NEARLY A BILLION IN A NEW TRUST.
By Editor
IN the current news the report is given of a new trust that has just been effected that combines the principal part of all the Eastern coal interests of the country. Eight railroads have joined in the combine, and it is capitalized at $889,108,736. Elsewhere in this paper we mention the fact that the trusts formed last year aggregated upward of a billion dollars. When the fact was announced toward the close of 1898 that such a vast sum of money had been cornered by a few men in that one year, it seemed incredible. Men were loath to believe it, even tho it was a demonstrated fact. But here comes one great trust which alone assumes control of one of the principal commodities of daily consumption, and combines nearly a billion dollars in a single organization. It would seem as if the men of this age were being swept before a wild, stormy craze to amass great piles of wealth that they can never hope to have any possible use for. And while a few men have more money than they can ever use, there are millions who are in the chains of hopeless poverty. Such a condition is one of the sure precursors of a social storm the awful terrors of which can not be described. This world is driving at a breakneck speed into the jaws of revolution, that will end in its destruction. But any one who desires to be saved from it can find the Shelter.