Evils that need Attention.
The public mind has been greatly stirred upon the subject of monopolies and legislative abuses; but there are some glaring evils, which a short statute might suppress, that are flourishing unchecked.
Speculative dealers in the necessaries of life have learned how to build colossal fortunes by extortion from the entire nation, and the nation submits quietly because gambling competition is the fashion. The late Charles Partridge endeavored to show up these evils and have them suppressed. We need another Partridge to complete the work he undertook.
A despatch to the Boston Herald, March 5, shows how the game has been played in Chicago on the pork market:
“‘Phil Armour must have been getting ready for this break for three months,’ said a member of the board of trade to-day. ‘Since September last he has visited nearly every large city in the country. He knows from observation where all the pork is located, and, having cornered it, his southern trip was a scheme to throw his enemies off the scent, and enable his brokers to quietly strengthen the corner. His profits and Plankinton’s cannot be less than $3,000,000.’
“But if Armour and his old Milwaukee side partner have made money, so have hundreds of others here. A messenger boy in the board of trade drew $100 from a savings bank on Monday last at 11 o’clock and margined 100 barrels of pork. To-day the lad deposited $1,000, and has $300 for speculation next week.
“Those poor snorts who are expecting to have pork to-day to make their settlement, paid $21. Anything less was scouted. ‘You will have to pay $25 next Saturday night,’ was all the comfort afforded.
“An advance of 2 cents a bushel in wheat was also scored by the bulls to-day. The explanation is that the several big wheat syndicates encouraged by the action of pork have made an alliance. The talk at the hotels to-night is that Armour has started in to buy wheat.”
We have laws that forbid boycotting, and they are enforced in New York and New Haven by two recent decisions. Financial extortion is an equal crime, and needs a law for its suppression. Why is the metropolitan press silent? Have the syndicates too much influence? Will editors who read these lines speak out?
In the last North American Review, James F. Hudson, in an essay on “Modern Feudalism,” says:—
“The conquest of all departments of industry by the power of combination has just begun. But the mere beginning has imposed unwarrantable taxes on the fuel, light, and food of the masses. It has built up vast fortunes for the combining classes, drawn from the slender means of millions. It has added an immense stimulant to the process, already too active, of making the rich richer and the poor poorer. The tendency in this direction is shown by the arguments with which the press has teemed for the past two months, that the process of combination is a necessary feature of industrial growth, and that the competition which fixes the profits of every ordinary trader, investor or mechanic, must be abolished for the benefit of great corporations, while kept in full force against the masses of producers and consumers, between whom the barriers of these combinations are interposed.”