The Rule of the Trust

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 8, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 31.

The Rule of the Trust

The rule of the trust is well illustrated by the words of a trust delegate in attendance at the International Steel Conference at Brussels. He said: "We are masters of the world. Henceforth governments must take a back seat. They may neither make war nor peace, as long as we are united and can sell iron and steel. And in dealing with the association they can only buy at our price." Another delegate remarked: "Every day improves our position. We rule everything. If I owned mines of iron ore I would seal them up for many years, certain that they would be worth billions in a few years, if our association stands."

One is forcibly reminded of just such assumption as that in the prophecy of Habakkuk, of the man that makes "men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them. He taketh up all of them with the angles, he catcheth them in his net, and gathereth them in his drag: therefore he rejoiceth and is glad. . . . By them his portion is fat, and his food plenteous. Shall he therefore empty his net, and spare not to slay the nations continually?" The prophet looks beyond this, and he sees a time coming when he who "gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people," will find that his oppressions have gone so far that the peoples have rebelled. "Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Wo to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and that ladeth himself with pledges! Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booty unto them? Because thou hast plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder thee."