Monopolies and the People

by Charles Whiting Baker

To sum up, we find that as a whole the 4,000,000 persons engaged in rendering professional and personal services are in general not increasing the cost to the public of their services by combining together to limit competition; and that so far as we can determine, it is not probable that many of them can do so in the future, even if they are so disposed.

There remains yet one important class of the community to be considered: those engaged in agriculture. Can the farmers of the country fall into line behind the manufacturers and miners and railroad owners, and force up the price of their products by killing competition, to correspond with the increased prices which are demanded in many other lines of industry? They have one thing in their favor in that the principal products of the soil are necessaries of life, which the community cannot do without whether the price be great or small, although an increase in price is sure to result in a decreased consumption.

We may best determine this question by inquiring exactly how the prices are forced up by monopolies. There can be but one way. The laws of supply and demand hold good, and it is out of the power of the producer to greatly affect the demand. It is only the supply of which he has control. From the manufacturers' trust to the laborers' union, the only way in which prices can be controlled is through a reduction in the supply of goods made or men allowed to work; and if the price were to be arbitrarily raised, the result would be the same; there would be a surplus of goods, or some unemployed workmen. In order to raise the price of his products, then, the farmer must do one of two things, which will bring in the end the same result. He must send less of his products to market—lessen the supply—or refuse to sell any thing at less than the increased price which he desires. In either case, if he plants the same acreage and gets the same yield as before, he will have a part of his crop left on his hands.

The query then comes, can it be possible for the farmers all over the country to form so perfect and well-disciplined an organization that every member shall diminish his remittances to market of grain, wool, meat, hay, or what not, enough to raise prices; or that he shall refrain from selling all these articles below a certain defined price? It must be plain to every intelligent person that it would be a practical impossibility to effect such a thing. It would be possible to bring only a small percentage of the farmers in an area 3,000 miles in length and 1,500 in width into a single organization; and it would be essential to the success of this, as of every other scheme, that no outside competition should be permitted to exist.

It may be argued that the Knights of Labor succeeded to a degree in gathering into one organization a large proportion of the workingmen in all the various trades in the country; but their members were mostly in cities, many worked together in great factories, and as regards ease of combination, they were far more easily handled than the widely scattered farmers of the country could hope to be. Besides, the Knights of Labor organization appears to be too unwieldy and cumbrous to be long successful, and internal dissension seems to have already brought it near its end. It is plain that the farmers are powerless to effect a reduction of the competition among themselves. Nor is this condition at all likely to change. Farming is unlike other modern productive industries in that the cost of production does not decrease as it is conducted on a larger scale. The most profitable farms are, and perhaps will always be, the small ones, where the details of the tillage come directly under the eye of the owner.

Such are the facts with respect to the prospect of making a monopoly of agriculture, and it would seem that they are so simple and so easily understood that no attempt would ever be made to restrict competition among farmers. It is to be recorded, however, that such attempts are being seriously made. Prominent farmers of the West in the spring of 1888 took the preliminary steps towards the formation of a farmers' trust. Conventions were held and resolutions adopted reciting that the operation of trusts in manufacturing industries and of monopolies in trade and transportation laid serious burdens on the farmers of the country; and that in order not to be left behind in the struggle for existence the farmers must combine for their own protection. Committees were appointed to work out the details of a plan of organization; but the movement seems to have lost vitality when its projectors came to study it in detail. The preceding argument fully explains the reason.

It should be said, however, that coöperative associations among the farmers are growing at a rapid pace. The Grange and the Farmers' Alliance are primarily coöperative associations for the purpose of benefiting their members in the purchase of goods and in various other directions, and they are fast increasing in numbers and influence. The attempts made to benefit their members in the sale of their produce have been generally confined to protection against the "middle men." The only movement of which the author is aware for restricting production to increase price, has been in certain sections of the South, where recently a general attempt has been made to restrict the acreage planted in tobacco in the hope of raising the price.

It is a matter worthy of note here that the combined influence of the farmers of the country has recently been successful in securing legislation to defeat an important outside competitor. A few years ago some chemists found out that from a cheap substance known as beef suet, an imitation butter could be made, which was in composition and appearance the same as butter made by the ordinary process, and was exactly as nourishing a food. There has been much talk of the halcyon days to come when the progress of science will be so great that food will be made in the laboratory. Well, here was an important practical step in that direction. A cheap product worth three or four cents a pound could be easily converted by a chemical treatment into a valuable food worth three times as much, and the great profit in the business brought this substitute for butter rapidly into use. But at once an indignant protest went up from the farmers of the land. They were being ruined by the competition of the "grease butter" as they disrespectfully called it. There was something suggested about the idea that if just as good butter could be made out of the fat of the cow as out of her milk, and at half the expense, that it would be a benefit to everybody in the country who had butter to buy. But the weak protest for the protection of the general interests of the whole people was not heeded, and Congress passed a bill laying a tax on the new butter sufficient to stop the sale. Here was an evident case of killing competition for the sake of the farming interests, and the force of their unorganized sentiment alone was sufficient to secure the desired legislation. But when the farmers attempt to form a trust, they will have to kill competition among themselves instead of outside competition; and that is a different and far harder matter.

To agricultural laborers the same rule applies which we have found to govern other unskilled labor, viz.: that combination cannot effect much in raising wages. Added to this is the fact that they are widely scattered, and that a great proportion do not follow this as a steady occupation. In England, indeed, there is an agricultural laborers' union, and we may possibly come to that here. But our circumstances are widely different. The fact that in many sections the agricultural laborer is not a "hand," or an "employé," or "servant," but a "hired man," is an important one, for the difference in terms denote a vast difference in conditions. It is hardly likely that an organization of any sort is to be expected among those in this occupation.

This last division of occupations contains the most members of any of the four divisions. The farmers of the country number 4,225,945 and the farm laborers number 3,323,876. Other minor occupations of the division, as gardener, florist, etc., bring up the total engaged in agriculture to 7,670,493.