People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1897 — RULE OF MONOPOLY. [ARTICLE]

RULE OF MONOPOLY.

NO DESPOTISM WORSE THAN THAT OF PLUTOCRACY. It Must Be Broken and Power Restored to the People—Henry L Gant Issues Some Good Advice to Our Yeomanry— Municipal Ownership. It is idle to talk of taxing the people prosperous. It is the quintessence of folly to talk of making the foreigner pay the revenue through a tariff with which to pay the running expenses of the government. No one, but political demagogues and arrant fools will waste any time discussing these questions. Then what is the trouble, and what the remedy? The trouble is that the people do not rule. The syndicates and trusts run the government to suit their interests. Ninety-five per cent of the people are robbed of the greater portion of what they produce by rent, usury and what great thieves are pleased to call profits. The coal fields and the oil wells of the country are monopolized by syndicates %pd trusts and private enterprise is shut out. This enables the trusts to make great profits on these products, or rather, to remorselessly plunder the people. The land is fast passing into the control of monopolies. Already great tracts are owned by syndicates and many thousands of people are robbed by rent. There are many other trusts and monopolies which are daily robbing the people. The result is that the wealth of the country is accumulating into the hands of a few and the highways are filled with tramps, the jails are gorged with criminals, the insane asylums packed with the insane, the aim-houses are overflowing with helpless paupers and the life of the great western republic is in great peril. The lines of transportation and communication have always aided and fostered the other great trusts and corporations. Rockefeller could never have monopolized the coal oil but for the railroads. He not only got cheap rates for his oil, but the railroads charged all other oil dealers excessive rates and a part of that excess went to Rockefeller; thus he could make money if he did not sell a gallon of his oil. The failure of the United Press has given an object lesson on private ownership of the lines of communication. It cost the New York Journal $225,000 to get a franchise from the Associated Press, which now has a monopoly on news. Papers in little county towns are mulcted SIO,OOO to $20,000. This does not pay for the news, but simply for the privilege of getting it. This would be impossible under proper conditions. Every city and town should own its water system, street railways and lighting plant. Millions of dollars are annually fleeced from the people by monopolies. They must be suppressed. —H. L. Gant.