The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1900-07-12
TRUSTS AND PEOPLE.
Rev. Sam Jones Endorses the
OctOpuses.
He is More Afraid of the Politicians
q.
Than OF the Combinations.
(Rev. Sam P. Jones in the Nanufaotu-

(Rev. Sam 2. Jones in the Manufactu-
rers Record, Baltimore
The large trusts and combinations al
ready formed and being formed by aggre-
cations of capital are considered hurtful
to the masses and the common people.
This is theory. Theoretically, a thing
may be So and practically it may be very
untrue When we speak Of trusts and
combines we think of sthe standard oil
trust, the sugar trust, the tobacco trust
etc. When the standard oil trust was
formed was paying forty cents gallon
for kerosene oil; 1 am getting it now for
ten cents a gallon. 1 wa paying twelve
and one-half cents for sugar several years
ago, but when the combines set in we
got it at five and one-quarter When the
whiskey trust was organized was in
hopes it would put up whiskey where
the poor devils couldn't get it but they
have seemed to cheaper that down TO
where they can pay the government 81. 15
a gallon revenue on 1t and yet sell It for
81 % 1-s, which demonstrates that they
are making it and letting the public have
it at about twelve and one-haIf 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 manufac-
tured on a small scale. The great rail-
road combinations, many think, viii eat
US up blood rare. Occasionally I get on
a little jerk-vater road that is not IN the
combination, and want to double my
accident policies and be satisfied with q
15-mile-an-ho gait and console myself
with the idea that can ride all day for a
dollar, but when L get on the Pennsyl-
vania or Vanderbilt system of roads, with
their schedules forty miles an hour, vesti-
bule trains, with parlor cars, sleeping
cars, dining cars, have a hotel on
wheels carrying me towards my destina-
tion, and all this for about two cents a
mile. Give me the road that is in the
combine to carry me when I am going,
Public sentiment is the safeguard
which Is thrown around all aggregations
OF wealth and all com binati0ns Of interest
The Standard Oil, the railroad combine
tions, the sugar trust are as sensitive to
public sentiment as the snoW-bank Go the
rays of the sun. Trusts and combines
viii not hurt the public, but stOckhOld-
ers and bondholders may suffer later on,
when these great bulky institutions be-
oonle unWIeldy and fall with their own
weight Fifty thousand men IN the
United States. perhaps more, are in
terested IN the great trusts of the eoun
try. Those 80. 900 men know that there
are 20, coo, 900 of other people in America,
and their wisdom teaches them where
boundary lines are, over which they can
not go without peril to themselves and
disaster to their business. No comb lna |
ton 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 L am a thousand times
more afraid of d0mago9ues and politicians
than I am afraid 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 citi- /
zen-depends 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 |
MIR. Stead, in his book |
ssIf 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 bones Of the victims over whom they /
have run to success The successful |
man or combination means the downfall /
of other men and other combinations.
One preacher is preaching to 8, 1000, twenty |
preachers around him consider seventy
five full house, and q hundred perfect
jam; one physician making $40, 000 year
and forty little doctors in the neighbour
hood not making their grub. A Wanna
maker selling $50, 600, QUO year means
many little merchants applying for clerk
ships in his store 1t Els the survivaIsOf |
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
Rockies and the Alleghenies. In the
ocean S waters we find whales and some
very small fishes, and when the whales
come along the little fish have to hide
out. / have travelled over this country
from ocean to ocean, and from Montreal
to Galveston, annually for twenty years.
[ have watched the progress of events
and the PROFESSIONS as they marched. I
have yet to know of a single instance
where combines and trusts hurt the
masses or permanently raised the price of
any product. i am thousand times
more willing to deal with the trusts and
and purchase their products
chan / am to put nv money into their
institutions and imperil my holdings,
conscious of their want of stability and
tearing their final downfall
or course thesess great combinations
affect legislation, If they do not control it
In many instances, but while they may
procure legislation in their own interest,
yet they have one eye upon the public
sentiment all the time, conscious that
they can go just SO far Eand no farther.
or closed up an institution
and affected some individuals, but we
ire not looking from that standpoint.
When we look at the 10000 900 OF our
population, we say they are only procur
Ing cheaper and buying for less money
jhes9 products than they could have done
under other circumstances.
With the final disintegration of trusts