The Savannah morning news., 1900-07-11

Rev. Sam p. Jones, in the Manufacturer
Record.


Record.
The large trusts and combinations al
ready formed and being formed by aggre-
cations of capital are considered hurtful
TO the masses and the common people.
This is a theory. Theoretically, thing
may be so, and practically it may be very
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 l was paying forty cents a
gallon for kerosene oil; 1 am getting it
now for ten cents a gallon. / was paying
twelve and one-half cents for sugar sew
eral years ago but when the combines
set in we got il at five and one-quarter.
When the Whisky Trust was oganiZed 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
S1.l5 a gallon revenue on it and yet sell it
for $l.27la, which demonstrates that they
are making ii and letting the public have
it as about twelve and one-half cents a
gallon.
There IS no doubt about the aggregation
of wealth, with brains controlling it, that
they can manufacture any article cheaper
small scale. The great railroad combina-
tons, many think, will eat us up blood
rare. Occasionally l get on little jerk
water road that is not in the combination,
and l want TO double my accident policies
and be satisfied with a fifteen-mile-an-
hour gait and console myself with the
idea that l can ride all day for a dollar,
but when l get on the Pennsylvania or
Vanderbilt system of roads, with their
schedules forty miles ibule
trains, with parlor cars, sleeping cars,
dining cars, have hotel on wheels car
rytng 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 / am going.
Public sentiment is the safeguard
which is thrown around all aggregations
Of wealth and all combinations of inter
est. The Standard Oil, the railroad COM
binations, the Sugar Trust are as sens-
live to pubic sentiment as the snow
bank to the rays of the sun. Trusts and
combines viii not hurt the public, but
s ockholders and bondholders may suffer
later on. when these great bulky institu-
lions b. come unwialdy and fall with their
own weight. Fifty thousand men in the
United States, perhaps not more, are in
terested in the great trusts of the coun-
try. Those $1,000 men know that there are
70 900 go of other people in America, and
their wisdom teaches them where bound
airy lines are, over which they cannot go
without peril to themselves and disaster
to their bus ness. No combination now
says damn the public but they have
their weathercocks out on every promi-
nent cupola watching how the wind
| blows
OF course, political capital can be made
out of such formations of wealth, and So
| cial orders may raise the black flag to
| fight them: but / am thousand times
more afraid of dema gogues and politi-
clans than l am afraid of trusts and com
| bines Good government-which means
not only the well-being of the citizen, but
the overthrow Of all that will hurt the
| etizen-depends upon good men in Office,
and we had better pay less attention to
what We call trus and combinations and
mere attention to those whom we elect to
! office in the municipal. state and national
governments. Mr.. stead in his book III
| 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 and
| bones of the victims over whom they
| have run to success" The sue
| eessful man or combination means the
downfall of other men and other combna-
| tons. one preacher is preaching to 5000
! twenty preachers dIOullN MN consider sew
enty-fve a full house, and hundred a
perfect jam; one physician making $4,000
| a year and forty little doctors in the
| neighborhood not making their grub. A
| Wanamaker selling $50, 600, 900 year means
! many little merchants applying for clerk
ship in his store. 1t is the survival of
the httest, II 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 mountains around the little val
| leys along the ranges of the Rockies and
| the Alleghenies. In the oceans waters
we find whales and some very small fishes,
and when the whales come along the lit
tie fish have to hide out. / have Travelled
over this country from ocean 10 ocean,
and from Montreal to Galveston annually
for twenty years. l have watched the
progress of events and the PROFESSIONS as
they marched. ] have yet 20 know of a
! single instance where combines and trusts
| hurt the masses or permanently raised the
price of any product / am thousand
| times more willing TO deal with the trusts
nud combines and purchase their products
than / am to put my money into their in
! stituuons and imperii my holdings, con-
scious of their want OF stability and fear
ing their final downfall
! OF course these great combinations af-
feet legislation, If they do not control 1t
| in 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