Evening star., 1929-06-27

The story Is told that a taxi man
became worried few days ago, when
he carried two strangers to the entrance
of the United States Treasury and was
requested to wait while they went into
the building. After waiting an hour
for his passengers, he nervously tele-
phoned back to the hotel where he had
paid their hotel bill He feared that
they were going to do him out of his
fare, but he was comforted when he
learned that one of them was the
banker, j. P Morgan, and the other
was Owen Young; they had just re-
turned from settling the debt of Ger
many and planning for that country
to pay about half billion dollars
annually to the allies. And then, maybe,
the allies will pay what they owe us.
But how much would that taxi man
have felt relieved If he had been told
that his passenger, Mr.. Morgan, was
even then plotting to invest half a bill
lion dollars in the food distribution OF
the United States, and thereafter to
dictate what the chauffeurs meals
would cost, over and above his total
days fares2 And how we, the public,
shiver and shudder at the prospective
famine that must result when grim
monopoly padlocks our food, and de-
mands its own unlimited price?
This new food trust will take over
the yeast which starts the dough, the
vinegar which seasons the salad, the
soup and baking powder. and, not the
cattle which make the meat, but the
malt feed which makes the cattle, all
the postum grape nuts and the cheese,
and even the gold dust which the
k..,i,&. ,,ea - mach fI1a diehec Half q
billion dollars, and we must eat out OF
the hand of this monstrous monopoly
Why. we would have paid the taxi's
fare ourselves and let his fares" walk
back to their hotel, rather than let
this monopoly succeed in choking us all.
X X X
AS James Whitcomb Riley said in his
poem about the man in battle being
rescued, after he had been wounded,
and while he was being carried OF the
field on the back of a comrade, can
non ball came along and carried of his
head without the knowledge OF his
burdened rcscuer, who complained later,
that's not the worst of It," SO even
with the monopoliZing of whole meal.
from soup to cheese, that's not the
worst of it." Wall Street declares that
the Morgan food trust. which is the
greatest investor in railroads in Amer
lea, is buying up grain elevators, so that,
with it's yeast vinegar and baking
powder monopoly, there will follow a
mighty bread trust. "That's not the
worst of it!" With other hundreds OF
millions, it will monopolize all water
power between Maine and the Potomac
Basin, and since it already controls the
steel trust, that must include even the
basin too. And they are getting grips
on oil; it will be impossible to bake
bread, or even cake. without their con-
sent and rake-of7. whether we use elec-
tricity or oil. And the worried taxi
driver thought only Of his measly little
fare in jeopardy! without vision, the
Nation perisheth!"
That is one way of looking at the
situation; there are other phases not
Included in the above pictures. One
of these is that the whole trend OF
modern methods in business is toward
consolidation, mass production ana
probably mass distribution under CEN
tralized control.
Is there no economic Justification in
that centralizing and mass control?
What is 1t that farmers have been COM
planning about, 10, these many years,
and crying for relief from? II Is that
the myriad of middlemen In distri-
button of farm products constituted q
waste most costly to both producer
and consumer. So, within the last few
DAYS. Congress has authorized, and the
President has ratified, the use OF half
billion dollars for farm relief. Again
that magic sum, half billion, half
billion, half q billion onward"-the
farmers "volleyed and thundered!" !"
What is sauce of the farmers Is spice
for hungry bankers, is it not? THE
public be-" All it has to do Is pay
taxes and pay everything,
X n \ X
In all seriousness, there is today a
genuine readjustment of methods de-
veloping in both manufacturing and
distribution. It would be folly to con-
slider going back to individual mechan-
les, as known and practiced by our
fathers, in place Of the mass produce