The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-10-15

number of similar organizations that
were local to New York city and
Brooklyn.
The resolution under which the
committee acted was adopted on the
10th of February, and required them
to report by March l, and, although
they had the assistance of such able
counsel as Gen. R. A. Pryor and Col
Geo. Bliss, their investigation was
neces sarily hasty and somewhat super
fetal, but the general features OF the
trust, as outlined in this testimony,
and in the preliminary report of the
committee, fully confirmed Mr. Cleve-
lands judgment of its purposes, as All
leading to the final result of annihil,
ating competition, and enabling the
| industries which combined to fix the
price at which they would purchase
the raw material from the producer,
and at which they would sell the re-
| fined product to the consumer. Their
report also justified his opinion as to
the consideration which the people
might expect from the operation OF
these selfish schemes" for it said:
sIn any event, the public at each end
of the industry (the producer and con-
sumer) is and is intended to be, in a
certain sense, at the mercy Of the syn
dictate, combination or trust"
The United States House of Rep
resentatives also adopted a resolution
January Is, 1888, instructing the
committee on manufactures to inquire
into the names, number and extent
of such alleged combinations, their
method of combination, their effect
on the prices of the necessaries of life,
upon our internal and foreign com
MERGE, and our revenues from import
duties.
The committee on manufactures is
one of the large number of formal
committees which came down from
the past, whose only use in present
Congresses is to give a craftsmanship
and a clerk to some member whose
real work will be elsewhere. But
Speaker Carlisle, in framing the COM
mite at the beginning of the last
Congress, anticipated the duties that
would be assigned it, and placed at its
head the Hon. Henry Bacon, of New
York, an able lawyer and industrious
Representative.
THE BIG FoUR
The committee devoted many days
to the inquiry imposed upon it, and,
instead of scattering it's examination
over a large field, selected our COM
binations for investigation, to wit:
The sugar trust, the Standard Oil
trust, the whiskey trust and the cot
ton bagging trust. Two of these, it
will be observed, we're combinations
as to articles protected by tariff duties,
one as to an article subject to taxation
under our internal revenue system
and one as to articles not imported, or
at least not subject to taxation under
either tariff or excise laws.
This inquiry has given us two large
volumes of testimony, and the com.
mittee in its final report, made just
before the final adjournment of Con.
gress, March 2, 1889, express the
opinion that this testimoney will dis.
close the nature, form and cause OF
trusts, and that all others in existence
are formed in substantially the same
way a the four investigated. They
declare that the number formed and
forming is very large, and effects a
large portion of the important manu-.
featuring and industrial interests OF
the country, and that they did not at.
tempt a list, because new ones are
constantly forming, and old ones are
constantly extending their relations
so as to cover new branches of bust
ness and to invade new territories.
By the help of the material gath.
cred in these two Investigations,
shall attempt to answer the questions
set before me, but before taking ur
those questions in order, l may clear
the way for a better understanding o.
trusts, when I come to delienate them
by some preliminary inquiry as tc
their genesis and development.
Magical as has been their rise in the
past twenty-four months, and rapid al
has been their sweep over the country
they are not sudden growths, spring
ing forth into luxuriance from some
temporary condition of the Soil, with
out roots in the past. Nor are they
as we are sometimes told, merely 6
monster brood born of the illicit com
MERGE between legal astuteness and
corporate greed.
If such were their genesis we might
anticipate their speedy disappearance
or we might deal with them by sum
mary process.
Their Importance and their menace
lie in the fact that they are growthl
which have their roots far back in tn,
past.
They represent development; thu
latest and most perfect development
of tho nripoin1o ~ oo~l-a Il