Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1896-09-22
Why Trusts Flourish.


The centre OF the antitrust warfare
has been for some time in New York.
Some particularly stringent laws
against this class of combinations in
restraint of trade We're passed at the
last session of the state Legislature.
These laws We're SO framed that a
trust corporation organized in another
state was amenable TO them If it did
business in New York. Under the pro-
visions of one of them, as well as under
the general conspiracy law of the state,
indictments We're found last May
against the directors and officers of the
American Tobacco company. The case
of this company was specially suitable
for test case, because of the amount
of evidence which was available from
the records of the proceedings begun
in New Jersey to Vacate its charter,
Counsel for the company at once en-
tered a demurrer to the indictments
asked for and were granted time to
prepare their arguments. and nothing
more has been heard of the matter.
This was four months ago. and mean
while the whole proceeding seems to
have been forgotten, both by the press
and public. One newspaper recently
undertook tornado the attorney general
Of the state responsible for the nom
enforcement of the antitrust law. but
ELECTED from him convincing defence.
The responsibility of the district attor-
rey of New York county has not. so
far, been very vigorously pressed.
Meanwhile, the casual discussion of
the subject has brought out the some
what curious fact that a newspaper of
the standing of the Evening Post can
afford TO make itself the champion of
the trusts without apparent loss of
reputation in New York. The difficulty
of understanding the Posts attitude is
not lessened by the reason it gives to
explain it. These are of the shallowest
and most inconsequential character
1t requires. for example, a good deal of
confidence in the obtuseness or the in
difference of the public to make such Il
statement as this: THE real difficulty
is that the trusts do not conspire and
combine to restrain trade, but to make
it better by cutting down expenses. ;"
In point of fact, more than half the
value of the capital stock of one and
all of them is based on the amount of
success they achieve in maintaining Il
monopoly in restraint of trade. There
has never been a cargo of German
sugar entered at an American port
whose distribution was not watched
and the recipients blacklisted by the
agents of the sugar trust
To find a free trade newspaper apol-
Ogizing for the most nOXious of all the
products of the protective system is
sufficiently strange, but it is, perhaps,
still more curious that any intelligent
observer of public affairs should be
blind to the dangerous, political, COM
mercial and social interest in the trust
system People have grown accus-
toned to hear it denounced by party
conventions, and let alone by the nomi-
rees of these bodies when they gained
official ability to act on the denurcia-
ton. But if Indifference to trust
methods is to develop into advocacy of
them among those who stand for the
highest ideals of government and of
legislation, the outlook must be adj
mitted to be somewhat discouraging.
1t is some comfort to reflect, however.
that the plain people have sound views
On this subject. even if some of the
superfine people so hopelessly wrong.