The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1906-05-26
Public OPINION.
THE TRUST MANAGERS FEAR PUB
LICITY.

Don't waste your time denouncing
corpcrn tions. A corporation can
only act through it's president and
board of directors. To attack i cor
poration is but waste of breath, but
the officials and directors are the
ones that are subject to the penal
ties of the law and to the great moral
force of public opinion. The Coal
trust is sOulless, but Brother Baer
and the directors of the railroads and
coal companies who are illegally
combined to plumber the public and
prey ON the miners, can be reach
ed by the law, and eventually
will be. Although trusts magnates
skins are thick, yet they are amena-
BILE to public contempt, which is a
wonderfully sharp weapon. Back OF
the coal trust and the steel trust isl.
P. Morgan, hurI your shafts at him.
The Standard Oil Corporation is
really the Rockefellers and the ROg-
ers; the Sugar Trust is Havemeyer:
the N. Y. Central railroad, the Van
derbilts; the Pennsylvania and Bal
timore and Ohio railroads are entire
~ controlled by Cassatt; the Great
Northern, the Northern Pacific and
the Burlington, by Hill; the South
ern Railway, by Morgan; the South
western railroads, by Hartman, and
so it is with the other systems. The
industrial trusts are likewise mostly
controlled by one man.
President Roosevelt speaks of good
and bad trusts, but the trusts and
corporations are only what their
managers make them, and the hon.
est or dishonest directors, or man.
ayers, should be praised or blamed.
How powerful public opinion is on
those corporation officials who have
siuned is shown by the self Danish
ment of Rockefeller to avoid appear
ing ms a witness and the fitting oil
the insurance grafters. The corpora
zion cannot be punished. If you fine
it, the money comes out OF the pock.
cts of the shareholders, SO that an.
tiziIg corporations is SO much
vanity. That is where the efforts o.
. President Roosevelt against the
trusts have failed of accomplishment
The case against the Northern Secur
tiles Company, which resulted in itl
,, virtual dissolution, has had no effect
but if the law had been brought tt
bear on President Hill he would hav'
, probably been glad to see competi
, ton resumed between the Grea
: Northern and Northern Pacific rail
: roads.
!, The Administration has uttterl,
failed in all its antitrust contests
Every trust, combine, Incorporation
; is still monopoly, as far as it cal
be, and continues TO pluuder the PEG
E pie as much as the business sagacit
!. of the managers considers desirable
{ Will the people, who are the victim
!! of trust and corporation rapacity
endorse the feeble efforts of the Ad
ministration at trust-busting? !
true reformer, with all the great pow
!, er of the government at his cOu
4 mand, should have been able to pu
n the bodies OF some trust nagnates q
hazard in the courts. But not
i trust magma te has been convicted.
J. Public opinion, with it's norma
. force alone, has done more to cur
the trust magnates, and if the col
tempt OF the people is conferred O
the persons and not on the impe
sonal corporation, it will have sti
l. greater effect.
Underneath all this, however,
the cause that has fostered the trust
and that can only be removed +
; the adoption of the good Old DEM
. cratic doctrine of equal rights
y all and special privileges to none"
II Ed;tor;of f,orroopondouro