CHAPTER X. 



MONOPOLY OF TRADE TRUSTS. 



UNDER the head of " Monopoly of Trade, " there is 

 no branch of the subject of more importance, or more 

 deleterious to the interests of labor than the combinations 

 of capital known as trusts. Although of but recent origin, 

 there is hardly an article among the necessities of life and 

 comfort that is not more or less subject to manipulation by 

 these insatiate and merciless organizations, whose arms 

 reach out and absorb the earnings of the producer on every 

 hand. We have previously remarked that many of these 

 gigantic and merciless corporations have grown up under 

 the shadow and fostering care of an unjust and unequal 

 system of tariff laws. 



The object of these combinations and the extent to 

 which they have manipulated trade is ably set forth in the 

 annual report of Commissioner Peck, of the Bureau of 

 Labor Statistics. He says: 



*'A most important feature of business relations at 

 present is the combination of the capitalists, not in legiti- 

 mate trade, but for the sake as it should almost seem, of 

 repressing competition between each other and for the sake 

 of mutual support. Against what? There are but two 

 agents against which capital can coalesce the consumer 

 and the wage-earner. The capitalists' * ' combine ' ' appears 

 under several names, but the most generally known to-day 

 is the " Trust. " We have alliances offensive and defensive 



