The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1902-07-16
The Republican Party and The
Trusts.

been taught to believe that high
prices are indicative of prosperity,
because dealers profit thereby and
people always ask bankers and
business men as to the financial
condition of the country.
High prices and steady sales
show a greater consumption of
most articles in use, and, incident
ally, that people are able to buy
what they need.
Prices. however, may go too
high. They may go beyond the
ability of the laboring people to
pay them, then business declines
because people quit buying or
economic in the use of the arti-
Giles needed. Some things, how
eyer, are absolutely necessary, such
as provisions, and people must
have enough to keep them and
their families from starvation, no
matter what the price may be. In
this, our day, commercial monopo-
lies flourish, Great combines of
capital control the markets in all
the articles of common use; they
limit the production of mines and
factories; they buy up railroads
and control freights; every great
interest which is necessary to the
comfort and welfare of the people,
and even to their very existence,
is controlled by trust.
Some of the trusts understand
that the people can economic in
the use of lights and sugar and
other sweets when the prices are
too high, when it comes to the
matter of daily bread and meat
the people must buy without re-
gard to price, and then the trust
get their profits.
The government of Egypt once
monopolized the food products,
and the people, after expanding
everything they had, of value,
were compelled to sell themselves
and their wives and children into
slavery to save them from starva-
ton. We suppose that the Meat
Trust has taken from the history
of Egypt the above fact as a pre-
cedent and has accordingly adj
vanced the prices of daily food 100
per cent The trust knows the peo-
pie must have something to eat
even if the price goes twenty times
as high. People might get on with
one meal per day, but still they
must have something to eat and
they will eat while they can buy.
One would naturally think that in
great free government like ours
it would be impossible to meet
with such extortion; that our peo-
pie would be protected by law, or
if no law existed Congress would
provide one, as it is in session.
But the fact is there is no law to
prevent the grinding extortion of
the trusts, nor relieve the people
from ssme. Some may think that
the Attorney General of the United
States will take some action against
the Meat Trust, but they are mis-
taken and will soon find out their
mistake. Even if any suits are
brought in in the Federal courts
there is no law that can apply
The pretended movement against
the Meat Trust is only bluff in
tended to quiet or amuse the peo-
pie for little time, possibly till
after the elections. The Republi-
can party is the sire of all the
trusts, and depends upon them for
life. There would be no election
fund if the trusts were dead, and
the Republican party would be an
initiated.
Why a Republican Congress,
now in session, positively refuses to
remove the tariff of 2 to 3 cents per
pound on meat and butter and of 5 |
cents per dozen on eggs, because
its children, the meat trust and all
other trusts object. Suppose the
administration to be in earnest
about giving the people relief from
the extortionate prices of the meat
trust, then a removal of the tariff |
would be had and Canada could |
send in her products and the vast
cattle herds of Mexico would be
drawn upon for the relief of the
people. But Congress is afraid to
repeal this meat tariff or to enact |
any law that would cripple the
barons of the Meat Trust. The
markets of the world are. and of |