Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1893-05-12
TRUSTS AND TRUSTS.

The great failures in the New York
stock market last week are not gener-
ALLY considered to be the result of
trade depression, or distrust on &C
count of silver coinage; but rather
reaction against undue consolidation
of business, or loss of confidence in
the potency of trust methods. People
have came to realize that all trusts are
not profitable, and will not, as many
have done heretofore, blindly invest in
such securities. The New York Bull
letin says:
The break in the industrials, severe
as it has been, was hardly a
surprise. Conservative bankers and
shrewed spectators have been looking
for just such developments. The ma
jority of what may be termed the
speculative industrials were intro
duced upon the stock exchange, not
for the purpose of raising funds and
building up great enterprises as the
majority Of railroads have been, but
solely for the purposes of speculation.
The evil is working out it's own cure
by natural methods. To the latter
these operations may have proved
successful; but to the present holders
and to the trades in general which they
represent, the effect is demoralizing
in the highest degree. There are
doubtless many industrial and COM
mercial concerns which can be oper-
ated on joint stock methods, but when
that method is utilized solely for
speculative purposes we can expect
only such developments as have been
witnessed the past few months in Cor
dage. Whisky, Sugar, Lead Rubber,
Chicago Gas, etc. 1t is worthy of note
that the collapse is entirely speculative
and not due to depression.
The st. Paul Pioneer Press thinks
that the break is due to some extent
to the distracted condition of our
national finances, on account of COM
pulsory silver coinage, but adds:
There is another relation in affairs
like this which is pleasanter to con-
template, because it is not conse-
quence of public folly, and because the
tendency Of it lies in a direction that
will be generally satisfactory. 1t will
be observed that the principal trouble
in the stock market concerned itself
with what are known as indus.rials."
It was the National Cordage concern
that got into the breakers, while it
was Sugar stocks, Cotton, Oil, Chicago
Gas and the like that were similarly
affected and went down in sympathy
with all the market. Now these are
all trusts; and trusts of the most
odious and offensive sort. They are
great monopolies, built up by the con-
solidation or absorption of separate
business interests, and that they
should get into financial deep water
| will not cause general mourning or
CONSERVATION. The fact that they had
this experience, that they were found
| easy of attack and weak in defense,
shows one of the vulnerable features of
the trust argument. Its securities be-
come, unless they can be kept within
limited circle, and held solely as in
vestments, a football for thes peculator.
There is much reason to think that
the public generally has oyerstimated
the advantages of consolidation in
business, and the economies of the
| wholesale as contrasted with the retail
method. Such an advantage exists,
but the process may be carried easily
to an extreme. Too much general ar
gument has been built upon phenomen-
al success of such a combination as
the Standard Oil, for example. But
the Standard Oil has had other reasons
for succeeding than the mere fact that
it was great monopoly. In the first
place, the control of it has never been
put at the mercy of market fuctua-
tons. 1t has been made something
very like a family concern. The men
who managed it were in perfect ac-
cord. and took good care to keep their
affairs within the mastery of their own
number. And they had sense enough
to see that the best business profits were
to be made by consulting, to some ex-
tent at least, the interest of the public
That this monopoly has been willing
to let the people have at least slice
of the benefits arising from combina-
ton is part of the secret of their toll
erence and of its own success.
The promoters of the trust will dis
cover in the end that it has inherent
weakness, aside from the hostility of
the law, and that the hand of every
man is against it to an extent that
makes it high in general favor only as
the result of a nassinp dalusinn