Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-18
THE FIGHT ON TRUSTS
Gives Matthew Marshall Another
Opportunity to Defend Them.
HIS IDEA OF THEIR BENEFITS
A Peculiar One When Compared With the
Attacks on Combines.
THE TWO WAYS OF LOOKING AT THEN

ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE D1SPATCH.1
NEW YORK, April 1.-THE fight agains
the trusts" is the subject of Matthew Mar.
shall's article for to-morrow's Sun. thread.
as follows:
The effort to break up by process of law
the great combinations of capital engaged
in the manufacturing industry. popularity
known as trusts, began in this State with
the successful attack, two years ago. upon
the Sugar Reflneries Company. Since then
the Supreme Court of Ohio has rendered q
decision which has compelled the Standard
Oil Trust to dissolve, and now, under the act
of Congress of July, 1890, called the Sherman
or antitrust act, indictments are pending in
the United States District court in Massa
chusetts against the officers of the Distillinf
and Cattle Feeding Company usually styled
the Whisky Trust, as conspirators for an
unlawful purpose. They are charged with
attempting to monopolize the whisky trade
in the United States by offering rebates to
all customers who shall buy exclusively
from their company. which, since the com
pany controls nearly tho entire product o,
the country, is averred to be fatal to com
petition.
To the unprejudiced mind ir is difficult to
see how it should be unjust, and, especially,
why IL should be made q crime. for any man
or set of men to seek to get business by
offering pecuniary inducements to custom
ers, even though the inducements be coupled
with stipulation for the customers entire
trade to the exclusion of other dealers.
From time immemorial the leading manu-
featuring companies in New England have
had agents in the large cities, who have sold
their goods on commission under an agree
ment that they should have monopoly Of
the business.
Combines In the Labor World
Workingmen everywhere are united in or
ganizations pledged to work for no employer
who employs hands not affiliated with them.
Every great brewer, too, in this country and
in England supplies numbers of retail deal
ers with peer on the understanding that
they shall buy beer of no other brewer, and
no valid reason can be adduced to prove that
whisky is more worthy of legal protection
than beer. The lawfulness of these contracts
for exclusive dealings has recently been as
serted by the highest legal tribunal in Great
Britain. An association of owners of ships
plying between China and London issued,
few years ago,a circular to shippers of goods
from China, offering to carry their goods at
certain rates of freight, and to make
rebate of per cent on these
rates if the shippers would give business to
no other lines An opposition company,
brought suit against the association as
conspirators, alleging that their purpose was
TO ruin the trade of rival lines by bribing
shippers not to employ them. Lord Cole
ridge decided in favor of the associated
owners on tine first hearing of the case; his
decision was affirmed on appeal, and on a
final hearing by the House of Lords it was
recently affirmed again. This settles the law
for Great Britain, and, If the precedent is
followed by our courts, it will e1onerate the
Whisky Trust here.
How the Sugar Trust outwitted its enemies
by the simple expedient of forming itself
into a corporation under the laws of New
Jersey is notorious. Probably the Standard
Oil Trustees Will follow in substance, If not
exactly in the same form, the example thus
set them, though their ingenuity and that
OF their lawyers may devise some new and
hitherto unknown plan for continuing their
operations within the sanction of the law.
Trusts No Longer the Old Trusts
In fact none of the so-called trusts is a
trust any longer. They do not act as they
did at first, through the holding by
trustees OF the shares OF the various cor
porations of which they are composed, but
they are either single corporations, like the
sHgar Refiaeries Company, o. are lessee
corporations OF the properties OF their con-
limit to the amount of capital of corpora.
tions, nor TO the value OF the property which
they are allowed to own the fight against
trusts is the fight OF Lilliputians against
Gullivers.
This point has not escaped the obserya.
t1on of the more clear-sighted enemies Of
the trusts, and several OF them have sug-
gested the repeal of all laws permitting the
creation of large corporations the only
effectual means of preventing the aggrega-
tions of capital to which, under whatsoever
name, they are hostile. They have not vet
seriously proposed the adoption of this radi-
cal measure, but it would be good thing in
the end if they should do it, 1t would re-
open debate which ragged vigorously when
1 was boy, and which has long ago been
forgotten. TO renew it now would result in
teaching the present generation q great deal
that would be useful to it, and would clear
up its ideas on many points upon which it
needs enlightenment.
The hostilities which prevailed 90 or 20
years ago against corporations ofeyery kind
WAS based, like that which prevails now
against so-called trusts, upon an unreason-
ing dread of placing large masses of capital
under the control of a few individuals. In
those days the special objects of hatred
were banking corporations, though corpora
tions for manufacturing, mining and rail-
road building also came in for their share of
dislike.
Former Fights on Combinations.
dare say some of my readers can recall
the war waged by Andrew jackson upon the
United States Bank chartered by Congress,
and the apparent Justification which his
course in regard to it received by its col
lapse under subsequent charter obtained
from the Pennsylvania Legislature. They
may also remember the strategems en-
ployed to secure secretly banking privi-
leges from the Legislature of this
state, such as tacking on the grant of them
70 charters for water company. as in the
case of the present Manhattan Bank or q
canal company, like the Delaware and Hud-
son, or company to manufacture chem
lcals, like the original Chemical Bank.
All this bitterness and jealousy OF banking
corporations passed away long ago and was
succeeded by the enactment of laws in all
the States and, finally, by Congress provid-
Ing for their cheap and easy formation bv
whomsoever desires to do it. 1t is the same |
with railroad charters, that first were OBJ
tanned only with difficulty as special favors
and under all sorts of provisos and restric-
tlOns, but which now can be had nv any,
body under a general act. So it is with char
tiers Tor manufacturing and mining compa-
nles, for which also general laws have long
since been enacted
Ihat public opinion in regard to trusts
Will take similar course 1 have no doubt
1t is not to be denied that many things, both
IN history and in contemporary experience
justify the popular hostility to aggregations
OF capital. The requirement of great riches
is Impossible without intellectual ability
not, indeed, of the noblest Sort but still
superior to that of most other men. This
same ability, when reinforced with the in
strument which it creates becomes doubly
powerful, and, backed as it often is by in
tense greed and selfishness tends to oppres-
sion and cruelty.
Possession of Wealth a Warning.
In ancient times before civilization had
mlt1Sated social usages, the debtor was
liable to become the slave of his creditor.