The leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1895-1905, 1902-04-30
TRUSTS AND COMBINES.
Sam Jones gives His View on
the Subject i'm Character
istic Style.

the Subject i'm Character
istic Style.
"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 a theory. Theoretic.
ally thing may be so, and practically
it may by very untrue. When we
speak of the trusts and combines we
think of the Standard oil trust, the
sugar trust, the tobacco trust, etc.
When the Standard oil trust was
formed L was paying 40 cents gallon
for kerosene oil; am getting it now
for 10 cents gallon. | was paying 12ls
cents for sugar several years ago, but
when the combines set in we got it at
81. When the whisky trust was or
ganized l was in hopes it would put up
the price of whisky where the poor
devils couldn't get it, but they seemed
to cheaper that down to where they
can pay the government s1.10 a gallon
revenue on it and yet sell it for s1.2711s,
which demonstrates that they are max
ing it and letting the public have it at
about IL cents a gallon.
There is no doubt the aggregation
Of wealth, with brains controlling it.
can manufacture any article cheaper
than it is or has been manufactured
on small scale. The great railroad
combinations, many think, will eat us
up blood rare. Occasionally / get on
little perky water road that Is not in
the combination, and want to double
my accident policies and be satisfied
with a 15mile- an-hour gait and con.
sole myself that | can ride all day for
a dollar, but when get on the Penn.
sylvania or Vanderbilt system of roads
with their schedules forty miles an
hour, vestibule trains, with parlor cars
sleeping cars, dining cars, l have a
hotel on wheels carrying me toward
my destination, and all this for about
two cents mile. Give me the road
that is in the 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, the sugar trust
are as sensitive to public sentiment as
the snow bank to the rays of the sun
Trusts and combines will not hurt
people, 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, control the
great trusts of the country. These
fifty thousand men know that there
are 100000 of other people in Amer
lea, and their wisdom teaches them
where boundary lines are, over which
they cannot go without peril to them
selves and disaster to the public. Nc
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 out of such formations of wealth
and social orders may raise the black
flag to fight them. but am thousand
times more afraid of demagogues and
politicians than | am afraid of trusts
and combines. Good government
which means not only the well-beine
of the citizen but the overthrow of all
that will hurt the citizen-depends
upon good men in office, and instead
of shouting against trusts and com
binations, one should give more at
tention to those whom we elect tC
office in the municipal, State and
national governments. Mr.. Stead, in
his book, eff 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 theil
success lies the blood and bones Of the
victims over whom they have run tc
success Nevertheless, the big four
have furnished the public with better
and cheaper meat. The successful
man or combination means the down
fall of other men and combinations
One preacher, preaching to five thou
sand, twenty preachers around him
consider seventy-five full house and
hundred perfect jam; one physi
clan making $4,000 year and forty
little doctors in the neigborhood not
making their grub. A WanamakeI
selling S50,000,000 year means many
little merchants applying for clerk
ships in his store. 1t is the survival
of the fittest, it may be. When God
made this world he made mountains
towering into the clouds and valleys
below the level of the sea; He made
lake and ocean; He spread out the
prairies of the west, and piled up
mountains around the valleys along
the ranges of the Rockies and the ALLIE.
ghenies. In the oceans waters we
find whales and some very small fishes
and when the whales come along the
little fishes have to hide out. / have
travelled over this country from ocean
to ocean, and from Montreal to Gal.
weston, annually for twenty years. ]
have watched the progress of events
and the professions as they marched
| have yet to know of a single instance
where the combines and trusts hurt
the masses or permanently raised the
price of any produce. / am a thou