Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1900-08-08
TRUSTS AND COMBINES.
Rev. Sam p. Jones Speaks on the
Much Agitated Question.


ready formed and being formed by aggre-
cations Of capital are considered hurtful
to the masses and the common people.
This is theory. Theoretically, . thing
may be so, and practically 1t may be
untrue. When we speak of trusts and
combines We think of the Standard oil
trust, the sugar trust, the tobacco trust etc.
When the Standard oil trust was formed
was paying 40 cents gallon for
kerosene oil; sm getting 1t now for 10
cents gallon. i was paying 12h cents
for sugar several years ago, but when the
combines set in we got 1t at 81. When
the whiskey trust was organized was In
hopes 1t would put up whiskey where the
poor devils couldn't get It, but they have
seemed to cheaper that down to where
they can pay the government s1.15 a
gallon revenue on 1t, and yet sell it for
s1.271a, which demonstrates that they are
making it and letting the public have 1t
at about 1871 cents gallon.
There is no doubt about the aggrega-
ton OF wealth, with brains controlling
1t, that they can manufacture any article
cheaper than 1t is or has been manufac-
tured on a small scale. The great rail-
road combinations, many think, will eat
US up blood rare. Occasionally get on q
little jerk water road that is not in the
combination, and I want to double my
accident policies and be satisfied with a
fifteen mile. an hour gait, and console my
III with the idea that / can ride all day
for dollar, but when get on the Penn |
sylvania or Vanderbilt system Of roads,
with their schedules forty miles an hour,
vestibule trains, with parlor cars, Sleep
ing cars, dining cars, l have a hotel on
wheels carrying me towards my destina-
ton, and all this for about cents mile.
Give me the road that is in the combine
to carry me where am going.
Public entiment is the safeguard which
is thrown around all aggregations OF
wealth and all combinations OF interest.
The Standard oil, the railroad combina-
tions, the sugar trust, are as sensitive to
public sentiment as the snow bank to the
rays of the sun. Trusts and combines
will 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 10000, 600
OF other people in America, and their
wisdom teaches them where boundary
lines are, over which they cannot 60 with
out peril to themselves and disaster to
their business. No combination now
says '.damn the public, but they have
their west hercocks out on every promi
nent cupola watching how the wind
blows.
or course, political capital can be made
out of such formation OF wealth, and
social orders may raise the black flag to
fight them; but | am a thousand times
more afraid Of demagogues and politicians
than am OF trusts and combines. Good
government--which means not only the
weil-being Of the citizen but the over
throw OF all that will hurt the citizen
depends upon good men in Office, and we
had better pay less attention to what we
call trusts and combinations and more
attention to those " HON we elect to office
in the municipal, State and national gov
ernments.
Mr.. Stead in his book at Christ Came
to Chicago, speaks OF the "Big Four OF
Chicago" and says OF them that "their
methods are clean and their transactions
are honest, but that in the road of their
success lies the blood aud bones OF the
victims over which they have run to sue
cess''. The successful man or combina-
tion means the downfall of OF her men and
other combinations. Que preacher is
preaching to 5000, twenty preachers
around him consider seventy-five a full
house, anc hundred a perfect jam; one
physician making $4,000 a year, and
forty little doctors in the ghborh hood
not making their grub. A Wanamaker
selling 5000 900 year means many lit
tie merchants apply for clerkship in his
store. 1t is the survival OF the fttest, it
may be.
When God made this world He made
mountains towering into the clouds and
valleys below the level Of the sea; He made
lakes and oceans; He spread out the
prairies Of the West and piled up noun
tains around the little valleys along the
ranges Of the Rockies and the Alleg henies.
In the oceans waters We find whales and
some very small fishes. and when tue
whales come along the little fish have to
hide out. l have travelled over this
country from ocean to ocean, and from
Montreal to Galveston, annually for
twenty years. | have watched the
progress OF events and the PROFESSIONS RS
they marched. / have yet to know OF
single instance where combines and trusts
hurt the masses or permanently raised the
price OF any product. l am thousand
times more willing to deal with the trusts
and combines and purcha their products
than am to put my money into their
institutions and imperil my holdings,
conscious OF their want of stability and