Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1906 — THE PEOPLE AROUSED. [ARTICLE]

THE PEOPLE AROUSED.

People of Ohio Trylnv to Curb Her Plunderer*. Grand Juries are waking up all over the country and indicting trusts who have violated the state antitrust laws. At Napoleon, 0., the grand Jury has returned eighteen indictments against Ohio bridge corporations for conspiracy to prevent competition. “The companies are charged with forming a combination to keep up prices, and it is asserted that they have had the counties completely at their mercy on work done. The state, it la claimed, has been divided into districts by the bridge combine and certain companies assigned to certain districts, thereby killing all competition on bridge work." This shows that the honest citizens of Ohio are determined to root out monopoly that Republican ring rule ba* so firmly fastened upon them, but they will never succeed except partially until they elect senators and congressmen who will vote to reform the tariff that gives these bridge and other combines the opportunity to charge such unreasonable profits. The tariff is the mother of trusts and combines, and as long as the people of Ohio continue to elect their Dicks, Forakers and Grosvenors, who are notorious in Washington as corporation advocates and stand patters, they will continue to be plundered by the trusts and corporations. The result of the late election in Ohio and elsewhere and the action of the grand Jury above noted are hopeful signs of reform that will turn the rascals out, and then there will be a square deal between the corporations and the people of Ohio and the other states.