Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1906-07-12
DUE TO MONOPOLY
GRAFT SCANDALS RESULT OF
REPUBLICAN POLICY.
Enormous Combinations of Capital
Made Possible by the Tariff,
Which Protects Them in
Robbery.

There are persons who maintain
that it is idle to attempt to show a
connection between Republican poll
tics-or policies-and tie disgraceful
records OF current events, including
such matters as the revelations con-
corning the Chicago packing houses
and the graft" shown in relations be-
tween Pennsylvania railroad officials
and coal mine owners. Indeed, there
are those who assert that such at
tempt would not only be fruitless, but
would be nothing more dignifed than
a display of malicious political preju-
dice.
However, 1t is certain that such con-
nection exists, and can be shown. 1t
may be denied, but it is nevertheless
a fact, that the conditions productive
of the results mentioned could not ex-
list if it were not for the enormous
combinations of capital, creating ex-
elusive monopolies of various forms of
trade, specially fostered by a Repub-
lican tariff and carefully shielded by
Republican agents at Washington. One
marked effect of such combinations of
capital is to develop the radical evils
of monopoly. AS the Journal of Com
merce says.
"The power acquired over the mar
.ket for raw material may be oppres-
sively used upon the producers of tina
material. 1t may also be used as an
instrument of coercion over transport
tation companies to extort discrimin-
ating rates and preferential treatment,
so that competition may be crushed
out and smaller independent butcher
ing and packing concerns may be
ruined. The same influence may be op-
pressively and %ruinously exerted in the
other direction in distributing and
marketing the products. This monopo-
listic control in an industry may be
used for a great deal of injustice and
wrong, and may result not in lower
prices but in arrogating all the ad-
vantage of increased efficiency and
economy, where these are actually
realized, to the organized capitalists
who have built up this power and who
WELD it for their own profit regardless
of consequences to anybody else or to
the community. 1t is almost inevitable
that they should come to use it self
ishly, greedily and, if necessary to
their purposes, %corruptly and tyranni-
cally, This is a tendency and these
are consequences that have made mo-
nopolies contrary to public policy and
caused them to be feared and detest-
ed"
These monopolistic tendencies are
the same, in purport and result,
whether displayed by the beef trust.
the coal trust, the steel trust, or any
like combine. The result is always the
Same-increased wealth for the mo-
nopoly and increased cost to the con-
sumner.
When competition is healthy and
legitimate, when business is distribut-
ed among concerns of manageable pro-
portions, there will always be found a
motive or the part of each to excel in
the quality of products, and to seek
patronage by real superiority rather
than by the employment of glazing ad-
vertisements which are usually false
and misleading, from the unwarranted
label Upon a can to the immense sign
erected upon the mountain side.
But when there is no competition
when it has been eliminated by ia
vorable"-and that generally meant
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS., so that the bus
mess is conducted on a scale so enor
nous that details are concealed, meth
DDS may NOT be observed nor real
quality judged, then, the motive to ex-
eel by reason of real worth and SUI
periority 40 longer exists. The public
pays the penalty and whatever pric
the monopoly is pleased to charge.