Puck — January 23, 1889 — page 2: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

PUCK. PUCK, PUBLISHED 8VERY WED The subscription price of Puck is $5.00 per year. $2.50 for six months, — $1.25 for three months, rable in advance. Keppler & Schwarzmann, Publishers and Proprietors. Editor, - + + + + + + H.C. Bunner, Wednesday, January 23rd, 1889.—No. 620. CARTOONS AND COMMENTS. ose who have read history may remember that an astronomer named Galileo had, in his time, some slight difficulty in impressing upon the people the fact that the earth moved. He advanced the proposition, and it was met with doubt, and, indeed, positive denial. In fact, ‘in- fluence” was brought to bear upon Galileo, under which influence he was moved to give his own personal testimony against the theory. Ina strictly private and confidential way he withdrew this utterance: still, he went on record as a believer in the stability of this whirling globe, and in so doing he joined the majority of the world’s inhabitants. And yet, all the time that the question was under discussion, and even while Galileo was protesting his disbelief in his own theory, this queer old earth was turning and twisting and bowling along through space. The Roman Church could not alter this state of things: Galileo himself had no in- fluence over the solar system, It really did not matter what the Church believed, or what Galileo believed. The earth, calmly and disrespectfully indifferent, kept on rotating, and still rotates in its own independent fashion, * bs * It does not need a profound knowledge of history nor a remarkably lively imagination to guess at the arguments which the friends of a stationary earth brought against the revolving-globe theory. ‘ Why,” they must have said, ‘if the earth moved, it would shake things up ina most unpleasant manner, It would shake the dishes off the table and throw the goods off the shop shelves, It would give everybody a per- petual ague, and i would be the utter ruin of the crockery trade, And then, if the earth really does move, why, of course, you'll all be shaken off some time, and sent flying into space, to fall forever. And just think how uncomfortable that would be!” ‘I’hese, no doubt, were the argu- ments employed, and it must be clear to any one that they were well calculated to appeal to the popular heart. No one desires to have his dinner plates and dishes shaken to the floor and dashed into fragments, and to find that the crockery dealer has nothing but chips of china where- with to supply their place. And the prospect of swirling off the carth and tumbling downward through eternity is far from attractive, And yet — the entire civilized world has grown accustomed to the idea of living on a twitling planet; and the planet has twirled for ages before the dis- cussion began, twirled right through the discussion, is twirling now, and will probably continue to twirl for some time to come, * * . All of which goes to show that you can not stop the earth's move- ment by shutting the mouth of the man who declares that it moves, And by parity of reasoning, it shows that the vote of a majority of the States of the Union can not make two and two five. The earth moves, whether Galileo lies about it or no: the man who has two dol- lars and gets two dollars more can not purchase therewith a five-dollar coat —not while the tailor has to pay four dollars and fifty cents to manufacture the garment. And, to continue the study of the subject by parity of reasoning, it must be obvious that legislation and government decree can no more stop the movement of economic laws than the fat of the Roman Church could stop the movement of the carth, Two and two will remain four, in spite of all our legislating ; competition will still be the life of trade, if the whole power of the government tries to discredit the principle of competition. In the end, the principle must assert it- self, “What if a cow gets in the way of your locomotive?” was the question put to old Scotch Stephenson, when he was trying to make peo- ple believe in his tea-kettle on rails. ‘So much the worse for the coo!” responded Mr. Stephenson, who understood the principle of the steam locomotive. . bd * Remembering these lessons of the past, we can see the futility ot the attempt to reorganize the business of the country as a system of “Trusts.” It is an attempt made in all seriousness, and supported by the political party at present in power; but its end is as certain as the end of the cow that gets in the path of a locomotive. To the popular mind a “Trust” is something vague and incomprehensible — the word itself is a business technicality but little understood. Only those who have studied the subject know that the Trust is the very paradox of business —the endeavor to turn trade into a tax-collecting despotism — to put the case very mildly, Now, what isa “Trust”? It is this, in plain English: thefe are, in this country, too manufacturers of a certain article, go of these 100 club together and agree to fix the price of their manufacture at a proftable figure, (the amount of the profit being as great as they please,) and to limit the production so that the demand must be always greater than the supply. The other 10 manufacturers try to sell their goods at a fair price. The Trust at once puts down prices so low that the 10 old-fashioned manufacturers are obliged to join the Trust or go out of business in a few weeks or months, When this end is accomplished, the price goes up again—and the consumer pays it, and has no choice but to pay it. * * But, you ask, how about foreign competition? That is easily set- tled, The Trust has the power of establishing a practically prohibitive duty on all foreign imports which may compete with its own productions, Thus it has the market to itselt, and holds the consumer at its mercy. Whence does the Trust derive this power? Mainly, we regret to say, from the Senate of the United States, It is in that body, forbidden by the Constitution to originate measures affecting the revenue, that the cus- toms tariff of the nation is practically shaped. ‘There it is that whatever the House of Representatives may offer in the way of legislation is trimmed and clipped and cut and changed end for end, if need be, to suit the demands of the Trusts which have seized upon the business of the In that body, which was once supposed to represent the con- sense of the nation, every measure designed to forward the prosperity of the people is turned into a law for the benefit of the Trusts. Last year the House of Representatives — Representatives of the people — passed a bill reducing the customs duties which made Trusts possible. ‘This year that same bill comes back from the Senate with an “amendment in the nature of a substitute,” materially increasing the tariff on every article in the production or sale of which a Trust is interested. ie . . And yet it must be clear to. any man who will think at all that a trade of Trusts is no trade at all, but a mere system of brigandage by which the people are robbed. ‘The system has legislative sanction, but is there any legislature in the world strong enough to establish a system that flies in the face of every law of honest business — that seeks to make the buyer pay more than the thing is worth? We doubt it. It has been established as a fact that the world moves, Startling as the assertion may seem, it will some time be established as a fact that a dollar in the hand of the purchaser need not always turn to fifty-three cents worth of pur- chasing medium when it falls into the palm of the Trust-protected seller. We wish to state, simply and truthfully, the case of the convict con- fined in a New York states-prison, By act of the Legislature (and the Governor) he can no longer work in the prison workshops. He is con- fined in a cell 7 feet long by (possibly) 334 feet wide. ‘This cell is one of two tiers built up within a large room. . ‘The light is dull at the best ; the air is dead and damp. He can not read, most of the time. He can not walk up and down: there is not room enough. He may not talk ; and he sees no one except the warders and the prison officials. He gocs out of his cell, (walking in lock-step,) for two meals each day — perhaps for a half-hour’s exercise. It is not possible to give much freedom, even for exercise, to 1,000 oF 1,500 prisoners guarded only by a handfal of watchmen, And so he sits in his stone box and grows to be a worse enemy of society than he was when he went in, ‘This is practically solitary confinement. No such cruel punishment was contemplated in our laws. All these men ask or need is work — work of any kind, so it be work work to keep them in physical health, to keep them from going mad in the silence of their narrow white-washed cells, What they ask for them- selves their guardians ask for them, Warden Brush, of Sing Sing, a just and humane man and a strict -disciplinarian, has told the pitiful story of an idle prison — and so far as the Legislature at Albany is concerned, he seems to nave told it to deaf ears, Who will be Secretary of State? co ete ae Treasury 2 ‘THe Seven | “ Postmaster-General ? l Attorney-General? His 1s a sad world, Cedric. ‘The only man on it who 1s perfect! pure and holy is the policeman on duty. If you think this exaggera tion, just call on one of the Police Commissioners when he is trying @ string of brass-buttoned delinquents.