Chapter 14

The saddest period in a child's life is undoubtedly the period of teething. If you saw a baby for the first time and didn't understand that period, you would denounce the cruelty which inflamed its gums, upset its digestion, kept it awake, condemned it to incessant torture. But we all know that a full set of teeth under the control of the child is to reward the suffering of teething, and this reconciles us to the teething age.

We tell you--and we don't want you to forget this--that all the trust impositions and suffering and thievery now agitating us constitute a teething process through which we must pass. The result will be a full set of industrial teeth owned and controlled by the nation, which now suffers the torments of the teething baby. ----

You will realize that individuals must at first do that which nations do later.

The despotic, irresponsible rule of the savage chief, of the able individual fighter, was a forerunner of the present system of government.

We have now taken the governing power from the individual, bestowing it on the whole people, but at first we had to have our Attilas, our Napoleons and Alexanders. ----

As individual control of the government has been superseded by collective control, so individual control of industries will be followed by collective control. That is the natural order.

Why does not the government take full charge at once?

Why does not the hen lay a hen all covered with feathers, instead of laying an egg? Everything must have its crude beginning and its perfect ending, for on this basis we are organized.

The French government to-day makes millions from the national control of the match industry. But a solitary individual working in Batavia, New York State, had to create the match and make his little money out of it before the French government could take it and make its millions.

That same French government derives millions from its tobacco business, incidentally giving the people good tobacco cheap instead of poisonous tobacco dear. The red Indian dodging bears and using his squaws as slaves had to start that great tobacco industry before the French government could get it.

Don't waste your time and energy joining the thoughtless crowd that howls against trusts. Use your vote and your voice to put those trusts under government control as soon as may be. Be glad that an old Vanderbilt had brains enough to build great railroad systems. Don't denounce him or begrudge him the fortune he made.

His work was worth the money.

Let us say to his little descendants the pee wee Vanderbilts of to-day:

"You have had enough now. Although you have done nothing, we shall pay you generously for what your great-grandfather did, and with your kind permission, or without it, we shall transfer these roads to the people whose patronage gives them value." ----

In due time this pleasant message of just appropriation will be delivered to all the various trust owners. They will all be well paid for their work. They deserve to be, for they have done as individuals the work which the collective commonwealth could not do.

But they will be made to see that they cannot forever keep what they have created. If a man invents a steam engine worth to the world at large ten thousand billions, he is allowed to keep his property only seventeen years, under our patent laws. Shall we allow a clever highway robber of a commercial organizer to keep the proceeds of his energy for himself and his descendants forever? ----

We had almost forgotten the mammoth mentioned at the top of this article. That mammoth, dead and forgotten, is the forerunner of to-day's trust. The mammoth was hated by all created things around him. An accidental blow from his left hind foot would break up any family in existence.

But his vast weight and power ploughed the first paths through the swamps and forests. The paths made by the mammoth through unexplored tracts were a great boon to half-savage man. In fact, man followed along those paths after awhile and learned how to kill the mammoth very neatly.

The trusts are marking out organized paths through the hitherto chaotic, disorganized systems of industry. Those paths will be useful to all men through all time. The trust will be killed when his day comes, as the mammoth has been killed.

Let us be patient meanwhile, and not forget that, though a monster, he was a monster absolutely necessary and very useful.

TRUSTS AND THE SENATE

If you are willing to assume your responsibilities as an American citizen you should study seriously the question of the trusts.

Already trust organization has assumed very real and very threatening proportions.

Every family in the United States knows of the existence of the Meat Trust, which cuts down the food supply of the people to add to its bank account.

Every merchant feels keenly the existence of half a dozen trusts on which he is absolutely dependent, and from which there is no escape.

We all have seen the Coal Trust keeping ready armed men to shoot working citizens whenever it should give the order. This Coal Trust, in a calm, matter-of-fact way, boasted that it would, if necessary, "call out the United States Government troops" to shoot the miners. Here is one trust already talking as though it controlled the army and all the other forces of Government. The trusts believe themselves already in control, and their national power is very great.

The crisis of trust development has not been reached. The present power of concentrated, organized money is very great, but it is nothing to the power which money will exert in the future.

This future development of the trust force should be discussed and studied calmly, rationally and dispassionately by all Americans.

There is no use in denouncing or in hating the trusts. It is true that they are entirely selfish; it is NOT true that they represent evil, pure and simple.

The trust is a necessary development in humanity's journey toward organization, concentration and the simplifying of industry.

The first locomotive ever built was a trust. It performed the work of a thousand four-horse teams, deprived four thousand horses and a thousand drivers of a livelihood.

The railroad trust is simply an extension of the concentration of labor, the simplifying of industrial operation, represented in the building of the first locomotive.

THE TRUSTS IN THE END WILL DO INFINITE GOOD.

They will destroy the mean competition which for centuries has made liars, swindlers and slavedrivers of men.

They will practically eliminate the great number of large private fortunes, and thus compel men to devote their energies to pursuits nobler than the accumulation of money.

At first a few enormous fortunes will dominate the nation--the beginning of these great fortunes you may see already.

Then will come the owning of the trusts--that is to say, of all the great national industries--by the nation itself.

The people of the land will own and operate their own necessities. These necessities, instead of making a few men enormously rich at the expense of many, will contribute to the comfort of many without injustice to the few. ----

The development of trusts must run its course, like every other great feature of human history.

Its beginning--in corrupt legislation, watered stocks, human selfishness--was inevitable.

Its ending--in national ownership, competition eliminated, and industrial life vastly improved--is also inevitable.

But thousands of struggles, thousands of economical battles, thousands of ruined men, will mark this evolution of human industry from the control of individual selfishness to the service of the nation.

The duty of the people is to study and, as far as possible, to foresee and regulate this enormous and inevitable development of the trusts.

The trusts cannot be destroyed, and they should not be destroyed.

But they can be regulated, and with proper vigilance they can be kept from commanding and controlling absolutely this nation, which sees the birth of their great development. ----

We believe that the most pressing public duty at present is the reorganization of the Senate of the United States on the basis of popular election.

It has been said truthfully: "You cannot indict an entire people," and, fortunately for us, it may truthfully be said, "You cannot PURCHASE an entire people."

The trusts of the United States base their hopes of continued and growing power upon the United States Senate.

The trusts own absolutely many United States Senators. Of those Senators whom the trusts do not own, many are deeply interested in the trusts, which is the same thing as though the trusts did own them.

Under the present system, the public elects State Legislatures, and these Legislatures choose the United States Senators.

If a trust can buy the Legislature--which, as we all know, it usually can--the trust can control the Senatorial representatives of the State.

The State of New York in the National Congress at Washington is represented by thirty-four Congressmen and two Senators. The thirty-four Congressmen are elected by the people and two Senators are chosen by the trusts. And with these two Senators the trusts can absolutely veto every bill passed by the thirty-four Representatives elected by the people.

Does anybody believe that Mr. Depew and Mr. Platt could possibly have been elected to the United States Senate by the PEOPLE of the State of New York?

Does anybody question the outrageousness of a system which forces upon the people as representatives two Senators whom they would not have chosen and whom they actually believe to be inimical to their interests?

This condition prevails practically throughout the Union.

The upper house of our National Legislature is the real ruling power in the United States.

It controls all of the President's appointments.

According to the Constitution, he is compelled to appoint "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate."

The trusts buy the Legislatures, they own the Senators, and therefore the Constitution of the United States now reads practically as follows:

"The President appoints national officers by and with the advice and consent of the trusts."

As an American voter, you have no more important duty than to work for the election of Senators by the people.

You should not tolerate the selection of Judges of the Supreme Court, United States Ambassadors, Federal Judges throughout the country, and all the great executive forces subject to the approval of the trusts that notoriously make, break and destroy laws.

A small trust can buy the Legislature of the State of New York.

But the biggest trust can scarcely buy New York's six million inhabitants. And, thanks to our secret voting system, we are protected even against ourselves and our own selfishness.

If a trust buys the ordinary voter it cannot be sure that it gets what it buys.

But if a trust buys the legislators it can count votes and secure delivery of the goods purchased.

Use your influence to curb the power of the trusts by taking away from venal legislators that power to sell to trust managers the Senate of the United States.

This subject you should discuss with your neighbors. You should urge it upon all of those voters with whom you come in contact.

You should influence legislators in your State to vote for a Constitutional amendment causing popular election of Senators--and no legislator will resent your suggestion if he be an honest man.

Everybody knows that the United States Senate to-day does not represent the people. There are exceptions among the Senators, but they are in the minority. Every year the Senate is less and less representative of the nation, more and more representative of organized capital. Good Americans, irrespective of party, will strive to work for this change in the national machinery. Take away from the trusts now the power to tamper with national laws through the Senate.

THE PROMISING TOAD'S HEAD

The head of a toad, like the head of a trust, is superficially a hideous thing to look at.

Sometimes it is alleged that valuable jewels are found in a toad's head, and on this account the hideousness even of the far-famed horned toad of the West becomes less repulsive.

The trust toad, as you will find by examining it closely and studying events, has a head equipped with jewels of a very fine quality. Many years from now men will be very glad that the trust toad was born, because of the good that will come from it. ----

Already we see that the trusts are inevitably strengthening labor unions. They are bringing the men into closer relationship and forming them into greater and more closely united bodies of workmen.

The trusts organize admirably the great industries and prepare the day when all of these industries will be owned by the Government--that is to say, by the people themselves.

The trusts eliminate competition, which is a stupid, out-of-date form of barbarism, leading to cheating, thievery and adulteration.

The trusts do away with the vast armies of middlemen, and, by diminishing every day the number of those who live on the work of others, they compel an ever-growing number to enter the fields of useful production. ----

Just at present the jewel that stands out most prominently in the ugly trust toad's head is "FREE TRADE."

Men have argued and fought and voted and made speeches and paraded for Free Trade--and all in vain. The more they talked and paraded, the heavier were the duties.

But when the TRUSTS want Free Trade, they will have it, for the trusts control legislation.

And we SHALL have Free Trade, for the trusts WILL want it very soon.

A trust engaged in manufacturing wants to buy as cheaply as it can the raw materials used.

The trusts will soon own all the industries, all the manufactures, and they will want freedom from the duties which are now paid on the material.

Already there is in process of formation a great Clothing Trust.

The small man who makes clothing now must pay a duty on wool to protect the American farmer who raises sheep.

How long do you think the Clothing Trust will tolerate this duty on wool?

How long do you think the Trust engaged in making cloths in America will tolerate a duty on wool that makes the industry so expensive?

Some of the duties will be retained, of course--at least until the trusts shall be powerful enough even to despise foreign competition.

But one thing after another the trusts will want free from duty, and these things will be freed as fast as the trusts' order is given. ----

The trusts are going to do a great deal of good to the masses of the people in time. They will end by forcing universal Government ownership of monopolies upon the people.

TRUSTS WILL DRIVE LABOR UNIONS INTO POLITICS

A workman should use the best tools at his command--the workman's best tool is his ballot. Everything that men want it can give them if used intelligently. The reasons urged against its use by labor unions are conscientious but not strong. They are based upon the fact that labor men fear to trust each other, and fear especially to trust their leaders. They will not vote as unions because they fear that they may be sold out--that is the plain, unpleasant fact.

We cannot believe that their fears are well founded. We know that leaders both able and honest can be found among American workingmen, and we say that they should be found and trusted promptly. ----

For mark this:

THE TRUSTS WILL INEVITABLY COMPEL THE LABOR UNIONS TO BECOME POLITICAL UNIONS.

TRUSTS WILL MAKE IT CLEAR TO UNIONS THAT THEIR ONLY HOPE IS IN POLITICAL ACTION WHICH SHALL GIVE THEM THE POWER TO CONTROL LEGISLATION.

When individual firms are competing the injustice of one firm may be punished and controlled by a strike.

THE TRUST WILL RENDER THE STRIKE LAUGHABLE AND USELESS.

Suppose all the shops or manufactories of a certain kind to be under the control of one trust. What good will a strike do? The concern in which the strike occurs will simply stop work. Its business will go to other concerns in the trust; the firm in which the strike occurs will calmly draw its share of the trust profits and laugh at the strikers. The latter will lose their wages and time--no one else will lose anything.

What does one paper mill care for a strike if all the other mills in the Paper Trust are running, and making the money which it nominally loses? ----

Perhaps the workingmen think they can stop ALL the manufactures of a certain kind. In the first place they probably cannot--with trusts that reach across 3,000 miles of country.

And if they could, what about the TRUST OF TRUSTS?

If the trusts are not already formed into a formal union for mutual support they soon will be. And the union of trusts already exists so far as practical sympathy goes.

Havemeyer will gladly spend millions of trust money--not his own--to help Morgan in a coal-trust fight.

Rockefeller will spare a few hundred thousand if necessary to buy a small State Legislature and prevent passage of laws threatening a weak little trust now and dangerous to him in the long run. ----

Jealousy, mistrust, and the lack of really competent leaders may delay political union among workmen for a time.

But the political union must come. Bigger work must be done by American workmen than chattering about little local wage regulations or quarreling about hours or overtime.

The question at issue is:

SHALL ORGANIZED CAPITAL CONTROL THE PEOPLE, OR SHALL THE PEOPLE CONTROL ORGANIZED CAPITAL AND LIMIT ITS POWER?

The workingmen are the people. They are the interested parties, and they have got to vote together pretty soon or fight together a little later.

THE TRUSTS ARE NATIONAL SCHOOL TEACHERS

Look at the coal strike, the opinions that it calls forth, and notice how respectability dances and hops from one foot to the other when the RESPECTABLE shoe pinches and the RESPECTABLE toe suffers.

A little while ago the man who spoke against trusts and general monopolies of public necessities was called demagogue, socialist, anarchist, inciter of the masses against the classes, and so on.

But along comes the Beef Trust and begins to punish even the respectable "upper" classes. Double prices for food mean a serious difference even in a very respectable income.

Then you have the respectabilities also suddenly developing signs of demagogism, socialism and anarchy.

They want the tariff taken off of foodstuffs. They want the managers of the Food Trust put in jail.

The Beef Trust teaches the nation one interesting lesson--namely, that by excessive extortion the trusts will lose soon their respectable friends and unite all of the people against them.

The Beef Trust also teaches that the language called socialistic and anarchistic, when confined to working people, becomes profound political economy when uttered by some respectability with a pinched toe. ----

The Coal Trust is a later and even more radical national teacher.

The respectable individual who a short time ago could see no difference between advocating Government ownership of national resources and communism or thievery has seen a wonderful light while gazing on his coal fire at Twelve Dollars a ton.

Judges on the bench, eminently respectable newspapers--by which we mean those newspapers representing the interests of men who think with their pockets--are expressing the most radical out-and-out socialistic ideas.

One of the mildest suggestions made by these respectabilities is that the Government should seize the coal mines and work them for the benefit of the people, setting aside the preposterous claims of the Coal Trust.

Papers like the Springfield Republican, the Philadelphia Ledger and other solemn organs of antiquity are advocating, without knowing it, ideas which mean inevitably universal government ownership of monopolies.

The Coal Trust as a public educator is an undoubted success, more of a success than it would like to be if it could understand the nature of its teachings.

If the Government has a right to seize coal mines and work them for the people, as respectability now declares, why has it not a right to seize railroads, telegraphs and all the other great industries whose value depends entirely upon the national population? ----

Many men in this world hated their teachers while they were being whipped in the old- fashioned way, but look back with gratitude later on to those same teachers and those same whippings.

Our national teachers, the trusts, are severe teachers. Their lessons are hard lessons, and they believe in very unpleasant forms of corporal punishment--inflicting hunger and cold upon their pupils.

This nation in time will look back with gratitude to the lessons and to the whippings of the trusts.

The trusts are teaching us inevitably that competition is antiquated; that organization is the real basis of industry. They are teaching us that it is feasible and necessary for the nation eventually to take possession of and manage its own properties, industrial as well as others.

A WOMAN TO BE PITIED

Why is it that comparatively few women find intense enjoyment in life after middle age?

Why is it that you cannot duplicate among women such careers in old age as the careers of Spencer, Gladstone, Huxley, or any of the great men whose interest lies in mental activity and mental achievement?

One reason is this: A great majority of women are inclined to accept and adopt without question the ideas formed for them.

THEY GIVE UP THINKING EARLY IN LIFE.

When a human being stops thinking, that human being's life practically ends.

All over the country you may see thousands and hundreds of thousands of calm, settled, placid-faced, middle-aged women.

They admire themselves and they are admired generally. They ought to be pitied.

They think now on all subjects just as they thought ten or twenty or thirty years ago.

They view with horror things which they know nothing about. They reject opinions which they don't understand; they have unlimited faith in matters of which they know absolutely nothing. ----

Every one pities a man whose existence and enjoyments are limited to the physical, sentimental side of life.

We all feel that a man of fifty, unless hard conditions and want have ground interest and vitality out of him, ought to be at his best. He ought to be active, alert, OPEN TO NEW IDEAS.

His mind is his one asset, and he should be constantly adding to his knowledge, to his observation, and therefore he should be constantly changing his mental point of view.

Many women suffer undoubtedly from the sentimental, physical and intellectual reaction caused by the cessation of the responsibility of maternity.

Such passionate affection, devotion and self-sacrifice are lavished upon the children that when they grow up nothing more seems worth while except to set them a good example.

Many other things are worth while: And as improving civilization frees women more and more from the endless cares of the petty household and the worries of poverty, the field for their mental development will steadily expand.

When woman shall have accomplished her greatest material duty, that of fully populating the earth, big families will no longer be known, not more than two years of any woman's life will be devoted to the worries of infancy, and then woman will have to do her share of the world's thinking and its original intellectual work. ----

For her own sake and for the sake of those about her, every woman, whatever her age, should realize that there is no old age for the brain well cared for.

Many men and women view with sentimental reverence the picture of a middle-aged lady, old before her time, sitting in her rocking-chair, knitting placidly, without one original thought in a month.

This sentimental idea is a false one.