The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-02-08

studying for the ministry" had caution
from a professor of patristic literature
not to aspire to such influential and Win
ming delivery as rislxing too much by
making sermons attractive to the
world" adding other wooden nonsense.
TRUSTS MUST BE ATTACKED SOON
OR NEVER.
New York Journal.
If any serious action is to be taken
against the trusts, dear fellow citizens,
the action will have to be taken pretty
soon. Please believe that before many
years shall have passed the man who ad-
vocates interfering with the trusts and
their reckless operations will be looked
down upon as a dangerous agitator and
an enemy of property.
Today the average citizen is in favor Of
curbing the trusts, of attacking them
through the tariff, of taxing them, of
worrying them into decency. Because,
today it is understood that a few power
full trust builders own the trusts, col
lect the trust profits, and that any trust
regulation will be at the expense of these
few very rich men.
But, very rapidly indeed, and very in
diligently, these big trust men are put
ting themselves in a safe and strong pO-
Sition.
They know the American citizen very
well, and they know that out Of a hun
dred American citizens in this age of
competition, and of anxiety for the flu
ture, at least 80 per cent. think with
their pockets. The trusts are establish
ing for themselves millions of little foot
holds in millions of American pockets.
And you will find it very hard indeed to
interfere with the trusts when these
millions of American pockets shall be-
gin thinking and sympathiZing along
trust lines.
The steel trust issues about fifteen
hundred millions of securities. OF this,
some five hundred millions in bonds rep
resent what the property cost. These
five hundred millions of bonds are cere
fully held by Mr.. Carnegie, who has two
millions of them, or more, and by the
other wise ones.
The thousand million dollars of other
steel securities will soon be located in
the pockets of the people. AS rapidly as
can be managed, the great trust men are
citizens of the country.
In five years from now the stock of the
steel trust, and of many other big trusts
will be located in the pockets of the
people. AS rapidly as can be managed,
the great trust men are selling their
stock in small parcels to the citizens of
the country.
In five years from now the stock of
the steel trust and of many other big
trusts will be owned by forty or fifty
millions of the country's inhabitants.
The small citizen who has saved a few
hundred dollars will have the money in
steel or sugar, or railroad, or telephone
trust stocks.
Then, when a trust is hurt and its
stocks go down there will come roar
from the hundreds of thousands of small
stockholders.
When the trust shall have distributed
their holdings among the voting pockets
of the nation, their squeezing of the
public will mean little more interest on
their stocks. And this little more in
terest will make the individual stockhold
ers forget that it represents eXtortion
and an increase in the price of the ne
cessaries of life for all their fellow citl-
zens.
Among those who now own steel stock
even very little, how many do you
think are more interested in the rights
of the people than in the price of their
stock?
Each man who has a little money in
fuences a certain number of other men,
his sons, or poor relatives. or employees.
You all know that if man today says
or does anything that seems to threaten
the savings banks he commits political
suicide. The average man who has $50 in
the savings bank thinks more of that $50
than he does of the Declaration of In
denendence. the Old and New Testaments
and eternal salvation all rolled into one.
DO YOU think that any man engaged in
h,1ving a small piece of land on the in
stallment plan would vote for a pro-
fessed single taxer as president of the
Tinted States? No. not even if he him
self believed thoroughly in the principal
of single tax. He would say, THEORIES
are all right, but single tax presi-
dent would hurt the price of that subur-
ban lot on which | have paid $146, and
I have got to protect that lot"
Truly, beloved fellow citizens, if you
want to do anything with the trusts,
hurry up about it. Don't wait until,
from your pocketbooks, there shall begin
to sprout all sorts of trust arguments.
Already the trusts have advanced so far
that any check upon them would mean
an attack upon hundreds of thousands
of innocent investors. These innocent in
vestors will be robbed in many ways, the
prices of their stock will be knocked
down, they will be made horribly sick Of
trust methods They will be thoroughly
robbed by holding companies, bonding
schemes and the modern shameless
swindling that goes on under corporation
methods. But, still, their money will
be invested in trusts, and if you want
to interfere with the trusts you will
have to do it over the dead bodies of
all the noble, independent citizens with
hundred dollars or more invested in
trust stock.