The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-03-27

apotheosls of everything self-sacrificing,
courageous, and American, and yet every
day since he has been President the law
has bean violated The criminals are
known, too. His representative in Con
gress filed an exhibit actually giving the
names of 500 trusts. He had learned much
about their internal affairs for this ex-
hibit gave in detail the amount of pre-
lerred and common stock together with
the bonds they had issued. This exhibit,
which can be found on page 1S4S of the
Record of the last Congress, declared
that.
"The list (of trusts as a whole, there
fore, contains the grand total of nearly
500 trusts, with a total capitalization Of
nearly fourteen millions. These totals are
fully 33 per cent larger than those of any
other lists hitherto published
Here we have statement indorsed by
the gentleman from Maine, understood to
represent the views of the President, that
at that time 500 trusts were doing busi-
ness in the country, in spite of the Sher-
man law, with capital more than hall
as great as all of the money In circula'
tion in the United States.
Until the advent of Mr.. Roosevelt ii
was supposed that the Sherman anti
trust law was not sufficient to deal with
these great law-breakers, but Mr.. Roose-
Velt's Attorney General soon discovered
the mistake. 1t was soon given out that
whether Congress legislatcd or not the
Sherman law was sufficient to accomplish
the desired result. While all this was
taking place, Mr.. Chairman, l hazarded
prediction. 1t was this: That the efforts
OF the Republican party to suppress the
trusts were a sham and a pretense. that
the trusts cared but little about the suits
threatened and instituted, that at heart
the Republican party was In sympathy
with the trusts and that all the noise and
clamor of the Administration would prac-
tically end in nothing.
You may prevent two certain railroad
systems from carrying out particular
deal, but you have done nothing, abso-
lutely nothing, to prevent these two roads
from charging their own prices for the
transportation of freight and passengers,
nor have you prevented the trusts from
selling to the people at trust prices and
buying what the people sell to them also
at trust prices. This is going on now
without interruption and will continue
a party which uses trust money to carry
elections and which chooses trust attor-
neys to represent the people of America
in their efforts to free themselves from
the clutches of their oppressors. The truth
is. the people of this country are paying
today more for the necessaries of life than
ever before. While wages are being de-
creased, the cost of living is constantly
increasing. The truth is that wages have
only increased trifle during all the
flush times our Republican friends are
boasting about, while the cost of living
since 1896 has increased from So 1-3 TO so
per cent.
The New York Herald of Sunday,
March 6, contains the following state
ment which is we'll worthy of considera-
ton:
"At a time when there is complaint of
contraction in trade and industry and
wages are being reduced it is uncomfort
able to find that the cost of living is in
creasing.
Every housewife will pursue with in
terost the article in this mornings Herald
giving in detail the recent advance in all
the necessaries of life The course of
prices in the last seven years is reflected
in Dun's ''indeX number showing prices
proportioned to consumption.
In making up this index number the
prices Of all necessarics of life are taken.
and III each case the price is multiplied
by the country's per capita consumption.
This precludes any one commodity having
more than its proper weight in the aggre-
gate the price of pound of coffee, for
Instance, being taken nine times and the
price of wheat five and onehalf times.
Extreme low prices were touched July 1,
1897. Comparison of the index number
of that date with more recent ones is in
teresting:
per CAPITA COST OF LIVING.
III. a