Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1899-04-28
ULTIMATE TRUSTISM.
THE PROBLEM OF THE iMME-
date FUTURE.
How Small Manufacturers ana J,bbcTc
WIN BE Ruined and Small Merchants
Workingmen and Farmers WlN Be-
come the Slaves of Vast Corporations


standard financial policy is now II
sight We can see whittier we are
drifting. The farmers, business mer
and workingmen of the central wesi
who have been conscientiously voting
Ae Republican ticket through all OF
the recent political changes can at last
see clearly-if they will open theil
eyes-the end of the system of unre-
strained monopoly in land, money and
transportation, the system of unbrid-
led corporationism, which the Republi-
can party to this day stands sponsor
for.
For it is true, isn't it, that it has
been and is the policy of the leaders
of the Republican party to trust en-
tirely to competition, leaving corpor-
atoms unrestrained to form combina-
tons that eliminate competition and
| inaugurate a stand-and-delive sys-
| TEN? The Sherman antitrust law was
enacted by non-partisan vote with
| the full consent of the trust magnates,
who understood in advance that 1t
would not be enforced. During the
many years since the Sherman law
was passed there has been no attempt
by any Republican administration
(ClevelandRepublican or otherwise)
to enforce it. There is no present Re-
publican cleveland Republican or
otherwise) demand for its enforce
ment. The present Hanna-Republican
administration is not lifting finger
to prevent the trustizing of all the
means of production and distribution
that is now going On in Wall street
and the capital of New Jersey. On the
contrary the promoters of these great
trusts form the inner circle of Nc
Kinley's administration.
Let us look at the industrial condi-
tions to which trust control of produc-
tion and distribution will soon bring
us: Each branch of production will
soon be entirely in the hands of a
trust, such as the oil trust, sugar trust,
beef trust. wooden trust, cotton trust,
flour trust, etc., etc., the manufacture
OF every article of human necessity be-
ing thus controlled. The railroad
trust, owned and controlled or in col
fusion with the other trusts, will hold
UP the bar of unjust discrimination ia
freight rates against all attempted
competition with any Of these trusts.
The trust magnates will, as they are
already doing, fix the retail as well as
the wholesale price Of the articles
they produce. They will do away with
travelling men and jobbers and adver-
Using and ship direct to retailers, re-
curing the latter to sell at very
small percentage above the exorbitant
prices fixed by the trusts, and the re-
taller who refuses to be thus pauper-
lied will be unable to obtain trust
goods at any price. This is the pres
ent trust method, as far as they have
power to carry it out. Any drummer
or retail dealer can tell you so.
In a short time the trusts will be
able to enforce the foregoing policy
absolutely, and competition will be
made impossible. Now if grocer re-
fuses to be dictated to by the tobacco
trust. for example, he may be able to |
get non-trust tobacco of some sort and
proceed with his business on an indie |
pendent basis. In little time that |
will be a thing of the forever past. Let
all manufacturers be once brought into
the trusts of their respective lines, a
which is already in |
sight, and a national executive ccp1-
mittee of all the trusts will be formed,
with an Office in retired nook on the
twenty-seventh floor of some steel
framed building in the neighborhood
of the Trinity Church steeple. Then,
when an independent to5acco factory
starts and sells bill of goods to some
retailer. the tobacco trust will notify
the central committee and that retail
err will soon learn that he cannot buy
any goods of any kind, anywhere in
the country, excepting only the nom
trust tobacco of the one little tobacco
factory. AS soon as the retail dealer
sees the kind of trap he is in he will
surrender, and throw away his non
trust tobacco. The Independent tobac-
co factory will go up in the air forci-
bly,, enough to be an object lesson to
everybody. So every independent fac
tory will be treated, and it will be so
easy to crush cat competition that it
will be unnecessary to buy it out.
All commercial travellers will be dis
oensed with, and advertising expenses
will be cut square off. An army OF
skilled and unskilled labor will be dis
pensed with-thrown out in the road
TO tramp or starve, for there will be
no avenues of employment open to
them. The cream Of the retailers
profit will be withheld by the trusts,
md the merchant reduced to the stat
is of a poorly paid laborer. The trusts
will absorb all of the farm products
not controlled by usurers, giving the
farmers a constantly decreasing re-
urn.
All of which this generation will