Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1899-07-07

There is one paper in the country that
believes in trusts and Is not afraid to say
so, and strangely enough Its home Is In
Vermont. The st. Adams Messenger
SAYS these combinations are great bless
ings, which reduce the cost of pro-
duction classes their opponents with the
ant-expansionists, as old fogies and
enemies of progress, and lectures its
state contemporaries for saying unkinG
things about the Biscuit trust, which
has bought cracker factory at Rutland,
turned the forty employees into the street,
locked the doors and tossed the business
into one of the great plants 1t owns in
New ork or Chicago. 1t saws:
This concentration of business has been
going on ev since the dawn of civilization,
and all the anti trust, anti-department store,
anticombination OF e4pltal LEGISLATION that
vent its survival ana continuance.
The erection of cotton and wooden factories
by combinations of capital drove the spindle
land, undoubtedly ruined the business of the
snail weavers of the country. But these
| factories make better fabrics and sell them
cheaper than could or did the small weavers
| of half n century and more ago.
And so, too in every branch of industry
Flour mills haye dis placed the individu
miller, lightning express trains have banished
the stage coach, large foundries have dis.
placed the blacksmith's shops, tie individual
machine, the seamstress has been supnlanted
by the sewing machine, the copyist has re.
tired in favor of the typewriter, steam sup.
| planted the single pillow and the hoe, and all
these and innumerable other instances OF
progress could not have been accomplished
save by trusts. aggregations of capital.
| What then? Shall we go back to the
methods and customs of our fathers? AS
well attempt to do that as to put down com.
binations of capital by legis alton.
Perhaps it would comfort the forty
oro ol,or ,,,a1yorc nj PutlopI u,ho ho ,,o
been turned into the street to search in
vain for work and wages to know that If
they had the money they could buy
better crackers than they used to make
for less than was charged for their
brand, and it may be that the other
people of that town would find com.
pensation for the loss of small industry
in reduced cracker bills; but un
fortunately the Biscuit trust, having Sc
cured monopoly, at once advanced
prices, as every other trust organized
during the past two years has done
That it has reduced the cost of Its pro-
ducts at the expense of honest. industri
Gus and skillful men it has discharged
and robbed of a right to earn a living
there is no doubt, but its saving has no
been sufficient to pay dividends on it:
millions of watered stock and it ha:
forced consumers TO contribute whatever
more has been necessary TO satisfy 1T
greed. \ man who can see no differ
ence between this and the changes il
business wrought by the application o
modern methods and machinery In fail
and open field ought to form combin,
with the one who draws no distinction
between the war for the preservation o
the Union and that for the conquest o
the Philippines.
The trust is robber at both ends o
the line. 1t impovershes the producing
laborer and it despoils the consumer
and while legitimate combinations o
capital cannot be put down by legis
lation. some way must be invented b,
which the purposes of this monster cal
be thwarted by law. or the people
outraged and made desperate, will flint
a way which is not mapped out in tn
statute books.