The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-02-02
TRUE DEMOCRATIC PAPERS FIGHT
TRUSTS.

TRUSTS.
Som time & there were newspa-
pers hat sought to cover up or defend
the action Of trusts and to make them
highly benevolent. a plausible, insin
uating strain was pursued. You could
have supposed. If not better informed,
that the trusts were the great benefac-
tors to our country, great blessings to
all sorts, and conditions OF men, and
every way worthy of the good gill and
support of the people at large. That
was the stuff hat was published. 1t
was really nothing but deception, the
merest rot. Some sentimental fellows
may have believed in what they said.
and were allured by their W voices as
they sang the song of the syren OF
monopoly. The administration news
papers were OF course very hot for the
benevolent trusts. Is not the president
Of h republican party the author Of
the magnificent fraud-"benevoleEt as
similation''-that bambooZled preachers
and people. The arguments as present.
ed were all material, OF the earth earthly
~. The ably edited chief newspaper
in Texas, The Houston Daily Post, has
this, and it presents quite felicitiously
TIE way lit lOOlC4S ~ III trusts
some of them democrats, and ever in
the south, but they did not support
Bryan in 1896, and do not favor him in
1900, sought to tickle and bamboozle:
The trust has been held by the grad
yates of the new-risen school of COM
mercial economics to be the legitimate
consequence of a wholesome and desir-
able business evolution These contend,
with that confident e which should
only attend a worthy cause, that the
combine is as necessarily a commercial
incident 10 prove progres as man, ac-
cording to Darwinism, is Indispensable
TO demonstrate the present climax of
his evolutionary ascent from the pro-
toplasm.
Nothing, however, so completely de-
stroys theory and pushes men into the
realm of the practical as experience
and actual result. No man can argue
against either any more than he can,
by mere assertion, make the Missis-
sipi river or Pixies Peak cease to
exist"
The Messenger has never wavered in
it's convictions for a minute-that the
trusts are q great outrage and curse
to any free people, and that they were
mainly created and fostered by the re-
publican robber high tariff tax. Time
out confirms the conviction, and makes
it impossible for the selfish defenders
of trusts to make good their cause in
the great tribunal of the people. They
should be stamped out as you would
stamp out fire or the bubonic fever or
McKinleyism.
Some of the more sleepy organ OF
the giant trusts have pulled themselves
fAnnthnr or nnAnin~ fhnis nI-nC hnnon
to see that their theories are not sus-
tanned by facts, and that the truly
faithful newspapers have been those
that with open eyes saw the dangerous,
destroying enemy upon his first ad-
vance and signalled the danger. We
notice that in Colorado the editorial
association took strong ground against
the Infamous, grasping, destroying
combines, the very worst enemies the
people now have, not ever excepting
McKinleyism. 1t adopted the following
resolution:
BY united action on the part of
large dailieS we believe that the tariff
may be removed at the present session
of congress-. There is no time to lose,
and we should remind all that there is
danger il delays. Paper dealers and
agents calmly inform us that before
the end of the year white paper will
reach 5 cents per pound We urge all to
immediate action. Not one paper, not
state, not one city, but every news
paper in every section of the country
regardless of politics, for this is a non
partisan movement, and therefore in
the interest of the people. 1t may be
safely asserted hat the entire press
daily, weekly n monthly, almost
without exception, favor this measure
for one and one for all. 1t is a
common cause against the paper
trust
The Houston Post is on the right
when it denies it is "a non-parti-
san measure Mckinley organs are
a high tariff and sustain the trusts,
best friends Without much
money Mckinley could never be again
president. The rich men, and specially
the trust millionaires, are the chief sup
porters of plant, putty Mckinley and
will furnish the none to buy up con-
and voters. The Post says:
what thing is responsible for tariff
e~nactments, from whence these conse-
have come, as vicious plaques?
Is it not the republican party? Who,
more than the president of the United
States, has clamored for the perpetra-
ton of the customs tariff, and who,
more than it's masterful Warwick, has
~apologized for the combines and held
them to be the healthy and desirable
brood of business prOgreSS?"