The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1901-05-31
EVILS OF TRUSTS.
Fall on Those Little Able to Bear
Them.
NO. III,


while the evils fall on those who can i'll
afford to bear them. Lessening the pay
roll brings bigger dividends to stockhold-
ers who have already more than they can
use, and less to the laborers who have
scarcely enough to feed and clothe their
families. Extra dividends are often de-
clared out of the hunger of the laborers'
children and stock watered with the
tears of their wives. The same is true to
large extent of the public with whom
the trust deals Those who pay the in.
creased prices charged by the trusts are
mostly poor, while the trust owners are
troubled to find investments for the addi-
tional profits. In all its workings the
trust system gives more to those who have
much and less to those who have little.
But perhaps we should recognize in the
trusts only the baud of destiny or the
finger of Providence, working out the
prediction "To him that hath shall be
given, and from him that hath not shall
be taken away even that which he hath"
The cutting down of the wages of the
laborers, closing mills or factories, and
raising prices on the public, are evils too
obvious to need discussion, but there is
another evil more to be deplored though
not so apparent to the senses. Under
mining the independence and destroying
by degrees the manhood of the people is
the greatest evil of the trusts.
The laborer who works for a trust that
controls all the places where the employ
ment to which he is accustomed can be
had is less independent than when he
worked for an independent employer.
Then if his employer did not treat him
properly he could hope to find employ
ment i'll arrival house, and therefore he
would not submit to insult or imposition,
but now he must put up with whatever
treatment he receives or run the risk of
being unable to find employment any
where at the work he is fitted and accus-
toned to do. The men who were for
nerly independent proprietors are bought
out or driven out of business by the
trusts, and either become stockholders in
the trust and partners in all its evils, or
else fill fuller the already overcrowded
ranks of labor, and are not as good cit
liens when working for trust as they
their own business. The public are in-
poverished by the inceeased prices they
are compelled by the trusts to pay, they
lose in some degree their independence
when they lose their property, and their
spirit is gradually broken by seeing the
trusts use the money wrung from the
people to control the election of the high
est officers in the land.
The trust system has not yet reached
perfection, but even now the opinion is
growing that no one can be elected who
is not acceptable to the trusts, and in this
opinion we cannot fail to recognize the
first symptom of the paralysis of dumb
despair creeping over the spirit of indie
pendence i'll the people.
Dependence upon the will of another
for bread is well nigh incompatible with
that free spirit which is necessary to the
existence of a republic, and the laborers
employed by the trusts are pretty nearly
in this position. Poverty is not incom-
patible with an independent spirit, but is
a great temptation to it. The children of
Israel had not endured much hunger or
hardship on their journey to freedom in
the Promised Land before they longed to
turn back to the flesh pots of Egypt and
slavery.
Some men with nothing are more indie
pendent than others with means, but the
same man is always more independent
when he owns something. The more
people who own something the better in
republic. But the trust system, which
has been at work in our country for
many years, though never with such
rapidity and boldness as since 1896, tends
to gather all the wealth of the country
into few hands and reduce the mass of
the people to poverty.
How vitality this process threatens the
existence of the republic was appreciated
by Daniel Webster, who said : Liberty
cannot long endure in any country where
the tendency is to concentrate wealth in
the hands of few" How would he
tremble for the liberties of his people if
he could see the concentration of wealth
which we see? How this process has
destroyed the homes of the people is told
in an item which appeared in the Balti-
more SIN of July 10, 1889, and reads as
follows:
EN- 1866. FIVE eighths of the people
owned their homes, and only three
eighths were the prey of landlordism. In
1886, only three-eighths owned their own
homes, and ve.eighths were reduced to
the rank of tenants. Since that time the
confiscation of homes by the money power
has gone on in an increased ratio, and it
cannot be great while before the final
result will be reached, and the entire
population become homeless and
landless. -