The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1900-07-19
The Trusts and The People.
BY REV. SAM p. JONES.
From the Manufacturers' Record, Bait

BY REV. SAM p. JONES.
From the Manufacturers Record, Bait
The large trusts and combinations
already formed and being formed by
aggregations OF capital are considered
hurtful to the masses and the common
people. This is theory. Theoreti-
cally, a thing may be so, and practi-
cally it may be very untrue. When
we speak of trusts and combines we
think of the Standard Oil trust, the
sugar trust, the tobacco trust, etc.
When the Standard Oil trust was
formed I was paying forty cents gall
lon for kerosene Oil; l am getting it
now fo- ten cents gallon. was pay
ing twelve and one-half cents for sugar
several years ago, but when the COM
bines set in we got it at Ave 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 Sl.15 gallon
revenue on it and yet sell it for 81. 274,
which demonstrates that they are MAX
ing it and letting the public have it at
about twelve and one half cents gall
Ion.
There is no doubt about the aggrega-
ton Of wealth, with brains controlling
it, that they can manufacture any arti-
Gle cheaper than it is or has been man
ufactured on small scale. The great
railroad combinations, many think,
will eaI US up blood rare. Occasion
ally l get On little ierk-water road
that is not in the combination, and l
want to double my accident policies
and be satisfied with 15-mile-an-hour
gait and console myself with the idea
that l can ride all day for dollar,
but when | get on the Pennsylvania Or
Vanderbilt system of roads, with their
schedules forty miles an hour, vesti-
bule trains, with parTor cars, sleeping
cars. dining cars, 1 have a hotel on
wheels carrying me towards my desti-
nation, and all this for two cents q
mile Give Observation-Disclosures
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
railroad combinations. ths 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
States, perhaps not more, are interes-
ted in the great trusts Of the country.
Those $4,000 men know that there are
70. QUO. 600 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
public" but they have their weather
cocks out on every prominent cupola
watching how the wind blows.
OF course, political capital can be
made outof such formations of wealth,
and social order may raise the black
flag to fight them; but am thousand
times more afraid of demagogues and
politicians than I am afraid OF trusts
and combines. Good government
which means not only the well-beins
of the citizen, but the overthrow of all
that will hurt the citizen-depends up
on good men in Office, and we had bet
ter 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 nat
onal governments. ! have travelled
oyer this country from ocean to ocean,
and from Montreal to Galveston, annu
ally for twenty years. have watched
the progress of events and the proce.
sions as they marched. have yet TO-
know of single instance where COM
bines and trusts hurt the masses Or
permanently raised the price OF any
produce. am thousand times more
willing to deal with the trusts and COM
bines and purchase their products than
/ am to put my money into their insti-
buttons and imperil my holdings, con-
scious Of their want of stability and
fearing their final downfall.
With the final disintegration of
trusts and combines-which will iney-
itably 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