The Eureka sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1902-current, 1905-10-28
ruE RULE OF THE MONEY
KINGS OF WALL STREET.

When a Wall Street editor declares
that the business of the United States
has largely passed under the control OF
q small group of %financiers in New
York, who constitute q sort OF oil
garchy, it is time for the people to seri-
ously consider what should be done to
check the growing power of these great
money kings. In the Worlds Work
for October, Serene S. Pratt, a member
of the staff of the Wall Street journal,
declares the Trusts control the business
of America, aud that the holding of
one-third of their capital stock carries
with it control Of these great consolida-
lions. Thus it becomes possible for a
few men holding less than a majority
of the stock of the Trusts to dominate
the business world through the agency
OF Wall Street. While in reality the
ownership of the properties embraced
in the great manufacturing and rail-
road corporations is widely distributed.
among thousands Of investors. these
stockholders nave practically no voice in
the management. just as in the case OF
the great insurance companies supposed
to be on a purely mutual basis.
Likening the Wall Street ~oligarchy
to the Senate of the United States. Mr..
Pratt says John d. Rockefeller occupies
the same relative position as the Chair
man of the Committee on Foreign Re-
~lations, since the interests of the STAN
dard Oil Company are world wide. He
further says that J.. Pierpont Morgan
and seven other capitalists associated
with him control two-thirds Of the
mileage and 80, 600. 900 900 of the 3d.
600 900, 900 of capitalization of the
American railroads. These seven are
A. J. Cassatt. James J. Hill, E Fl.
Hartman. George J. Gould, W. X.
Vanderbilt, w. H. Moore and William
Rockefeller. This same set of men, 1t
appears, also control the coal trade, the
express business, and many industrial
corporations. Mr.. Pratt declares that
as masters of the railroads they have
a taxing power, in the form Of trans
portation rates, equal TO that Of Con-
gress, and that while the gross income
of the railroads is nearly $4,000. 900. 900
yearly the Federal revenue is but $780,
O00, 600.
The article proceeds to show that a
few bankers in New York control a
great chain of banks whose operations
extend throughout the United States.
and that associated with them are the
Standard Oil men, who exert q vast
financial power. He names seventy.six
men who constitute what he calls the
Business Senate of the United States,
including those already mentioned.
He says these men control what he
styles the Trust power, estimated at
$40, 379, 600. 900. and also much more.
including 100 of the greatest railroad.
industrial and banking corporations,
with a combined capitalization equal to
more han one-ffth of the total wealth
of the Nation.
This picture is certainly not over
drawn. 1t is 10 doubt true that the
control of one-fifth of the National
wealth. in the highly concentrated form
represented in Wall stree, virtually
dominates. through a network of COM
mercial and financial connections. more
than half of the entire wealth of the
United States. And yet this little
group of capitalists in Wall street, ex-
ercising almost unlimited power to tax
the products of the country, in the form
of transportation charges. and also to
tax every citizen by means of in Gated
prices of Trust commodities, affects to
see great danger to the country in the
proposal to have the Interstate Com
merce Commission given power to make
railroad regulation a reality.