying seV- eral sets of salaries the combination pays but one; instead of forcing up by competition the cost of raw material it buys it at the natural price, and, what is more, a smaller percentage of profit ou the capital invested contents it's members.
 This last mentioned item is one to which sufficient consideration is rarely | given by even those who are friendly l to the consolidation of industries now going on. The individual factory owner is, by common consent, entitled, as com pensatiOn for his enterprise and risk, | to sEm which yields him on his in vestment a rate of interest far exceed l ing that which is paid to the idle capi- | talist, who relies for his income on the labor and enterprise of those to | whom he lends his money If, now, the factory owner can join to h:s own capital, ten or a hundred times as much | more, which other people are willing to lend him even at and 6 per cent, | he can do business at a vastly smaller rate of profit on the entire amount en- ployed, pay , or 6 per cent on the DOT tion he borrows, and still retain for himself the 20, 80 or 50 per cent on his own capital which he formerly gained This is what the modern gigantic in dustrial combinations accomplish The managers Of them earn for themselves. indeed, princely salaries, but, since they pay on the capital they employ. only or 6 per cent they can afford to conduct the business at vastly cheap CT rate, and sell their product at a lc,yce1. I>1.ica than if they had nnlv theil.