these two they struggled to secure for themselves comfortable wages. The capitalists, seeing the advantage of this co-operation and the resultant profits, undertook and accomplished the combination of their capital to secure for themselves the profits at first sought for the operators and their employes.
These great combines are the natural result of successful business with the practice of usury. They threaten evil.
The purpose and plan of the present trust is to increase the increase of the capital; to make the capital more productive; to bring larger returns for the wealth invested.
(a) They are not organized for the benefit of the laborer. The object is to decrease the cost by producing with less labor. The less the labor, other things being equal, the greater the returns for the capital invested.
(b) They are not organized for the benefit of the consumer. When they do favor the consumer it is only incidental and generally temporary to meet competition. They make no pretence of being benevolent in their purposes. They are organized for the purpose of business gain.
(c) These capitalists combine their interests because they can thereby secure a greater return from their investments than they can by operating separately. They combine that they may mutually increase the rate of interest or dividends on their capital. This is the motive that draws them into coöperation.
The learned and benevolent statesmen, teachers of economy and reformers, have not suggested an adequate remedy. The remedy is not far to find. Do away with usury and they will fall apart like balls of sand; the cohesive power will be gone; the centralization will cease and the wealth will speedily return to the various individuals from whom it was gathered. This remedy may seem heroic, but it is a specific and is the simplest of all possible methods.