Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1900-09-20
Mr.. BRYAN ON TRUSTS
He Tells Of the Evils Of the Sys.
tern in Speech at
St. Louis.
AND GIVES SOME SAMPLE CASES
How Trusts Will Hurt the Travelling
Man, the Hotel Keeper
and Railways.
Decline of Farm Products-The Agri.
culturist the Most Important
Factor in Our National Life.

In his speech before the Commercial
Travellers association at st. Louis
William Jennings Bryan said:
The lament of David over Absalom
is one of the most pathetic passages
of the Old Testament The fact that
the son was in rebellion against civil
as we'll as parental authority did not
shake the fathers affection, and the
anxious query, "Is the young man, Abb
salon, safe?" fingers in the memory
of all who study the life of the great
Hebrew king. And, yet, the interest
which David felt in his son, Absalom,
has it's parallel in the more than
10000 600 families which make up the
American people.
No language can describe a moth
ers love, or overstate the abiding in
terest which the father feels in the
welfare of his child. From the time
when the mothers life hangs in the
balance at the boys birth until the
death Of the parents there is scarcely
a waking hour when the son is not
present in their thoughts and plans.
1t is to this parental devotion, so uni
versally recognized, that l desire to
appeal on this occasion.
Appsal to Parental Devotion.
would call the attention of every
father and mother to present political
and Industrial conditions. l would
ask them to anaylZe these conditions,
Investigate their causes and their ten
denotes. l would press upon them
tS rs. n
Absalom, safe?' Are you satisfied
with the possibilities and the proba
bilities which now open before your
son?
Is he safe when foreign or do
nestle financiers are allowed to de-
termine the monetary system under
which he lives?
Is he safe when national banks con-
troll the volume Of money with which
he does business?
Is he safe when the bond holding
class determines the size Of the ma
tional debt upon which he must help
to pay interest?
Is he safe when by means Of taxes
laid almost entirely upon consumption
he is compelled to contribute accord
ing to his wants rather than accord
ing to his possessions?
Is he safe when corporate interests
influence as they do today the selec-
ton Of those who are to represent him
in the senate of the United States?
If he is a wage-earner and you do
not know how soon he may be, even
II he is not now, is he safe when he
is liable to be deprived Of trial by
jury, through the system known as
government by Injunction?
Is he safe, If a laboring man, when
he is denied the protection of arbitra-
ton and compelled to submit to such
hours and terms as corporate en-
ployer may propose?
The Reign Of Monopoly.
But, l desire to call special atten-
ton to the growth of the trusts, and
to ask you whether your son is safe
under the reign Of private monopoly
If you cannot leave him fortune, you
can leave him something more valua-
BILE than money, viz: the freedom to
employ his own brain and his own
hands for the advancement of his own
welfare. When there is industrial in
depence, each citizen Is stimulated to
earnest endeavor by the hope Of being
able to profit by his own genius, his
own energy, his own industry and his
own virtue. But when private mon
opoly reaches its full development each
branch Of industry will be controlled
by one, or few men, and the
fruits of monopoly, like the
divine right Of rule, will be kept
within the possession Of few
from generation to generation. while
the real producers of wealth will be
condemned to perpetual clerkship or
servitude. When private monopoly
reaches It's full development, your son
will buy the finished product at the
price which monopoly fixes; he will
sell raw material at the price which
monopoly fixes; and, if he works for
wages, he will work for such compen-
sation and upon such conditions as
monopoly may determine.
Charles II. Flint of the Rubber Goods
Manufacturing Co., in a speech deliv-
cred in Boston on the 25th of May,
1899, outlined the trust programme
the advantages to be derived from the
trust system he said:
Outline of Trust Program.
"Raw material bought in large
quantities is secured at lower prices
When, for instance, one man buys all
the wool, the price Of wool will be low
cred and all who produce wool will
sell at the price fixed by the trust. A
large proportion of our people are'en-
gagged In the production of various
Kinds of raw material, and they are
thus placed at the mercy Of the COM
binatiOns.
The second advantage is that
'those plants which are best equipped
and most advantageOuSlv sitnated are