188 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



II. What are the advantages of the trust ? 



1. The sugar trust refines as much as eighty per cent of 

 the sugar used in the United States ; the Standard Oil Com- 

 pany supplies the most of the oil in use ; and so with all the 

 other trusts, — the aim is to produce the greater part of their 

 particular commodity, and so control the market. 



2. The trust commands the services of the best entrepre- 

 neurs, or captains of industry. By closing many establish- 

 ments, the trust can select the best talent for all parts of its 

 business. It has ample funds at its command to reward the 

 best men in proportion to the responsibility assumed. When 

 the great corporation is fully established, it becomes itself a 

 first-rate training school for the education of the highest ex- 

 ecutive ability. When the president of the great Pennsyl- 

 vania Railroad suddenly dies, there is another all ready to 

 step into the vacancy, and the affairs move on smoothly 

 without a break. "The King is dead," — "Long live the 

 King." These are sayings applicable to the industrial world 

 as well as to the political realm. 



3. The trust commands the services of the very best 

 workmen. Out of the hundreds of men thrown out of em- 

 ployment by the closing of rival or inferior establishments 

 the trusts may select the best laborers for its purposes. 



4. The trust can fix wages as it deems best. The great 

 advantage of the trust is, that by its superior organization it 

 saves labor, producing its product with fewer men. This 

 causes the supply of labor to be greater than the demand. 

 Under such circumstances strikes on the part of laboring 

 men have little probability of success. Thus the trust se- 

 cures the best labor, in such quantity as it needs, at the 

 lowest cost. It is never obliged to pay a skilled laborer 

 high wages to do common work, for division of labor is so 

 complete, that all simple and easy tasks may be done by 

 cheap labor. 



5. The trust commands an unlimited amount of money. 

 Last year the Pullman Car Company paid its regular divi- 

 dends of two per cent quarterly, August 15 an extra divi- 

 dend of twenty per cent in cash, and in October another 

 dividend of fifty per cent in stock. Rumors having trans- 

 pired that the Pullman and Wagner companies were to com- 



