The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-11-28
THE UBIQUITOUS TRUST.

jubilation the statement Of the dis
solution of that most rapacious Of the
trusts, the nail manufacturers COM
bination. We have seen these trusts
dissolve before, both voluntarily and
under pretended acquiescence either in
legislation or judicial decree, and then
reappear as clipper as ever, to accept
with any degree of confidence the story
of the dissolution of the nail trust
When congress passed, with serio-comic
pretense, the antitrust act, we saw the
sugar trust keeping up the farce, make
pretentious obedience to the mandate,
but it reappeared soon after under the
aegis of New jerseys corporation acts
and no one has discovered that it is
any less a trust than ever.
We saw the attorney general Of Illi-
nois prosecute the whisky trust to
judicial dissolution, but the whole act
was accompanied with the continuation
of the trust under a federal receiver
ship, pursuing trust methods of trade
with the sanction of a court directly
amenable to congressional law, the
farce ending with a reorganization,
forming another trust, composed of the
members of the old trust, bidding in
the properties of the "defunct' trust,
receiving the benediction of a federal
court in it's approval of the sale, and
''resuming business at the old stand"
under the same methods of doing bust
ness that its predecessor had devised.
We have seen the rejuvenated sugar
trust prosecuted for violation Of the
antitrust law to be only the more
strongly intrenched by the decision Of
a federal court that it had no juris-
diction under the antitrust act over
the acts of the trust as charged, and
we have just had the decision Of an
other federal court that the rebate
method Of the new whisky trust, the
keystone Of the trust system, is a
valid and enforcible contract. To be
sure we have had Judge Bakers de-
cision that the nail trust is IAN illegal
combination and that it's purposes are
violative of sound public policy" but,
under the decision of Judge ShoWalter
sustaining the rebate contracts, 1t is
difficult to see why the nail trusts
contract with makers of nail machines
not to sell to parties outside the trust
| is not just as valid. Our own supreme
court has laid down the law that what
one man can lawfully do any number
of men may lawfully unite to do, al
though the doctrine is not accepted in
! Wisconsin, where suit is pending,
brought by the attorney general to dis
solve a combination of the same kind
for the same end as that one which re-
ceived it's valuation in the Bohn case,
and although the supreme court Of
Indiana, in a similar case, explicitly
refused to follow the decision in that
case.
So about all that the nail users can
do is to take advantage of this tenn
porary break and lay in a supply of
nails before the reorganization
comes and prices go SkyWard again.
| We can see in this dissolution moth
ing but the operation Of the threat
made by the trust before the Baker
decision to crowd out its little COM
petitors by forcing prices down below
the competitive limit. 1t is the old
game of "freeze-out." When the lit
tie fellows have been reduced and sub
dued into willingness to surrender and
join the combination, we will hear Of a
reorganization effected with the Gus
tcmarily avowed philanthropic purpose
Of merely regulating the output and
maintaining prices at a remunerative
point" Like the ubiquitous flea, a
trust is never there when the public
puts either it's legislative or judicial
finger on it.