River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1900-07-19
The Trusts and The People.
BY REV. SAM P. JONES.
From the Manufacturers Record, Baltimore. ]


| aggregations of capital are considered
hurtful TO the masses and the com
mon people. This is theory. Theo
retically, thing may be so, and prac
tically it may be very untrue. Wher
we speak OF trusts and combines We
think of the Standard OH Trust, the
Sugar Trust, the Tobacco Trust, etc
When the Standard Oil Trust was
formed / was paying forty cents g
gallon for kerosene oil; l am getting
1t now for ten cents a gallon. l was
| paying twelve and one-half cents fol
sugar several years ago, but when the
combines set in we got it at five and
one-quater. When the Whisky Trust
was organized l was in hopes it would
put up whisky where the poor devils
couldn't get it, but they have seemed
to cheaper that down to where they
can pay the government $1.15 gal
Ion revenue on it and yet sell it for
81 272, which demonstrates that they
| are making it and letting the public
have it at about twelve and one-half
cents gallon.
There is no doubt about the aggre-
cation Of wealth, with brains controll-
ing it, that they can manufacture
any article cheaper than it is or has
been manufactured on a small scale.
The great railroad com binations,
many think, will eat us up blood rare.
Occasionally / get on little jerk
water road that is not in the combi-
nation, and / want to double my acct
dent policies and be satisfied with a
15-mile-an-hour gait and console my
self.with the idea that | can ride all
day for dollar, but when l get on
the Pennsylvania or Vanderbilt sys-
tenn of roads, with their schedules
forty miles an hour, vestibule trains,
with parlor cars, sleeping cars, dining
cars, l have hotel on wheels carry
ng me towards my destination, and
all this for about two cents mile.
Give me the road that is in the COM
bine to carry me where / am going.
Public sentiment is the safeguard
which is thrown around all aggrega-
tions Of wealth and all com binations
of interest. The Standard Oil, the
railroad combinations, the Sugar
Trust are as sensitive to public senti-
ment as the snow bank to the rays Of
not hurt the public, but stockholders
and bondholders 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 $4,000 men know
that there are 100000 of other peo-
pie In America, aud their wisdom
teaches them where boundary lines
are, over which they cannot go with
out peril to them selves and disaster
to their business. No combination
now says damn the public" but they
have their weathercocks 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
a thousand times more afraid of dem
agogues and politicians than L am
afraid of trusts and combines. Good
government which means not only
the well. being Of the citiZen--depends
upon good men In office, and we had
better pay less attention to what we
call trusts and com bination and more
attention to those whom we elect to
office in the municipal, state and ma
tional governments. The successful
man or com bination means the down
fall of other men and other combina-
tions. One preacher is preaching TO
5000, twenty preachers around him
consider seventy-five full house, and
a hundred a perfect jam; one physi-
clan making $4,000 year, and forty
little doctors in the neighborhood not
making their grub. A Wannamaker
selling $50, 600, 900 year means little
merchants applying for clerkship In
his store. 1t is the survival of the
ittest. it may be. When God made
| this world He made mountains tow
ering into the clouds and valleys be-
/ low the level of the sea; he made lakes
and oceans. He spread out the prai-
ries of the West and piled up noun
tains around the little valleys along
the ranges of the Rockies and the Al
ieghanies. In the oceans waters we
find whales and some very small fishes,
and when the whales come along the
little fish have to hide out. have
travelled over this country from ocean
to ocean, and from Montreal to Gal
weston, annually for twenty years. |
have watched the progress Of events
and the professions as they marched.
I have yet TO know of single in
stance where com bines and trusts
| hurt the masses or permanently rails
ed the price Of any product. l am a
| thousand times more willing to deal
with trusts and com bines and pur-
chase their products than am to put
my money into their institutions and
imperil my holdings, conscious OF
their want of stability and fearing
their final downfall.
| OF course these great combinations
affect legislation, II they do not con-
troll it Ia many instances, but while
they may procure legislation in their
own interest, yet they have one eye
upon the public sentiment all the
| time, conscious that they can go just
so far and no farther. Here and
| there they have shut down a manu-
factory or closed up an Institution
and affected some individuals, but we
are not looking from that standpoint.
When we look at the 70, 000, 900 Of our
population, we say they are only PRO
curing cheaper and paying for lesE
money these products than they co,,ld
have done under other cirrvn stances
With the fnal diaintes. alton Of
trusts and comblnes-which win in
evitably come when financial disaster
and shrinkage Of values shall come--oi