p. 8 | TRUSTS | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Nov 7, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 45.

TRUSTS.

THE Saturday Evening Post tells us that in recent years the combinations formed in this country have the enormous capitalization of over seven billion dollars, and gives a list of thirty companies, each of which capitalizes at over $50,000,000. The above paper further says:—

“These thirty combinations are credited with capital amounting to two and one-third billions of dollars. The entire general stocks of money of all kinds in the United States, gold, silver, notes, and certificates, amounts to about $2,700,000,000. So that if all the four hundred combines in the list should try to turn their capitalizations into cash they would use up every penny of the nation's money and then have only about forty per cent. of their demands. Indeed, the thirty corporations mentioned would nearly use up all our cash. Of course we know that business is transacted mostly on credit, and this gives an entirely different view of the case, but the comparisons show the real financial hugeness of the modern combinations.

“Congress and twenty-nine of the States have passed laws expressly designed and constructed to prohibit trusts, and yet the trusts have increased more rapidly since these laws were passed, and have grown more in capitalization than ever before in the country's history.”