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The Commoner.
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DEFINING THE ISSUE
Governor Wilson is rendering splendid' ser
vice when ho defines as clearly, as bo does the
trust issue now befqr.6 the country. He ,; says:
"I have been reading recently sorao ports of
several of tho messages which Mr. Roosevelt
sent to congress, in wliich bo adverted to this
peculiar matter when explanation concerning it
was under consideration, and in almost; every
Instance ho says that the trusts havo come about
through the natural development of the busi
ness conditions in tho United States,' that it is
a mistake to try to . oppose the processes by
which they havo been built up and that' there
fore the only thing we can do is to accept thorn
as inevitable arrangements and make the best
of it by regulation.
"Big business is necessary and natural. The
development of business upon a great scale is
inevitable and, let me add, desirable. But that
is a very different matter from the development
of the trusts, because tho trusts have not grown.
They have been manufactured, and they have
been manufactured not by natural processes, but
by the will, the deliberate planning and will of
men who were more powerful than their jieig
bors in the business world. I deny tho claim
that the trusts are inevitable. I want to .urge
upon every voter in this commonwealth to re
ject all rhetorical assertions and get down to
the hardpan of thinking.
"In this zone of industry we have indepen
dent concerns, in many instances running, upon
veritable capital by efficiency and economy, and.
we also have great giants carrying, staggering
under tanks of water, not based upon tho effi
ciency, not based upon economic principles at
all, not based upon the natural and inevitable
processes of business, but based upon the de
liberate combination of power, to see to it that
competition may not be necessary and monopoly
may be secured.
"Let mo tell you, these gentlemen, wh'en they
cite instances across the water, are speaking in
ignorance of the actual conditions acrdss the
water. There is a ste.el trust in Germany, but
the trust is only at the bottom and notTat tho
top. The trust is a sort of pool for the-bale of
the cruder forms of Jron and steel, .and the
manufactured forms bought from this trust are
manufactured by independent concerns which
actively compete with ono another. And already
they are feeling the disadvantage, the smother
ing disadvantage of having to go for all their
crude material to the trust at tho center.
"They get their crude stuff when the men who
make the crude stuff get ready to send it to
them. It isn't a matter of their markets. Their
markets may be crying for the manufactured
product, but they havd got to wait. Their con
venience is subordinated to monopoly.
"I want to leave you with this thought, that
no party except the, democratic party ever pro
poses emancipation from the special favors of
tho tariff and the special control of tho trust."
.Governor Wilson, 'is right. Legitimate cor
porations should BE REGULATED, but trusts
should bo prevented. He emphasizes a Very im
portant truth, namely, that a private monopoly
Is not an economic development but merely tho
outgrowth of powers exercised through law
made corporations.
Ho also speaks truly and strongly when ho
says that the democratic party is tho only party
that "proposes emancipation from tho' special
favors of the tariff and the special control of
tho trusts."
His blows are telling ones.
THE TRUST ECONOMICALLY WRONG
Louis D. Brandeis of Boston 1b using the pages
Of Collier's Weekly to combat the economic
failures which are being put forth in defense of
the Perkins-Roosevelt platform of accepting the
trust as a permanent economic advance. This is
Mr. Brandeis' summing up:
"First No conspicuous American trust owes
Its existence to the desire for increased efficiency
'Expected economies from combination'' figure
largely in promoters' prospectuses; but they have
never been a compelling motive in the; forma
tion of any trust. On the contrary, the .purpose
ul vuuiumiug uas ouen ueen to curb efficiency
or even to preserve inefficiency, thus frustrating
the natural law of survival of the fittest.
"Second No conspicuously profitable! trust
owes its profits largely to superior efficiency
Some trusts have been very efficient, as have
some independent concerns; but conspicuous
profits have been secured mainly through con
trol of tho market through the power of
monopoly to fix prices through this exercise of
th4 taxing power.
"Third No conspicuous trust has been offi-
cient enough to maintain long as against the
independents its proportion of tho business of
the country without continuing to buy up, from
timo to time, its successful competitors.
"These three propositions are, also, true of
most of the lesser trusts. If there is any excep
tion, the explanation will, doubtless, be found
in extraordinary ability on tho part of the
managers or unusual trado conditions.
"And this further proposition may-be added:
"Fourth Most of tho trusts which did not
secure monopolistic position have failed to show
marked success or efficiency, as compared with
independent competing concerns"
ROOSEVELT ON THE TARIFF
It is only two years since Mr, Roosevelt pre
sided at a republican convention in New York
and without protest allowed the following In
dorsement of Mr. Taft and the Payne-Aldrich
bill:
September 28, 1910 "We enthusiastically
indorse the patriotic and statesmanlike leader
ship of William Howard Taft and declare our
pride in the achievements of his first eighteen
months as president of the United States. Each
succeeding month since his Inauguration has
confirmed the nation in its high estimate of tiis
greatness of character, intellectual ability, study,"
common sense, extraordinary patience and per
serverance, broad and statesmanlike comprehen
sion of public questions and unfaltering and
unswerving adherence to public duty.
"The Payne tariff law reduced the average
rate of all duties 11 per cent by increasing the
duties on some luxuries and articles not of ordi
nary use, making, however, no increase on any
common food product, it turned a national de
ficit into a surplus."
What relief can we look for from oppressive
tariff taxation if Mr. Roosevelt is elected.
A BULL MOOSE AT BAY
For a while after his nomination Mr. Roose
velt plunged around, charging everything in
sight but he has at last commenced'tb1 show signs
of pain the arrows of the enemy'liave pierced
the skl& 'He is explaining Mr. Pericins' support,
the HaWiman letter, the swallowing up of the
Tennessee Coal and Iron company, and his in
activity on the trust question. His explanations
do not. explain but the fact that lie is now on the
defensive shows that he feels that he is losing
ground. The rank and file of the new party are
honest, earnest men and they can not, when they
understand the program, indorse the Perkins
Roosevelt scheme to make trusts permanent.
That may be good for Mr. Perkins' children, but
it would not be good for the children of the
rest of us. u
A SUDDEN SILENCE
When charged by the, friends of Mr. Taft with
having arbitrarily tmt,a stop to the proposed
prosecution of the 'harvester trust, Theodore'
Roosevelt replied that at the cabinet meeting in
which tho matter was discussed, Mr. Taft
acquiesced in the president's plan and gave it;
support. Going further into details Mr. Roose-i
velt gave the date of the cabinet meeting and'
mentioned other subjects that were discussed.
Then ,came the information that v not only did,1
Mr. Taft not acquiescpMn the plan, and did not
commend tho stand taken by tho president, but
was, in fact, not even in Washington on the:
date mentioned, nor during several weeks be-'
fore and after. .
After which revelation Mr. Roosevelt sud
denly found something else to talk about.
MR. PERKINS CHILDREN
The cartoonist can find an excellent theme in
Mr. Roosevelt's innocent explanation that Mr.
Perkins political activity is duo to the latter's
interest In his children. What a picture Mr
Roosevelt carefully guarding the Interests of the
trust magnate's children, each child, a stock
holder by inheritance, but hiB back turned to the
children of those who. are the victims of the'
trusts! Under which flag, the flag of the trust
magnate, or the flag of those who Relieve in'
equal rights to all and special privileges to none?
WOODROW WILSON'S GREAT VICTORY ;
Governor Woodrow Wilson won a sweeping?
victory in the New Jersey primaries in his fight
against tho proposed ' nomination as United
States senator of James Smith, jr. An Associ
ated Press dispatch says that Representative
Hughes, tho Wilson candidate for senator re
ceived a plurality of 20,000.. .All honor to'
Governor Wilson for his splendid campaiEn'
against the system and its bosses.
VOLUME 12, NUMBER 33
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GOOD TIDINGS
Dr. Charles W. Eliot, former president of
Harvard, has returned from a trip around
the world with the opinion that for ono
reason or another neither tho classes or tho
masses in foreign lands are partial to the idea
of disarmament. The principles of peace are
really growing among men as individuals in
China and Japan for instance, he noticed a
strong and general desire for peace. Dr. Eliot
says: "I look for a greater and grander work
for The Hague tribunal from year to year, and
I would bo willing to prophesy that countless
lives, wide-spread misery, and unknown mil
lions of money will be saved the world by the
application of the grand principles of arbitra
tion. '
"I would not be willing to come out and state
broadly, that the nations are taking seriously the
idea of universal peace. There is a strong senti
ment for it everywhere, of course, but such a
sentiment is as old as the hills, and has been
found more or less in all times and climes.
Men individually all over the world
do less fighting today than-, at any other time
In 'the history of the world; and they have a
greater and more abiding respect for the in
stitutions of peace, the courts and legislative
bodies than they ever had. This- is perhaps
largely because of a natural growth toward a
better civilization and a higher Christianity, and
not so much due to -any special peace propa
ganda. Some of the leaders in vari
ouo countries are sincerely devoted to the
splendid principle of arbitration, and are op
posed to war on various unselfish grounds, but
I fear, that the time is not yet here when the
truly strong men the men "who. are in power
or who may be in power tomorrow are un
equivocally on the side of reason and humanity
as opposed to the sword and savagery."
It Is true, however, that the "truly strong
men" do not always -recognize revolutions even
when they are rat hand. Nor is progress entirely
dependent upon them. The fact that the arbi
tration idea is growing in favor is anv index to
the advancement of the principles- of peace.
Dr. Eliot's statement with respect to Japanese
feeling toward Americans ottgnt to be repro
duced in every American he'wspaper. On this
point he says: ' r '
"It is criminal for politicians, newspapers or
others to give voice or lend ear to statements
to the contrary. Japanese statesmen are not
ordinarily willing to speak of a possible war
between their country and the United States, so
very absurd do they regard the idea to be. In
spite of the treaty, offensive and defensive to
a degree, between Great Britain and Japan,
there can be no question but that the Mikado's
empire, government, and people',' is actuated in
all things by even a friendlier feeling for us
than for Great Britain. Remember, I am not
saying that England or the English are dis
liked that would be an untruth but I am
simply using the comparison to indicate the de
gree of good-will in which tho 'American gov
ernment and people are held. '
"Two days .before leaving Japan I was re
ceived, by the emperor. '" He spoke in
the friendliest terms of the United States."
A LUOn) INTERVAL
Editorial from Henry Watterson's Courier
Journal November 6, 1908: "The result shows
that we oversized the spiritual and undersized
the material 'in the hearts and minds of the
people. They ivore deaf alike to precedents, to
reason and to eloquence; for npthihg could sur
pass, as" nothing has ever equalled, the personal
cnvass of Mr. Bryan; its wondrous lucidity and
power of statement; its splendid intellectual
and physical endurance; its unanswerable argu
ment. Nor did Ignatius of Loyala sweep through
a world of incarnate evil bearing the Cross of
Jesus to triumph with greater force of inspira
tion a'nd truth than did the heroic soh of Ne
braska traverse a land gaping with curiosity,
but too busy over its work and, play to consider
any danger to the immortal soul of its con
stitutional fabric.
"There ' is something yet "better than being
president of tho United States, and that is the
real sense of duty done. Tllden will live in his
tory, when Hayes is forgotten, or execrated.
History will say of Bryan that in three great
popular movements, clouded sometimes by
errors of judgment and obstructed always by
corruption as we know by insurmountable
corruption he led sublimely i that he set be
fore his countrymen the standards alike of
God and Truth; and that he went down beaten
with clean hands and high repute, carrying with
him the homage of patriotic men." '
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