The age-herald., 1900-07-11
THE TRUSTS AND
 THE PEOPLE

The large trusts and combinations al- | ready formed and being formed by ag- r gregations of capital are considered hurt 1 full to the masses and the common people. | This is a theory. Theoretically, a thing
 may be so, and practically it may be very
 untrue. When we>speak of trusts and com pines we think of the Standard oil Trust, the Sugar Trust, the Tobacco Trust, etc. ! l was paying forty cents gallon for ker- l osene oil l am getting it now for ten cents gallon. I was paying twelve and one-half cents for sugar several years ago, but when the combines set in we got it at i've and one-quarter When the Whiskey
 Trust was organized I was in hopes it would put up whiskey where the poor devils couldn't get it, but they have seemed to cheapen that down to where
 they can pay the government $1.15 a gall lon revenue on it and yet sell it for $1 2715. which demonstrates that they are making | it and letting the public have it at about 1 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 than it is or has been manufactured on a small scale. The great railroad combina- l tions, many think, will eat us up blood
 
 water road that is not in the combination, and l want to double my accident policies and be satisfied with a 15-mile-an-hour gait | and console myself with the idea that I can ride all day for a dollar but when I | get on the Pennsylvania or Vanderbilt sys- tenn of roads, with their schedules forty | miles an hour, vestibule trains, with parlor cars, sleeping cars, dining cars, l have a hot rxtha destination and all this for about two cents a 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 interest. The Standard Oil, the railroad combinations. | 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 un- wieldy 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 5OOO0 men know that there are 70OOO0O0 of other people in America, and their wisdom teaches them where boundary lines are. over which they cannot go without peril to themselves and disaster to their business No combination now says damn the pub lic,' but they have their weathercocks out on every prominent 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 l am a thousand times more afraid of demagogues and politicians than am afraid of trusts and combines Good government-which means not only the well-being of the citizen, but the over throw of all that will hurt the citizen-de- bends upon good men in office, and we had better pay less attention to what we call trusts and combinations and more attention to those whom we elect to office in the municipal, State and National governments MT Stead, in his book If Christ Came to Chicago speaks of the Big Four of Chi cago," and says of them that their meth ods are clean and their transactions are honest, but that in the road of their sllc- cess lies the blood and bones of the victims over whom they have run to success" The successful man or combination means the downfall of other men and other combna- tions One preacher is preaching to 5,OOo twenty preachers around him consider n full house, and 100 a perfect jam; one physician making $10,00O a year. and forty little doctors in the neighborhood not mak- ing their grub. Wanamaker selling S50,- O0OOO year means many little merchants applying for clerkship in his store It is the survival of the fittest, 1t 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 valleys along the ranges of the Rock ies and the Alleghenies. In the ocean,s waters we find whales and some very small nsnes, and when the whales come along the little fish have to hide out. 1 have travelled oyer this country from ocean to ocean. ana rom Montreal to Galveston, annually for twenty years. l have watched the prop ress or events and the processions as they marched l have yet to know of a sinele instance where combines and trusts hurt
 the masses or permanently raised the price
 or any product I am a thousand times
 more willing to deal with the trusts and
 combines and purchase their products than
 am to put my money into their institu-
 tlons and imperil my holdings, conscious
 Of their want of stability and fearing their
 final downfall.
 Of course these great combinations affect
 legislation, if they do not control it in
 many instances, but while they may pro.
 cure legislation in their own interest vet
 they have one eye upon the public senti-
 ment all the time, conscious that they can
 go just so far and no farther. Here and
 there they have shut down manufactory
 or closed up an institution and affected
 some individuals, but we are not looking
 from that standpoint. When we look at the
 7oWO,0OO Of our population, we say they are
 only procuring cheaper and buying for less
 money these products than they could have
 done under other circumstances
 With the final disntegration of trusts and
 combines-which vii inevitably come when
 financial disaster and shrinkage of values
 shall come-of course, the surplus of their
 product will be thrown upon the market,
 and only the stockholders in these trusts
 and combines will suffer. As sure as that
 the sun shines whenever any institution
 becomes unwielded because of it's size and
 bulk it will finally fall of its own weight
 I am an eXpansionists, and I believe that
 one of the causes of the stringency and
 shrinkage of values in this country is be-
 cause we have not gone out over the seas
 alii dilats .as.. ,-l,x. l