364 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



er of this, takes Gleanings, I want him or 

 her to turn to page 816 of the Nov- 

 ember first { 1898) number and read the 

 fourth notice in the first column, regard- 

 ing the price of glass advancing. Three 

 years ago I purchased my glass at 1 1.25 a 

 box. Tvi'o years ago, I paid $1.79 a box; 

 and last year when I wrote for prices, I2.35 

 was the best I could do. I wrote for an 

 explanation. "All glass factories have 

 gone into the trust," was the reply I got. 

 It costs no more to produce glass to-day 

 than it ever did, if as much, and the 

 exira price {unearned charges) is taken 

 from the bee-keeper through that "barb- 

 ed wire fence," or robbery. Wonder if 

 the "Bee Boiler" and Hasty can see it now. 

 When a bee-keeper builds a hive, the 

 nails to hold it together are from the 

 Nail Trust, capitalized at 1 100,000,000; 

 and, should he paint it, the oil to mix the 

 paint is from the Linseed OilTru t, cap- 

 itahzed at $18,000,000; and if he uses any 

 glass about it or his honey, it is from the 

 American Window Glass Trust, capital- 

 ized at f 20,000,000. To light his smok- 

 er, a match is struck from the Diamond 

 Match Trust, capitalized at $11,000,000; 

 and the oil he uses for the light necessary 

 to go into his bee cellar is from the Stand- 

 ard Oil Trust, capitalized at $97,500,000. 

 Should he get sick and want medicine he 

 must patronize the Wholesale Druggists' 

 Trust, capitalized at $25,000,000; and 

 should he die, the chances are that he 

 would be put away in a cofiin from 

 the National Casket Trust, capitalized 

 at $10,000,000, and the lid screwed 

 down with screws from the American 

 Screw Trust, capitalized at $3,300,000. 

 Let the bee-keeper turn which way he 

 will, the monopolies and trusts gouge 

 and rob him all along the road 

 from the cradle to the grave; and 

 yet with all this before him, Bro. Snyder 

 had the audacity to tell us that the "fac- 

 ing" of honey had more to do with the 

 robbing of bee-keepers than all other 

 evils Qombined. 



In 1874 I drew away my honey at 2H}4 

 cents a pound, taking the whole crop, 



buckwheat honey and all, at the same 

 price; and on my return home I purchas- 

 ed coal at $3.50 a ton. The Coal Trust 

 has now forced the price of coal up to 

 $5.00, and honey has gone down to less 

 than lu cents, taking the whole crop to- 

 gether, and yet it costs less to produce a 

 ton of coal than it ever did; the miners 

 being in a starving condition from the 

 low wages the Trust allows them. And 

 the bee-keepers are wondering how it 

 comes about that prices of honey are so 

 low, and that the miners and others do 

 not use honey regularly on their tables. 

 A year ago last June sugar was put up 

 one cent a pound through this unjust 

 system; and every bee-keeper and his 

 family has been compelled to pay that 

 much to the Sugar Trust on every pound 

 of sugar they have used ever since. And 

 it now conies out (through our colonial 

 expansion ideas) that ihe/ull cost of the 

 best refined granulated sugar is only 2^2 

 cents a pound, the rest going to the Trust, 

 because it could build a fence around 

 the thing. And how came this wick- 

 ed unjust system to prevail in our land? 

 Because bee-keepers have abetted and 

 sanctioned the same. And after doing 

 this, they have dared to lift up in holy 

 horror, their black, foul hands, hands 

 covered with the blasted hopes of bee- 

 keepers, the groans of the oppressed, the 

 cries of the orphans, and the tears of the 

 widow, because Doolittle had something 

 to say about the facing of honey noi be- 

 ing a dishonest act, when said honey was 

 shipped o?i cof/nnisswn, and the opposi- 

 tion has ttken up column after column in 

 our bae-pajjers, spent the larger part of 

 one session of the Bee-Keepers' Union 

 convention, and "shouted at the top of 

 their voice" about the wickedness of "fac- 

 ing," but not one single word about this 

 unjust system which is doing more to- 

 ward injuring those engaged in apicul- 

 ture, than all the columns written on 

 practical bee-keeping can do good. I 

 charge that the opposition has established 

 a system of private ownership of natural 

 resources, which ownership licenses a few 



