p. 4 | THE GROWTH OF TRUSTS by A. O. Tait

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 16, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 33.

THE GROWTH OF TRUSTS.

By A. O. Tait

THE Los Angeles Times had a recent editorial on the subject of trusts, some of the paragraphs of which are as follows:—

Within the past decade the industrial world has witnessed a remarkable change in the methods of production and distribution—a change amounting almost to a revolution. The transformation is still in progress, and no man can predict, with any assurance of accuracy, what the ultimate outcome will be.

Reference is made to the growth and development of the system of co-operative organization known as the "trust" or "combine." The tendency of modern industrial and commercial interests is steadily toward centralization, or the aggregation of large amounts of capital in productive and commercial enterprises. This movement is not confined to any one country. It is seen and felt, not alone in the republic of the United States, but in the monarchical countries of Europe—and, in fact, throughout the civilized world. Wherever there are great industries and great commercial activities, there the modern trust lives and flourishes. The tendency toward co-operative organization is as wide as the scope of human activities, and this is equivalent to saying that it is of world-wide extent.

More and more the great enterprises of production and distribution are being brought under the control of central organizations, until the time is apparently not far in the future when each and every line of business will be controlled by a trust, which will dictate the prices at which the commodities it controls shall be sold, and the rate of wages paid to its employees. This is practically true in many great industries at the present time, and the process of organization, or consolidation, is going forward rapidly in both the industrial and the commercial world.

One of the gravest features of this modern tendency

toward centralization is the disastrous effect of the trust upon competition. Independent firms, corporations, and individual dealers or manufacturers, are compelled either to go into the trust or to go out of business. The great department stores in the larger cities are driving the smaller merchants to the wall by thousands. In the manufacturing business, the independent firm, corporation, or individual can not hope to compete successfully with the great aggregations of capital which virtually control the production of this and that commodity. The smaller manufacturers and merchants, thus driven out of the field of independent production or distribution, have no alternative but to seek employment under the trust, or to engage in some other occupation; and if they turn to other occupations, they are apt to be confronted with the same problem—employment under a trust, or starvation.

Where is all this to end? The question is a difficult one to answer. It can not, in fact, be answered satisfactorily at the present time. The correct and final answer must come from the future. Attempts to answer the question are as various as the personal views and characteristics of the persons who make such attempts. The pessimist sees in the evolution of the trusts only a foreboding and a menace of evil, with revolution and social chaos at the farther end of the vista. The optimist sees only an evolutionary condition which will work itself out to right conclusions in the end. The Socialist professes to see in the development of the trust system the dawning of the day which shall find his dreams of universal co-operation realized. The politician sees in it only an opportunity to make political capital. The statesman views it with apprehension, not unmixed with hope that in the process and the course of evolution all will be well. The political economist, the philosopher, and the student of sociology regard the new problem with varying degrees of hope, distrust, disapproval, or alarm, according to their individual temperaments, their environment, or the intellectual methods to which they are most addicted.

It is distinctly a problem of the future.

The foregoing presents an unbiased view of the trusts as most people look at them. And the fact is made very clear that the Times sees possibilities for great dangers and evils to grow out of the trusts. But no present solution of the menacing problem is seen. To look at the matter in this light is highly pessimistic.

There is a solution for the trust evil. We need not wait upon the future in order to understand all about it. We may know right now what all this combining of wealth means. And if you do not already understand the meaning of it, please read the following words of the Lord:—

“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous.” 2 Tim. 3:1, 2.

“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and He doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned; behold the Judge standeth before the door.” James 5:1-9.

Think carefully over each sentence in the foregoing scriptures and you will see that even tho man can not penetrate the future of the trusts, yet God was able nearly two thousand years ago to point out their work fully.

The greatest danger to the world to-day is not the trusts, or any of the menacing social problems, or anything else of that kind. Our danger is that we will not read and heed the Word of the living God. He has not only told us what all these present-day dangers mean, but He has told us how to avoid them.

A. O. TAIT.