The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1889-07-20

suit of annihilating competition, ant
enabling the industries which com
bined to fix the price at which they
would purchase the raw materia
from the producer, and at which the,
would sell the refined product to tn,
consumer. Their report also JUST
fled his opinion as to the considera
ton which the people might expec
from the operation of these selfish
schemes" for it said: I'm any event
the public at each end of the indus
try the producer and consumer il
and is intended to be, in certain
sense, at the mercy of the syndicate
combination or trust"
The United States House of Rep
resentatiyes also adopted a resolu
ton January %, 1883, instructins
the committee on manufactures t,
inquire into the names, number an(
extent of such alleged combina
ton, their effect on the prices of tn,
necessaries of life, upon our internal
and foreign commerce, and our rev
enues from import duties.
The committee on manufacture
is one of the large number of forma
committees which come down from
the past, whose only use in present
Congresses is to give a chairman
ship and a clerk to some member
whose real work will be elsewhere
But Speaker Carlisle, in framing tn,
committee at the beginning of tn,
last Congress, anticipated the duties
that would be assigned it, and plac
ed at it's head the Hon. Henry Bacon
of New York, an able lawyer and in
dustrious Representative
THE BIG FOUR.
The committee devoted many DAYS
to the inquiry imposed upon it, and
instead of scattering it's examina
ton over large field, selected foul
combinations for investigation, tc
wit: The sugar trust, the Standard
Oil trust, the whisky trust and the
cotton bagging trust. Two Of these
it will be observed, were combina
tions as to articles protected by tar
if duties, one as to an article subject
to taxation under our internal rev
enue system and one as to articles
not imported, or at least not subject
to taxation under either tariff or ex.
else laws.
This inquiry has given us two
large volumes of testimony, and the
committee in its final report, made
just before the final adjournment OF
Congress, March 2, 1889, express the
opinion that this testimony will dis
close the nature, form and causes oil
trusts, and that all others in exist
ence are formed in substantially the
same way as the four Investigated
They declare that the number form
ed and forming is very large, and eff
fects a large portion of the import
ant manufacturing and industrial
interests of the country, and that
they did not attempt list, because
new ones are constantly forming, and
old ones are constantly extending
their relations so as to cover new
branches of business and to invade
new territories.
By the help of the material gath
cred in these two Investigations, l
shall attempt to answer the questions
set before me, but before taking up
those questions in order, | may clear
the way for better understanding
of trusts, when | come to delineate
them, by some preliminary inquiry
as to their genesis and development.
Magical as has been their rise in
the past twenty four months, and
rapid as has been their sweep over
the country, they are not sudden
growths, springing forth into luxa-
rance from some temporary condi-
ton of the soil, without roots in the
past. Nor are they, as we are some
times told, merely a monster brood
born of the illicit commerce between
legal astuteness and corporate greed.
If such were their genesis we
might anticipate their speedy disap-
pearance, or we might deal with
them by summary process.
Their Importance and their menace
lie in the fact that they are growths
which have their roots far back in
the past.
They represent development; the
latest and most perfect Development
of the principle of combination; the
last and most successful effort of in
dustry in its ever continued strug-
gle to escape from the open sea of
competition into the unvexed haven
of monopoly, for where the waves of
the one cease to play the dead calm
of the other has already begun.
THE ALLIES OF INDUSTRY.
In this struggle modern industry,
which in other days depended chiefly
on law or kingly prerogative, has
found three potent allies-the cor
poration, steam and electricity. Pos
sibly, I should amplify the last two
into science and mechanical inven-
ton At the basis of modern indus
try lies the railway, in whose devel-
opment these three forces have ex-
hibited their highest power and their
most perfect union. Indeed, the
railway is not only the chief servant
of modern industry, but in its own
history aptly illustrates the growth
of that industry. The development
of our gigantic railway system has
been marked by three we'll known
stages: First the era of rapid and
speculative construction; then a pc
Rod of steady accelerating combina-
ton or consolidation. In all this it
has but moved in advance of, and to
a large extent made possible, a like
development of modern industry
There, too, in many lines of produc-
ton we have seen more or less clear
| ly defined the same succession of
periods.
In the first period the dominant
idea everywhere was to build or to
secure as many more railroads as
possible. Charters were freely grant
ed, capital stock or bonds subscribed
for, public credits loaned, public
moneys pledged and public lands do
mated. There seemed little fore
thought as to consequences, and the
general feeling with which the pub
lie in the United States welcomed
| the new system of TRANSFORMATION is