Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-11-29
CREDIT AND BLAME.

Armour is given credoit, and justly, for deyising cunning methods of econ-
 omy in utilizing every ounce of the car casses of cattle and hogs; he is ex-
 cused because he saves in valuable by products what the smaller butcher
 throws away. Blood, hair, h0ofs, tail,
 horns, by his wonderful system, are converted to the public use. But let
 us be clear in our distinctions. Every dollar he saves by these excellent economies we pay him gladly; for such work he is to be admired and reward
 ed as a public servant, but the success of the beef trust is not founded on pub lie service of this sort, but upon what may truly be called public betrayal. Armour and his associates, not con tented with the fair returns of their genius and industry, employed secret, underhand methods; they entered into illegal conspiracies to obtain advan- tages in railroad taxation. They were traitors to the principles of democracy. As a result, we have fastened upon us, as a people, this veritable leech of com. merce, the railroad rebate. And like leech it preys secretly and insidious- ly. The enterprising, ambitious butch CT in the small city, in spite of his best efforts, finds his business dwindling away. He may be certain that he is butchering as cheaply and profitably as the Chicago trust-as not a few smaller establishments are in reality doing to-day-and yet he goes down to Encouragement and ruin. He never even discovers, perhaps, that it is be- cause the highway, the public. road, is not as free to him as it is to Armour.
 Similarly, the railroads have not dealt with all citizens alike" in the flour milling business. All over this country may be found ruined flour mills and ruined millers. It is conceiv- able, indeed probable, that many bright boys, because of that ruin, have failed of their rightful chance in life, and that many men are to-day hope lessly discouraged I am not here de- lending antiquated or wasteful meth ods against improvement and concen- tration. nor am I seeking to awaken any sympathy for the man who fails through lack of energy or enterprise. am not attacking the principle of competition, but of unfair competition. Such part of this ruin of the millers as was due to improved methods or to economy resulting from manufacturing in large quantities. is both necessary and legitimate. But the greater part was not due to such superior public service-and public service is, after all, the final test-but to undemocratic railroad determinations.
 So the steel trust to-day controls many independent iron mines of Min nesota by an iniquitous, unfair system of railroad favoritism. So the har- vester and sugar trusts have strangled So the grasp of the ele- vator owners rests upon the wheat and corn industry, proving upon the farm CTS of the country in the most secret and insidious. ways. -
 Let it be understood that this is not an attack upon individual enterprise and industry. nor upon large fortunes. but it is an attack upon that piggish which succeeds by talk ing more than it's share of the public highway, which does not observe the decencies of the gentleman in the street, but comes to it's fortune by other men into the gutter For that is what the rebate is: it is the mark of commercial boorishness.-Ray Stannard Baker in December Me | Clure's.