Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1900-08-08
The Trusts and the People.
(Rev. Sam. p. Jones, in tho Baltimore
Manufacturers Record

Manufacturers Record.
The large trusts and combinations
already formed and being formed by
aggregations of capital are consid-
cred hurtful to the masses and the
common people. This is theory.
Theoretically, thing may be so,
and practically it may be very
untrue. When we speak of trusts
and combines we think Of the Stand
ard Oil Trust, the Sugar Trust, the
Tobacco Trust, etc. When the
Standard Oil Trust was formed |
was paying forty cents a gallon for
kerosene oil am getting it now
for ten cents gallon. was pay
ing twelve and one-half cents for
sugar several years ago, but when
the combines set in we got it at five
and ne-quarter. When the Whs-
key Trust was organized | was in
hopes il would put up whiskcy
where the poor devils couldn't get
it, but they have seemed to cheaper
that down to whero they can pay
the government S1.15 a gallon rcvt-
nue. on it and yet sell it for Sl.27I,
which demonstrates that they arc
making it and letting the public
have it at about twelve and one-half
cents n gallon.
There is no doubt about the ag-
gregation of wealth, with brains
controlling it, that they can manu-
facture any article cheaper than it is
or has been manufactured on small
scale. The great railroad combina-
tions, many think, will eat us up
blood rare. Occasionally get on a
little jerk water road that is not in
the combination, and want to dou-
BILE my accident policies and be sat
isfied with 15-milc- an-hour gait
and console myself with the idea
that | can ride all day for dollar,
but when get on the Pennsylvania
or Vanderbilt system of roads, with
their schedules forty miles an hour
vestibule trains, with parlor cars,
sleeping cars, dining cars, have
hotel on wheels carrying me towards
my destination, and all this for about
two cents mile. Give me the road
that is in the combine to carry me
where I am going.
Public sentiment is the safeguard
which is thrown around all aggrcga-
tions of wealth and all combinations
of interest. The Standard Oil, the
railroad combinations, the Sugar
Trust are as sensitive to public scnti-
ment as the w-bank to the rays of
the sun. Trusts and combines will
not hurt the public, but stockholders
and bondholdcrs may suffer later on,
when these great bulky institutions
become unwieldy and fall with their
own weight. Fifty thousand men
in the United States, perhaps not
more, are interested in the great
trusts of the country. Those 10000
men know that there arc 70,0O0,00O
Of other people in America, and
their wisdom teaches them where
boundary lines are, over which they
cannot go without peril to themselves
and disaster to their business No
combination now says "damn the
public" but they have their weather
cocks out on every prominent cupola
watching how the wind blows.
OF course, political capital can be
made out of such formations Of
wealth, and social orders may raise
the black flag to fight them but |
am thousand times more afraid Of
demagogues and politicians than |
am afraid Of trusts and combines.
Good governmcnt--w which means bot
only the well-being of the citizen,
but the overthrow OF all that will
hurt the citizcn-dcpcnds upon good
men in office, and we had better pay
less attention to what we call trusts
and combinations and more attention
to those whom we elect to Office in
the municipal, State and national
governments. Mr.. Stead, in his
book eff Christ Came to Chicago"
speaks Of the "Big -Four OF Chicago" ;"
and says Of them that 'thcir methods
are clean and their transactions are
honest, but that in the road Of their
success lies the blood and bones of
the victims over whom they have
run to success" The successful
man or combination means the down
fall of other men and other comb
nations. One preacher is preaching
to 5000, twenty preachers around
him consider scvcnty-fvc full
house, and hundred perfect Jam /;
one physician making $4,000 a
year, and forty little doctors in the
neighborhood not making their grub.
a Wannamakcr selling $50,O00,OO0