, > " "ft
Conservative *
claim is pushed too far when wo are
asked to excuse the manifold iniquities
of the Standard Oil because the price of
refined petroleum has fallen. Wo must
remember that when petroleum has
once been found , its output cannot be
repressed as that of other products ; and
that to store large quantities of it , and
to so keep it out of market , is exception
ally difficult and risky. The progress of
invention has cheapened mineral oil as
it has many other things raw cotton ,
in fact , whoso production has been con
trolled by no combination , has fallen
quite as remarkably. But consolidation
of capital reduces costs , can reduce
prices , and sometimes does. A more
perfect organization gives opportunity
for better economic methods in purchas
ing , in manufacturing , transporting
and marketing , and in mastering thous
ands of petty but necessary details. An
important economy comes from special
izing business among different establish
ments. Another results from avoiding
the many wastes of competition ; and
this usually determines whether there
shall bo a "trust" or not.
In such a business as sowing machines
or stoves , for instance , where the cost
of soiling is 80 %
Stoves and SewIng - „ . , . .
Ing Machine , , . of the cosfc of man'
ufacturo , or more ,
combination is highly economical. But
in the general foundry business , em
ploying no traveling salesmen and com
paratively little machinery , there could
be no such advantage , and therefore
this business has little to gain by form
ing a trust , and much to suffer if sup
plies are cornered. Combination does
tend , as a rule , to make the market less
speculative. Our industrial trusts may
not give us the best form in which pro
duction could be consolidated , but that
there will bo consolidation in some form
follows necessarily from the law of eve
lution. Indeed , the progressive march
of industrial combination is something
impossible to withstand.
Washington Gladden , a well-known
writer on social questions , truly says :
"Concentration in all the great indus
tries is the word of the hour. We can
no more go back to
Gladden. , , ,
the old economic
regime than wo can return to the stage
coach and the hand-loom. The only
question is , who shall control these vast
enterprises ? la the capital of the coun
try all to be gathered in the hands of a
few men and administered by them ac
cording to their pleasure ? Doubtless , if
we could bo sure that the managers of
these gigantic industries would all be
sagacious and unselfish men , consulting
the public interest in all their actions ,
this might be a desirableiarrangement.
But experience does mJ encourage us to
look for suoh virtues inrthose who pos
sess such enormous power * "
1W * > M tjfjf'
The vices pertaining to men in iudus-
* idLMfcr' " iCT
trial combinations are perhaps not
greater than those
A U'UH. „ . . ,
of imperfect hu
man nature in separate action , except
in so far as their association gives them
added strength. Yet those vices must
not bo slighted. That repression of
manly development and character which
comes of resigning our independence
and becoming merely part of a machine
is by no means least among them. The
cheapening of commodities , above
spoken of , generally results from forces
beyond the control of the trusts ; while
the resistance to cheapening , through
cutting down production and thus promoting
meting scarcity , is altogether voluntary
with them. While they are curtailing
their output to run up the price , they
do not consider whom they thus deprive
of employment steady prices are more
important to them than steady work.
And while illiberal toward the public
and harsh toward the working class ,
they are utterly merciless toward all
rivals. Their mischief has grown with
their power , by closer consolidation ;
the trusts were mild and innocuous by
comparison with the combinations that
have supplanted them. One of the
greatest evils shown in connection with
them is in their over-capitalization of
stock.
When we learn that in one month , in
one state , corporations of a total capital
of over a thousand
Over-Ciipitiili/.utloii. . . . . .
million were char
tered as was the case in Now Jersey
last March ; when wo road the list of
such organizations , all of recent origin ,
with nominal capital of six thousand mil
lions , and know that they probably rep
resent a true value of loss than one
thousand million we may bo assured
that the investors are to bo robbed.
Many of these joint stock corporations
are formed with a view to selling the
stock , and thus coining a huge profit on
water. Sometimes projectors succeed
in this by mere trickery , but more often
there is some concealed advantage they
enjoy which goes to explain their suc
cess. No share in an industrial enter
prise could sell at very much above its
actual cost unless there was some kind
of monopoly behind it based on laud
possession , or a patent , or a special leg
islated privilege , or unrestricted posses
sion of its field assured by force. Ser
ious as this evil is , the consequences to
which our neglect to cure it may load
are no less serious to contemplate. Lot
me quote again from that clear-sighted
writer , Washington Gladden :
"Such a gigantic attempt to bind bur
dens upon the whole community of con
sumers must provoke a violent reaction.
These thousand-millions of watered
stock ore simply a legalized demand
upon the people for contributions of
their substance to those who have given
them nothing in exchange. The feudal
lords of the olden time made uo such
t v
unjust demand. It will not bo oiimtrod.
And there is terrible danger that t&cso
injustices will bo swept away by a- ,
whirlwind of popular wrath. "
Beyond question , these evils , belonging -
ing to or associated with combined capital -
ital , ought to bo cured if curable. One
way to moot them is by proclamation
and denunciation.
It i confidently promised that the
next republican platform will contain
a "ringing plank
Political Platform * .
against trustH. "
That the democratic opposition will
equal or outdo that example in pronnn-
ciamonto is accepted as altogether
probable. Thus will the air be filled ,
with claims and counter-claims , in the >
midst of which the trusts themselves !
will suffer , iot a particle. They thrive >
on opposition like that. "Anti-trust-
laws" of the usual , general kind , nre <
very little more effective than platfornu
proclamations.
Nor , so long as laws are of this char
acter , is there much hope that individ
ual states can operate -
'
Inull'ectivo
orate them moroi
successfully than the general govern
ment. The efforts of a few states , par-
tumlarly Missouri , are certainly not en
couraging. Laws iuiparing the obligation - -
tion of contracts would do more harm .
than good , oven if they wore not glaringly -
ingly unconstitutional. Everything that.
has boon heretofore done in this line has .
not only not helped , but positively
hurt , by driving producers from trusts ,
( properly speaking ) into the closer combinations -
binations that are so much more dan
gerous. Law can do something for the -
public oven in this case if rightly con
trived ; but law of the kind contemplated
in platforms and hitherto enacted a dead
letter ab initlo because totally unoufore-
able is the very food that the trusts thrive
upon. It would bo unfair to pass from ,
the topic of humbug remedies that only
aggravate the complaint , and make no
mention of that most dangerous humbug
of the lot ; the one which pretends to subdue -
duo all trusts by striking a blow at the
bogie called "tho money trust" that is
to say , by a wholesale violation of the
obligation of contracts. The most ef
fective service that can bo done for
these aggregations of capital is by de
manding some cure that will be worse
than they are , and so giving them a fac
titious respectability by contrast ; and
just that service is done them when it is
proposed to fight them with "free
silver. "
Among the proposed remedies for the
trust evil is that of putting mo'ro power
over the management
The Puople'ri
Property. ment of industries
into the hands of
the government giving it the same
control over other enterprises that it
has now over the postal-service. Nat AisN
ural monopolies , we are told by more
than one thoughtful writer , belong to