The herald., 1897-05-16
: TRUSTS and Competition

The collapse OF the steel-rail trust,
tumbling the price of rails from $25 to $17
a ton, was a recent notable event. Fol-
lowing, as it did the warning contained
in the presidents message relative 10
the menace of trusts and combines, the
collapse of any trust at this time Is
fraught with Significance, and should
be highly gratifying to the president.
whose feelings deserve to be shared in
by the people, Though the trust, in
company with the labor union, has been,
perhaps, only an element of progress, in
putting a check to competition that
might otherwise have led to industrial
anarchy or confusion, the time has about
come when the public will cease to toll
crate any longer either the one or the
other. For a change is on the way, and
he who cannot see it must be either
stone blind or wilfully closing his eyes.
From time mmemorial it has been
preached to us by certain false prophets
usually with their own ends in view
that competition was good thing, and
one of the greatest blessings; that it
stimulated energy, evolved new forces,
discovered new worlds, melted to deeds
of valor and heroism, and brought out
all that was best in mankind. And we
have swallowed it, this lie, this disgust
ing holus. making wry faces at times.
it is true, but readily asserting to all
the quack doctor ordered after he had
finally finished us with that egotistc
/ aphorism, "the survival Of the fittest."
For it. perhaps, never occurred to us that
survival of the fittest referred only to
animals of the very lowest order of crea-
tion, rather than to reasoning creatures
made in the image of God, and able to
l,ax ton t1,n~.
that, while competition has made many
O. Machiavelli to leave blot upon the
world, it has never made Christ nor
relieved by jot or little the smallest
item of human misery.
We repeat, competition has never
made anything but want, and waste, and
woe; never Calico. a Shakespeare, q
Columbus, a Stephenson or a Wagner.
That which is native to a man win he
learn, nor can any one be so foolish as
tc think the travail the easier when bur-
dened with the dead level Of trusts and
trades unions, which are but the natural
outgrowth of competitive system.
Waste under the competitive system
was early fores,eeM by the employers even
while preaching the benefits of compe-
tition to their employees. Hence the trust.
which is aS old as time itself. Some four
hundred years go Machiavelli, with ad-
mirable frankness, declared to Lorenzo
de Medici that there were occasions when
ones competitors should be purchased
and pacifed, and other times when it
were wiser to strangle them. To give an
example that should sufficiently impress
his pupil--one which, by the way, Is
equally apropos stofay--Machiavelli cites
the circumstance when Caesar Borgia
found himself hemmed in between
France on the one hand and the Orsini
on the other. To form alliances with both
was impossible. With courteous consid-
, GRAFTON. therefore. the Borgia invited the
fifteen leaders of the Orsini faction to q
sumptuousSbanquet and there strangled
them. There is nothing to chow whether
the catastrophe occurred before supper
or afterwards, but it is fine tale, full OF
splendid achievements and we would res
spectfully commend it to the consdera-
ton of Messrs Carnegie, Huntington,
r and those self-suff1cient young men who,
" not oeeing below the surface of success.
are wont to exclaim, "Oh, admire Hunt
ington." We feel assured that such
, would admire Machiavelli far more il
they only knew him.
But is such to be the principle Of busi-
: ness in the future, either trusts or whole
sale competition? Wealth for few, the
strangling of many, and the paciflcatiou
of the more dangerous competitors? 1t
the dispatches recently we are informed
that the Cleveland Rolling Mill company
has been receiving 100000 per annum
for refraining from making steel rails.
And there are those who say we need
more protection to infant industries!
Now that the pool has collapsed we read
that orders have been placed for rails a.
SIT per ton-a price below the cost Of
production-and that railroads have
been quick to take advantage by placing
) orders far in excess of immediate de-
|mands. Does it need anyone to tell us
that this means starvation wages to
the workingm that while we lean
back in our comfortable cushioned seats
. journeying across the continent we are
riding across the helpless and PROSTATE
forms of the workingmen who made
these rails, who are toiling longer hours.
at the lowest wages, and the scantiest
| of food, all because of government that
knows no form of protection to it's citi-
zens save that of bounty giving? II
J truets mean robbery, and wholesale
competition ruin, can the government
, go ON refusing to recognize or take ac-
tion in such straits by asserting her
proper function of government?
II r U ~