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An essay by Arthur Brisbane |
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The Promising Toad's Head |
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Title: The Promising Toad's Head Author: Arthur Brisbane [More Titles by Brisbane] 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 The trusts eliminate competition, which is a stupid, out-of-date form of barbarism, leading to cheating, thievery and adulteration.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. [The end] GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |