The Republican journal., 1911-12-28
THE MUCK-RAKERs AND THE TRUSTS

The popular clamor against the trusts
has apparently spent its force, and with
the second thought people are beginning
to ask what has been gained by it. 1t is
generally admitted that the prosecution
of the trusts has unsettled values and
disturbed business generally, and now
the people are asking what has been
gained by it. What benefit can result
from dividing the Standard Oil company
into thirty or forty separate companies
separate legally, but in fact under the
same control as before? There has al
ready been an increase in the price of
oil and further increase may be confident
ly looked for.
The undertaking magazines and news
papers are responsible for creating much
of the sentiment against the trusts, by
articles since proved to have been based
on falsehood and perjury Their circula-
ton went up by leaps and bounds, and
two of the most conspicuous yellow maya
zines are said to have got 81, 900, 900 from
the people from the sale of their stock
With returning reason, and the discovery
of their dishonesty, these magazines lost
their circulation as rapidly as they had
gained it, and one of them has gone into
bankruptcy.
Last summer The American Zee Com
pany, stigmatized as the "ice Trust, F."
was charged with having deliberately
failed to bring a sufficient supply of ice
into New York city, and then demanded
exorbitant prices for what it had. 1t
was accused of numbering sick babies in
the tenements, with demanding four
times the regular price from small ped
lers and running their trade, of making
enormous profits out of the sufferings of
the poor. This of a company that has
not paid dividend in years, as Maine in
vestors know to their cost. These and
like charges were given 'scare heads'
and a conspicuous place on the first page;
bat recently little paragraph appeared
in one of the leading yellow journals of
New York city to the effect that the
sensational charges made during the hot
spell last summer against the American
Ice company were unfounded.
President Taft has also been the victim
of the muckrakers. 1t was broadly in
timated that he had given Dick Ryan, an
Alaskan promoter a monopoly of the
r-o,or rrnr+ Of tho Wildwood torro;rol f,o;l
tiles at Controller bay, which was dis
scribed as the sole entrance to the Boring
River territory, "Alaska's richest coal
fields. It IS not necessary to go into
detail, but an official investigation has
shown this accusation, based upon a
fabricated letter, to be utterly ground
less. Yet this charge, which Leslie's
Weekly characterzes as the most wick |
ed and baseless accusation the muck
rakers have conjured up against Presi- |
dent Taft, will make its impression on
many who will never see or hear of it's
refutal
These are merely Examples of what
the muck-rakers have been doing to dis
credit public officials, poison the public
mind and disturb business. We submit
that they are a worse evil, and greater
detriment to the country, than the trusts,
even if the latter are viewed from the
of the yellow journals. Of
the trust-buster, the self-seeking demo-
p0rue and the railway smasher. I,es6e's
Weekly says: Drive these three assas-
sins Of prosperity out of the field and the
dark clouds on the business horizon will
disappear"