Evening journal., 1900-07-10
TRUSTS WILL
NOT HURT PUBLIC
50 Declares the Rev. Sam ?.
Jones, the Evangelist
LOWER PRICES OF PRODUCTS
Says lie Is an ExpanSiOniSt and AdVO-
Gates Trade With Foreign
Countries
LOWER PRICES OF PRODUCTS

aggregatiOns OF capital are considered
hurtful TO the masses and common pe0-
] pie. This is a theory. Theoretically, a
thing may be so, and practically 1t may
/ be very untrue. When we speak of
I 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 kerO-
sene oil; ! am getting IL now for ten
cents a gallon. was paying twelve
and one-half cents fer sugar several
years ago, but when the combines Sc
in we got it at five and one-quartCr
When the Whiskey Trust was organ
lied / was in hopes it would put up
whiskey where the poor devils cOuldn't I
/ get it, but they have seemed to cheaper
that down to where they can pay the gov
ernment S115 a gallon revenue on It
and yet sell it for S1.27ia, which dem
onstrates that they are making il and
letting the public have 1t at about
twelve and one-half cents a gallon.
There is no doubt about the aggrega-
tiOn of wealth, with brains controlling
il, that they can manufacture any arti-
Gle cheaper than 1t is or has been manu-
factured on a small scale. The great
railroad combinations, many think. will
cat us up blood rare. Occasionally
get on a little ierk-water road that is
not in the combination. and I want to
double my accident policies and be sat
isfed with a een-mile-an-hour gait
and console myself with the idea that
can ride all day for a dollar, but when
get on the Pennsylvania or Vanderbilt
system or roads with their schedules
forty miles an hour, vestibuled trains
with parlor cars, sleeping cars. dining
cars, have a hotel on wheels carrying
me towards my destination and all this
for about two cents a mile. Give me
the read that is in the combine to carry
me where / am going.
Public sentiment is the safeguard
which is thrown around all aggrega-
tions of wealth and all combinations of
interest. The Standard OIL. the rail-
road 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 bond
holders may suffer later on. when these
great bulky institutions become un-
wieldy and fall with their own weight
/ FIFTY thousand men in the United
I
ed in the great trusts of the country
Those $4,000 men know that there are
| 70,O00000 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 com
binatiOn now says damn the public +"
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 social orders may raise the black
! flag to fight them; but ] am a thousand
times more afraid of demagogues and
politicians than ! am afarid of trusts
and combines. Good government
which means not only the well-being Of
the citizen, but the overthrow of all
that will hurt the citizen-depends
upon good men i'm 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 ma
tiOnal governments. Mr. Stead, in his
book If 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 the bones Of
| the victims over whom they have run
/ to success" The successful man OF
combination means the downfall OF
other men and their combinations One
preacher is preaching to 6OO0 twenty
/ preachers around him consider seventy
Eve a full house. and a hundred per-
feet jam; one physician making $40 900
year. and forty little doctors I'm the
neighborhood not making their grub.
A Wannamaker selling S50,000.000 a
year means many little merchants APP
plying for clerlzship in his store. II is
the survival Of the fittest, it may be-
When God made this world He made
mountains towering into the clouds and
valleys below the level of the sea; ne
made the lakes and the oceans: He
spread out the prairies Of the West and
= piled up mountains around the little
b valleys along the ranges Of the Rockies
, and the Alleghenies. In the oceans
waters we find whales and some very
5 small fishes, and when the whales come
p along the little fish have to hide out.
. have travelled over the country frCn
ocean to ocean, and from Montreal e
ArdlNtSlOus dNnudilN lbI lMtAiN years
have watched the progress of events
and the professions as they marched.
F. have yet to know of a single instance
e where combines and trusts hurt tn
: masses or permanently raised the pric
- of any product. ! am thousand time
Z, more willing to deal with the trust
and combines and purchase their DrC
?. ducts than I am to put my money int
: their institutions and imperil my hold
j. ings, conscious of their want of stabil
r ity and fearing their final downfall.
, OF course these great combination
l. affect legislation if they do not contr,
d il IN many instances. but while the
may procure legislation in their ow
Interest, yet they have enc eye upon th
public sentiment all the time. conscioI
ar that they can go lust so far and L
81; farther. Here and there they have SIN
II down mandatory or closed up a
% institution and affected some lndividl
\ ais but we are not looking from tn
81 standpoint When we look az q
IL 70.OOO.OO0 Of our population. We 50