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The Commoner.
WILLIAM J. BRYAN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR
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VOL. 8, NO. 16
Lincoln, Nebraska, May 1, 1908
Whole Number 380
CONTENTS
MR. TAFT ON TRUSTS
WOOD PULP AND BUNCOMBH
HENRY CAMPBBLLrBANNBRMAN
SAVING THE BOYS
FULL DINNER PAIL IN A GREAT CITY
NINETY-FIVE PER CENT OF RAILROAD
STOCK IS WATER
HOW A TRUST MAKES CRIPPLES AND
DODGES TAXES
MILLION ARMY PLAN
WASHINGTON LETTER
COMMENT ON CURRENT TOPICS
HOME DEPARTMENT
, WHETHER COMMON OR NOT
NEWS OF THE WEEK
I FULL GROWN
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ft
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What is the extent
'of the financial in-
r -
terest held by Joseph
Pulitzer, owner of
York
N
ew
the
World, in railroad
a
in
companies an
9
great corporations
commonly known as
trusts?
This 13 a pertinent question because an
honest answer might uncover 'the special inter
ests for which the New York World speaks in
its present day attacks upon democrats.
"PITY THE SORROWS OF A POOR OLD MAN"
. When "the shoo is on the other 'foot"
SECRETARY TAFT ON TRUSTS
Secretary Taft is rapidly disclosing hia
ignorance on the trust question, for to believe
him ignorant is more charitable than to believe
that he does not intend to interfere with the
trusts, although his language would justify even
this belief. He takes Mr. Bryan to task for
favoring the extermination of trusts, and says
that to exterminate trusts would be to exter
minate industry. The secretary desires to reg
ulate and control the trusts. But has his party
not been "regulating" and "controlling" for
some eleven years now? And have we not more
trusts now than we had when the regulating
and controlling began? The trust family is a
family big enough to satisfy the president's ideas
of the size of a family, and the birth rate is
greater than the death rate. The administra
tion has commenced suit against a few trusts,
but riot against many, and the trusts are still
gentle enough to come up and eat out of tho
hand of tho administration. What has been
done in regard to the steel trust? Did it not
swallow up tho Tennessee Coal & Iron company?.
And was it not given out that the swallowing
. was done after the administration had been con
sulted? Is the steel trust fighting Secretary
Taft? And what about the International Har
vester company? Have the farmers secured any
relief yet? And what about tho paper trust?
The steel trust has something like a billion dol
lars of water in its stock; it can afford to con
tribute ten millions to the republican campaign
fund, because it can get back many times that
out of a republican victory, and this is only
one trust out of the many. How can the people
hope to regulate or control trusts when tho
trusts, by the election of their favorite to office,
are able to control the government?
The extermination of trusts is not the ex
termination of business. If, for instance, a
single corporation has a monopoly of the pro
duction of a necessary of life, and has ten
factories in different states for the production
of this particular article, tho extermination of
this trust would mean tho selling off of enough
factories to reduce the production of this one
corporation to a point whore it would no longer
have a monopoly. But this would not mean clos
ing up of the factories. The people would still
need tho article and the article would still have
to bo produced. But the independent factories
coming into competition with tho original cor
poration now no longer a monopoly would
reduce the price of the article, and tho people at
large would get the benefit of the reduction.
With a reduction In price, the people could buy
more of the article produced, and this would in
crease the demand for labor, and new factories
would spring up or existing factories would be
enlarged. With a number of factories compet
ing for laborers, the laborers' chanco of em
ployment would be better, and his wages would
be higher. Then, too, with a number of
factories competing for r:.rr material, the price
of raw material would increase. In other words,
tho extermination of the trust, Instead of de
stroying business, would restore business to a
healthy condition, while it reduced tho price
of the product, increased tho price of raw ma
terial, and improved the condition of tho labor
ing man. Competition is tho natural condition,
and the extermination of the trust would re
store competition. Monopoly is an unnatural
condition, and the republican party has fostered
monopoly and thus built industry upon a false
basis to the detriment of all of the parties con
cerned except the monopolist, and he has been
demoralized by his unearned wealth while the
rest of the people have been victimized by the
practice of monopoly.
Secretary Taft ought to study the trust
question a little more, or discuss it less, for
each speech reveals his lack of familiarity with
the subject or his lack of sympathy with the
people at large.
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