Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1897-08-26
Trusts and Corporations.

Ex-Governor Flower has been ad-
dressing the New York State Grange
on the subject of Combinations Of
Capital, and. like most OF his sort
who approach an evil which menaces
the many aud profits the few. he is SO
very careful to qualify his disapproval
of trusts and monopolies that his Mt
terances amount to defence.
People must not, he thinks. ..cry
out against trusts because they are
trusts ..the tendency of the times in
industry and commerce, in charity or
in science, is all toward cooperation
and organization But the trust
methods are not the methods OF coop
Grafton, FOR that implies action for the
common good. not of few employers
only. but of their employees as we'll.
Cooperation stands for the widest just
distribution of the products of indus
try. The trust strives to accomplish
the narrowest possible monopolization
of them.
Corporations, continues Mr.. Flow
er, 'will be greedy and selfish just as
individuals. They will deserve criti-
cism just as individuals. They should
be controlled by law just as individn-
ais" Here he stops short of the fact.
Corporations should be and are more
subject to the restraining force OF the
law than individuals They are the
creation of the State, and always with
in the disciplinary powers of their
creator. At every point where their
interests touch those of the citizens
whose representatives gave the cor
porations legal existence they must be
subject to the interposition OF the State
to the end that equity may be done.
Continuing, Mr.. Flower expresses
this novel idea: They (corporations)
must always keep the price of their
products below the figure at which an
independent producer could furnish
the same article. and they are usually
able to DO this by reason OF the econo-
mics permitted by combined produc-
tion.n Possibly Mr.. Flower has been
misquoted here. The corporation Is
not always superior to the individual
in the amount of its resources or the
extent OF its product. 1t does not al
ways undersell the individual, nor is
the need for 1t so to do any greater
than the need OF the individual to un-
dersell it. The trust--a distinct enti-
ty from the corporation-does indeed
by diut of extortion at one point UNDER
sell Independent producers at some
other point until they are driven out
of business. 1t is possibly TO this busi-
ness method that Mr.. Flower refers so
admiringly. But the cheap prices are
seldom made possible by the economies
of corporate management, for 1t is mat
ter OF common notoriety that business
conducted by man for himself is more
cheaply managed than an enterprise
managed by board of directors for
an army of stockholders. When the
trust undersells a competitor it is to
force him out of business, that 1t may
thereafter enjoy monopoly prices. The
loss it suffers while playing the game
of "freeze-out" at one point it makes
up by extortion practised upon its Gus
toners at other places where its mon
opoly is complete. The body of the
people always suffer loss through a
trust. Indeed. it is to plumber them
that trusts are organized.
Doubtless, when EX-GOVERNOR Flower
has leisure to go into his subject more
deeply, at some future time, he will
recognize the value OF these emeada-
tions of his lecture on combinations
of Capital" Doubtless, too, many of
his former hearers recognize it already.
N T. Journal.
Laces and embroideries cheap, a