The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-01-11
THE DANGER IN GREAT FORTUNES.

binatiOns of capital-combination
which have now become so common
made profound impression upon the
country. Efforts are being made by
those who are dominant in these COM
binations to weaken this impression by
pointing out that the danger is far
from being as real as the Senator
would have the country believe. The
fact that such efforts are being made
is evidence that the Senator spoke the
truth. In the course of his remarks,
he said:
I'VE are dealing with a real peril
and not with a fancied or imaginary
danger. 1 have been told, 1 have no
doubt truly, that there is one individ-
ual in this country whose private for
tune amounted. some years ago, to
thousand million dollars. There are
others who are said to reckon their
fortunes by the hundred million.
NOW suppose it be true that the for
tunes to which l have referred have,
as I believe been accumulated almost
wholly within q period of thirty
years. Suppose they happen to pass
to a single heir. Is there anything TO
render it unlikely that if one of these
vast fortunes has grown. from a hun
bred thousand to a hundred million or
a thousand million in thirty years that
If the country grow as we expect, still
more, if it grow as we all think pos
sible, that in the hands of the next
possessor in another thirty or fifty
years the hundred million may become
a hundred thousand million, or the
thousand million a thousand thousand
million? Cannot the capital that can
control all the petroleum in the coun-
try by and by control all the coal? Can
it not control the railroad and the
ean-carrying trade? Can it not buy
up and hold in one mans grasp the
agricultural and grazing lands of new
and great states, and the coal mines
and silver mines and copper mines?"
While 1t is true that in all of the
combinations which control so much
Of the wealth and so large a part of
the resources of the country there are
many people interested, it is a fact
that the combinations are controlled
stance, those in which Rockefeller,
Morgan and half dozen others are in
terested. Is it not a fact that these
few men do with the vast properties
with which they are identified pretty
much as they please? The Standard
Oil Company controls, practically the
entire oil output of the country, and
also the product of the oil refineries,
and Rockefeller controls the Standard
Oil Company. There are thousands
of stockholders in the Billion Dollar
Steel Trust, but that trust does what
Morgan wants done in all matters per-
tanning to the production of steel. He
can put up or put down the prices of
the articles made by the trust. And it
looks as IL the times were close at
hand when Morgan would be able to
dictate ocean freight rates, Just as he
and Rockefeller now practically die
tate traffic rates on some of the trunk
railway lines.
A few men dictate the prices of kerr
osene, sugar, steel and tin products,
meats, the rates of transportation to
a great extent on land and sea, the
price of COAL and, it may not be very
long before they will attempt to die
tate the prices of all sorts of farm
products. If they should succeed
what is to hinder them from owning
the earth?
1t was said a day or two ago that
the high price of coal was due entire
ly to the refusal of the Independent
coal operators to abide by the contracts
they made with the coal carrying rail-
roads, which are the big operators.
Now there is a suspicion that the coal
carrying railroads are supplying the
independent operators with coal to
sell at the enormous price for which
coal is now held. In other words, the
few men who own the coal carrying
railroads are the ones who are keeping
up the price of coal, and are the chief
beneficiaries of the high price.
Although the few men at the head
of these great combinations of capital
do not own all the shares of them,
they control them, and manage to get
the lions share of the profits from
them. There is danger therefore that
the time may come when compar-
atively few men will have the country
in their grasp.
1t has not been so very long since
there was competition between the va
rious interests-the great railroad sys-
TENS. the big steel mills, the oil COM
panies, the packing houses and so on
through the list. Each fought to get
the better of the other. Now all this is
changed. and they have combined to
get the better, apparently, of the peo-
pie.
What is to be done to meet this con-
dition of affairs? Congress must act
The government must exercise a su-
pervision of these combinations of
wealth. 1t must intervene when it be-
comes apparent that the people are
being robbed and protect them. There
may be no way short of revolution
to prevent the accumulation of for
tunes running into the hundreds of
millions of dollars, but there is a way
to prevent the people from being made
the victims of the greed of combina-
tons which are controlled by the own
ers of these vast fortunes.
DRINK HABIT AMONG WOMEN.