The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1902-11-03

money, but all saying business is gone to
| the dogs.
| But after a while one of them which
| had more common sense and business tact
| TINA the others, thought over matters
| and said to himself: This will never pay
| and will go and see those other merchants
| and see can we not get better feeling and
| have business to pay better" So he went
and they agreed to meet together and
have some plain talk on the question.
There were six of them at the meeting.
| Mr. Longhead got on his feet and struck
| the correct keynote by saying: Il have
been thinking over this matter before
coming here how can we get better results
from our business, and looking over my
| own eXpenses-which I had to pay each
| month-it caused me to think of it for
rent. for cashier, for clerks, and often
half of them without anything to do.
Also the driver and team and wagon,
coal and light and other things which
makes quite an item each month. whether
1t will be little or much trade. And l pre-
sumo all of you find your expenses very
| much the same as myself. Therefore I
will suggest that we shall pool all our in
terests together and form a trust and it
will pay us better. We would need but
one rent. one cashier, one place to be
heated, one set of lights to be used. in
place of six of each. and half the clerks
the service. BY SO doing we can get in
terest on our capital and sell our goods as
cheap as we do at present"
They all agreed to the plan and formed
a trust and We're doing we'll. After a
while the other six merchants seeing that
the trust was getting fair interest on
their capital, and everything going along
smoothly and selling their goods COM
paratively cheap, they applied to the trust
for pooling their interest in the trust also
They were reasoning thus: If 1t is good
for six it must be good for twelve. So
they We're received into the trust with
open arms, and the public themselves
are reaping the benefit.
You will notice that the above trust
has fallen into good hands and has paid
them and the public as we'll. But suppose
If the said trust had fellen into evil
thoughts and evil hands, then it would be
entirely different. Very likely they would
for a while sell their goods cheap for
the only purpose to freeze the other six
out, and after freezing the six merchants
out they would very likely be skinnins
the public all they could. Hence the
question is in what class of peoples hands
arc the different trusts?
Some say we should have laws to do
away with trusts altogether. If it be so,
in my opinion we would do away with the
possibility of the greatest blessing to the
greatest number of people, But l believe
that our president in his many speeches
of late has given us the right idea by ad-
vocatinG laws to control the trusts. We
must have stringent laws to combat with
evil doors in trusts and the same law that
combats with the evil ones will protect
the good ones. And being that this is
an age of trusts, we must get new laws
to meet them. no matter whether they
are trusts of capital or trusts of labor
We have seen of late much suffering on
account of the scarcity of laws to con-
troll those trusts. 1t was proved con-
clusively a few days ago that it is I'M
portant to know in whose hands trusts
are; the retail coal dealers OF New York
and Philadelphia concluded to charge SIS
a ton for the time being. but the opera
tors trust said that they should sell the
highest price coal at $6.15 per ton and
that they would have from $l.25a to $t.JO
per ton profit on said prices, and If they
would not sell it at that price the opera
tors would retail II themselves at that
price. That proves the latter trust to be
n good trust. Hoping they will always
continue so. am, Respectfully,
John Jones,