Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1900-06-15
ABUSE THE MARKETS.
Disaster Has Been Forced
Upon the People.

The alarmiSt has a poor vocation.
Men, generally speaking, who are en-
gagged in active industries, are much
given to discounting the prosperity
which seems apparent to almost every
one who is not profoundly thought
full on the conditions necessary to
and the interruptions which are a
constant source to the necessary con-
ditions. Therefore it is that the hon
est masters of trade are constantly on
the lookout for an interruption of the
essential conditions which insure
prosperity. We're these dependent on
supply and demand it would not be
difficult to gauge the relations be
tween the producer and the consum-
er, and if honest principles were in
control between the two forces, pro-
duction and consumption, the crisis
would in most Instances be averted, or
certainly controlled within the small
est space of the business affected.
A large, intelligent lesson has been
taught in the last few weeks to those
controlling the productive market. It
it a notable fact that prices of stock
in all the actives had sailed into the
skies, and insatiate greed was doing
it's full part to keep them to their
flight. The conservative buyers fully
appreciated the situation. They felt
that the spectators had taken fear
full hold on the manufacturing indus
tries, and the result could not be any
thing but disastrous. They would not
be losers. They could hold their hold
ings. They could give warnings and
thus prepare the public for the slump.
They could go still further. They
could punish the vicious element
which had assaulted prices without
just cause, and who, it was claimed,
were amenable under the law. With
in day the slump came. Thousands
of people were ruined. A great enter
prise which had involved $100,0O0,OOO
to perform a service which only re-
quired so per cent. of that amount
($5O, ,uOO)' was struggling with bank
ruptcy.
There were other means of d;sor-
der which could have assailed the
''Steel and Wire trust other than the
one which did. Either of them would
have been as effective in destroying
the prosperity of the concern. A
strike or a lockout would have been
highly injurious. Or a combination
of the controlling interest in the stock
and other securities of the "trust"
would have worked deplorable dam
age. On the naked plea of overpro-
duction this disaster was forced on
the people. It could not have been so
done had not it's principal officers
countenanced the movement, and thus
gave the strength of their names to
the reduction of values. 1t seems
strange that no legislation can be en-
acted which will insure punishment
to those commercial outlaws. That it
is not reflects severely on the class of
people whom the public selects for
the discharge of legislative life. The
lesson taught in the above described
illustration is one which it is wisdom
to heed. The labor, the wage-earners,
are less given to the destruction
of established Industries than are
the men who are in possession of the
securities, and who speculate to lille
ultimate returns on the capital they
have invested, even though it be of a
liquid aracter.-Cincinnati En-
u,,irar