The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-11-03
TRUSTS AND -paI1. MIDDLE CLASS

One of the chief results which are look
ed forward to as the outcome of the con-
troll of the trusts in Industrial life is the
disappearance of the middle class OF pop
ulation. Indeed it. has been long insisted
on by economic thinkers that the settled
tendency of modern industrial life is and
will continue to be toward the utter an
Inhalation of that elements of society to
which the world owes it's creates prog
ress and the production of it's grea test
men.
The avowed policy OF the trusts, de-
clared publicly before the manifestations
of popular hostility had become so pro-
nounced is to suppress the middleman in
trade, and to bring the consumer and
the producer. together with the fewest
possible Intermediates The favorite re-
suit predicted by the opponents of the
trusts and of the general tendency
toward consolida ton which has been
showing itself for the last twenty years
is the further impoverjshment of the poor
and the further enrichment of the rich.
How have all these calculations and
predictions been sustained The small
storekeeper in the cities has disappeared
in great proportion. The small manu-
facturer has disappeared or has become
something Of rarity. Either he has
been absorbed or driven out by the
trusts. A larger proportion of the pro-
ducing classes are wage earners than
ever before. In every branch of life save
in the direction of the farming occupa>
ton alone, the power Of co-opera ton and
combination has shown itself to be prac-.
tically irresistible.
Have the rich grown richer? That is,
have the few absorbed, still, more of the
advent of the trust and of the spirit of
combina ton and cooperation? Have the
poor grown poorer? That is. have the
common people, the mechanics, small
tradesmen, clerks and small professional
people, suffered visibly in their material
welfare during that period?
The answer which the ordinary OBJ
server gives to this will be dictated
largely by observation and feeling Sta
tistics give very little help in reaching a
conclusion regarding it. The people have
been made to suffer much during the
past five or eight years. Up to within
q year or two the. crushing effect of ex-
listing conditions, growing apparently out
upon the fortunes of the poor, from the
day laborer to the Woodworking lawyer
or doctor, is not to be mininized. It is
they who were made4to bear the brunt
of the misfortunes which flowed on
American society. 1t is true period of
recuperation has come; and that the in
evitable reaction has set in, so
that there is to be found to-
day but slight traces of the sufferings
which came with the advent of the
financial crash. But there are many cir
cumstances which go to. show that the
middle class has been growing numerical
" less, and that American society in
the cities has been more steadily resolv-
ing itself into the two elements of en-
ployers and employees. since. the advent
of the trusts.
A great change is unquestionably COM
ing over the face of American industrial
and social life which will produce entirely
different conditions in future to those
which prevailed in the experience Of the
generation which is preparing to leave
the scene. Those results are the imme-
date product of the influences of the
trusts and combinations in industry. Just
how such changes will ultimately affect
society whether for better or worse in
the aggregate, the time has not yet come
to determine.