Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1896-10-08
MOTHER OF TRUSTS. /.
Free Trade. Not Protection, II the Parent
of Monopoly. |sv

Free Trade, Not Protection, II the Parent
Of Monopoly. 'ss
This example of needless excitement
has just been received:
To the Editor of the Press-Sir: I submit
that In one instance Protection Is complete
y played out! 1t Is in the one item coal!
A retail dealer told me yesterday that the
recent outrageous advances In coal are ow-
ing to the banking firm OF Drexel. Morgan
4 Co.. who positively refused to undertake axe
until the other coal companies agreed to
advance the price of coal-jnst as has been
SSne t. h will sSa n Of the Ss people
yocate the admission free Of duty Of all
kinds of coal! And If not Sso why net;
Bloomfield. N. j., Sept. 4.
There is no duty on anthracite coal,
the only kind of which the price has
been "outrageously advanced" the kind
of which our correspondent is talking,
the kind which the Coal trust sells.
There never has been such duty. There
never will be. such duty: The protec-
ton which this trust enjoys was con-
ferred by the Creator Of the world when
He put anthracite coal in the Schuylkill
and Wyoming valleys of the state of
Pennsylvania, and in paying quantities
nowhere else, so far as man has yet dis
covered.
The anthracite Coal trust has abused
this natural protection. 1t has far ex-
ceeded the slight advance which was
due and proper in view of years of ruin
Gus war among the separate coal bar
ons." But such abuse cannot be reached
by prosecutions under such statutes as
the antitrust law which the Republican
party passed when last in power and
which a Democratic administration has
not sought once to enforce.
OF bituminous coal there has been no
increase in price, though it is alleged to
have tariff protection. That protection
is such that more than 100000 tons,
eleven months of last year, while the con-
tract for supplying the New England
roads, which act conformity in this mat
ter. came near going to Nova Scotia. The
Wilson bill duty of 40 cents a ton does
not equal the difference in cost of produc-
profit in the mines, and very often no
work for the miners since that law went
into effect.
But were the duty on btuminous coal
1000 per cent, no bituminous trust could
Cypress the consumer as has the an
coal is found in every section of the
country. north. east. south and west. 1t
is mined in Pennsylvania. 1t is mined
in Washington. 1t is mined in Tennes-
see. 1t is mined in Colorado. Thus. it
comes under the operation of the prin-
ClDle VI uOHcStlC COHhpttltlOH, WHICH HAS
foiled the schemes of every trust in this
country. not having, like anthracite coal
and coal oil, a natural protection to sup
port it,. A bituminous coal trust would
meet the fate of the great trusts
cordage, whisky, tobacco and rubber
and the little trusts in umbrellas, win
dow shades and the like, which have
been ruined, or crippled or forced to dis
solve as the result Of their attempts to
control the home market Everyone of
the three great successful trusts of today
is free-trade trust. Coal and oil have
their natural protection, as we have
shown. The sugar trust fourishes sole
ly because the bounty which had be-
gun to foster the American sugar crop
was abolished by the Wilson law. Had
that bounty remained in operation, the
cultivation of the sugar beet would have
caused the erection of sugar refinery
in every Western town. TO restrict
the production of all these plants would
have been found as impossible as it
was found to restrict the production of
the distilleries. yI
Free trade, not protection. is the moth
er of trusts.-New York Press.