State Legislature and Governor were both Democratic, and the latter signed the bill, it shows that both Democrats and Republicans alike yield to the corrupting influence of the trusts.

"They then bribed both the Council and House of Delegates in St. Louis to pass the measure for them, a full account of which is given in another chapter.

"After securing the passage of the bill, they had the city and public completely at their mercy, and subjected them to all manner of indignities. They refused to run enough cars, and night and morning packed and handled the passengers like so many cattle. In winter, over half the time the cars were not heated. They always ran them at a terrific rate of speed, and the number of people killed and injured was appalling.

"The public protested in vain. The papers scathingly denounced the wholesale murder, but to no effect. Every day added to the list, until it was impossible to pick up a paper without being shocked by these horrible accounts of school children, men and women being either maimed or killed by these modern engines of death. I quote from one of the daily papers, (the request of a citizen), to further illustrate the point:

ACCIDENTS THAT HORRIFY. To the Editor of the Post-Dispatch:

Your paper is well known as a wide-awake and progressive journal and generally leads in all that is new and interesting to the public. I would therefore suggest that

you have a standing column daily-headed, say, "Transit Co.'s Casualties"-under which will be recorded the daily accidents occurring on the various trolley lines. Many of them are so harrowing that sensitive readers, when they accidently come across them and commence their perusal turn from them with horror. If all were grouped together the heading would be an index for their nonperusal. What say you? They would very properly head the daily mortuary list.

G.

"Every one remembers the long and bloody street car strike in St. Louis. Perhaps outsiders received incorrect reports of the affair. St. Louisians know the truth. Whether the hard-working employees or this murderous band of law breakers were to blame may easily be determined.

"The Beef Trust is bad enough, but no worse than the hundreds of other blood-sucking vampires that infest the land. But the public notices it quickly because raised prices act directly and quickly upon an indignant public. The Steamship Trust is just as bad, but goes almost unnoticed because it acts only indirectly upon the people. The fact that they have the audacity to ask the government for a subsidy, which they will probably get, does not seem to strike the people as asking for their money.

"Rev. Dr. Parkhurst paid his respects to the Coal Trust the other day in the following words:

"If the coal companies or coal combines or coal trusts use their power to the end of draining off into their own.

treasury as much of the poor man's money as they can or dare, to the impoverishment of the poor, to the reduction of their comfort and to the sapping of the currents of health and life, then such companies are possessed of the demon of theft and murder. And this is no more applicable to dealers in coal than to the dealers in any other commodity.'

"While Rev. Dr. Parkhurst was denouncing them as 'possessed by the demon of theft and murder,' another New York preacher, Rev. Dr. Heber Newton, to velvet pews and a millionaire flock, praised the trusts as a necessary and beneficent part of our advancing civilization.

"The 'Appeal to Reason' says:

""The official statement of the Steel Trust shows that its profits are $10,000,000 a month, just for a starter. What the infant will do when it begins to grow may be conjectured. Now this is bad enough for the people, but it is nothing to what it will mean in a few years when this vast sum of ready cash must find investments. This profit will absorb many other industries.

""The Steel Trust has got possession of all the nickel mines and refining plants of the world. Nickels will soon be worth $2. And thus the profits on iron will soon control other industries.

""The Steel Trust sells rails in England at $22.50 and pays $5.11 freight, and sells the rails here at $28. See how much better we are than the blawsted British?

""The ship subsidy bill was designed to benefit princi

pally the Standard Oil Company and the United States Steel Corporation, each paying tens of millions of dollars. a year in dividends now. But the Rockefellers and Morgans of the country must be protected. The more they get the more they want. Some day the people will want part of their enormous and ill-gotten wealth-and will take it.'

"The Globe-Democrat and Post-Dispatch printed the following:

"A London paper states that J. Pierpont Morgan recommends a joint system of trusts as the best means to cement friendship between England and the United States. Mr. Morgan's preference for this general remedy has long been suspected.-Globe-Democrat.

"While Mr. Morgan is combining the big carrying lines of the globe there are more than 1000 ships-tramp ships -lying at American ports unable to secure cargoes. These belong to small fellows who do not control railways, hence are not able to make the through rates the big fellows offer. When they have been starved out there will be none to say 'nay' to the mightiest of mighty men.-Post-Dispatch.

"Here is an article from "The Chicago News':

MEN AND A MONSTER.

"When the railways that run through the anthracite coal districts of Pennsylvania decided to own the mines from which they hauled the coal to market they put up the freight charges to a prohibitive price. It was a policy

of confiscation and was successful.

Mines and coal lands were sold by their owners to the railways. The sales were forced sales.

""There are more mines than are needed to supply the coal that is required by consumers at the high prices charged for it. The result is that the output of the various mines is limited according to an agreement among the mine operating companies. Mines are shut down part of the year. That throws the miners out of work. By the encouragement of foreign immigration into the mining districts the coal companies supplied themselves with more labor than they need. That made labor cheap. They have paid low wages and have made many charges against their men, such as those for rent, powder for blasting (a shameful overcharge), doctors' services (whether required or not), oil for lamps and provisions from company stores. In 1900 the United Mine Workers of America organized the anthracite coal miners and brought on a great strike, lasting forty-two days and resulting in a substantial victory for the men. Some of the old, bitter wrongs were righted.

"Other wrongs remain. Wages are fearfully low. Work is precarious. The miner can barely live on what he is permitted to earn. Meanwhile the price of anthracite coal to the consumer has risen enormously. The coal monopoly, working under an ironclad agreement, absorbs the great profits and hides them away under tricky bookkeeping, by which 40 per cent or more of the selling price