The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1907-12-28
The Career OF
The Sugar King

Havemeyer waged and that was why
hysteriCal people almost screamed
whenever his name was mentioned.
At that time Rockefeller was a lamb
beside Havemeyer, in the estimate of
the people. The oil king may have
been mildly denounced for increasing
the cost of illumination, but it was the
sugar king who was supposed to take
the sweetening from the baby's water
and milk and from our morning cup
of coffee.
Yet lately the people appear to have
forgotten this bitterness against Have
meyer and his so-caled trust, while
their hysteria towards rockefeller
seems to grow with the passing years.
why is this? II republics are I'M
grateful to their heroes, it also must
be said that they are willing to bury
their grouches in oblivion.
In a sense Havemeyer was the faith
er OF trusts. His working arrange
ment. made with most of the other
-lSdJ sugar lSllHtllSS III 1906 was VI
ganized along the lines of an actual
trust The holdings of the Mat
thiessens. the Wiercheses, the Mollers,
the Dicks, the Meyers and the Har-
risons were placed in the hands of the
eleven trustees, who issued $75,000,-
600 worth of certificates in exchange
for the stock of the old company.
There had been trusts" of differ
ent kinds before. and monopOlies in
small way. Nearly fifty years ago the
manufacturers of screws and bolts had
combined effectively, and a few years
later the Standard Oil Company and
the Michigan Salt Association were
formed, and a little later the NatiOnai
Wall Paper Company took a whirl at
the game But it was the trust of
the sugar men and their trustees"
that created the popular definition of
the word trust as a gigantic monopoly
Since that time every combination
| that uses great capital in its operations
/ is known in the minds of the people
as trust, although technically it may
be something else
! Deacon Searles and John e. Par,
sons at the time got good deal of
| the discredit for the original sugar
combinations, but later it was found
that the Havemeyers were the real
bone and sinew of the organization.
In 1891. four years after its incep-
ton the sugar truspas a trust came
to an end. 1t had been investigated
End sued in the courts and it's opera
lions were declared Illegal. Then the
! American Sugar Refining Company
was formed. with Havemeyer at the
head. 1t was patterned after the sue
cessful Standard Oil machine, and in
stead of being a combine it was a
merger of actual ownerships. 1t was
not a collection of individual COM
nanies working in harmony, but one
company in control of the trade, and
the man at the head of it, Havemeyer
was cheerfully anxious to go as far
as need be as long as there was any
money in the treasury" And il the
sugar treasury ever became empty, nc
public acknowledgment was made OF
that fact There was always money
for necessary warfare.
While Havemeyer was willing al
ways to talk, he was bitterly opposed
to enforced publicity in regard to cor
porate affairs. He was anxious to tel
the investigators the things he wanted
them to know, but in regard to things
, they wanted to know he was as tight
as clam.
Some of Havemeyer's breezy Remarks
to the industrial commission, before
which he appeared in Washington II
June 1899, were so characteristic q
the man, and so epigramatically de
scribed his position, that they neyel
will be forgotten.
81 don't care two cents for ethics,
he declared. We reduce prices t
prevent competition that's all.
IF the plant of those industries
consolidated was capable of being pu
4 on wheels and being rolled from stat
to state. you would find the most ac
tive bidding for them he said.
He did not think that the sinai
. stakeholder had any right to inquir
in regard to the inner working of HI
company, and as to the general pub
/ lie. it was none of its business.
There is a prevailing hostility t
wealth." he said This is perfect
illogical Everyone wants money
This hostility finds its outlet in hostil
legislation, in unequal and unjust taS
alton. All this is probably unconst
tutiOnal 1t is directly against the il
terest of the class-I mean the poore
class-whom it is supposed to benefit
As to CLASSES" there we're only tw,
so far as Havemeyer could see-"th
industrious and those who wish to liN
on the industry of others. 1t is the
A..