The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-06-17

THE PETTIGREW PROPOSITION.
To deprive an article of domestic pro-
duction of the advantage of a duty i'm
posed upon similar imported merchandise,
if the home production should be restricted
or the price affected by a trust or combi-
nation may seem, at first thought, to be the
most direct method of dealing with trusts,
because it would open our markets to the
untrammeled production of the world.
After maturer consideration one may arrive
at different conclusion. In the first place,
importers would find it to their interest to
make it appear that there is a home COM
bination to limit production or maintain an
artificial price upon about every article
with which each of them completes. To de-
termine this, the importers would appeal to
the federal courts as compliments and
without cost, as the expense of the litiga-
ton would fall upon the government and
the defendant. Very naturally, importers
would organize to hold up many lines of
production, since suit brought against home
producers to prove that production is con-
trolled by a trust would seriously interfere
with the business if it could be interrupted
with suits which would make the outcome
uncertain. To run the risk of being made
defendant in court would cause many men
to keep out of business. Furthermore, such
a provision might seriously interfere with
the volume of the revenue. If duties
should be cut down at any time because
the production in this country issalleged to
be in the hands of a combination, no ac-
curate estimate could be made of the re-
ceipts from customs while the government
would be involved in numerous suits over
duties. There would be no power to de-
fine time when production in this country
that foreign competitors would have things
their own way with reduced duties which
could not be resisted without another ap-
peal to the courts.
1t may be added that the two or three
great trusts in this country which have
survived the past are not protected indus
tries The Standard Oil Company is the
most successful monopoly of the country,
and probably in the world. No tariff in this
country affects it. The whisky trust held
it's own for years by power of combination
the same Congressman who are DESTROYS
of turning a revenue bill into a seeming act
to overthrow trusts. The cigarette or to-
bacco trust cannot be affected materially
by a tariff. The cotton-seed oil trust ran
its race regardless of the tariff, which cam
not touch the industry. The antitrust
clause cannot affect the cotton packing
monopoly in which some of the Senators
who are Indignantly denouncing trusts are
said to be interested. The sugar refining
trust, which is said to have prospered under
the present ad valorem duty with a spe-
cific duty upon the refined product of a cent
a pound seems to be able, according to
Senator Jones and others who are respon-
sible for the present law, to compete with
foreigners without a special duty even of
one-eighth of a cent a pound, because of its
ability to refine sugar cheaper than Euro
pean competitors. If this is true and it is
asserted upon the say-so of two or three
Senator'S what remedy does the Pettigrew
proposition afford for those who are OPP
pressed by the sugar trust?
The leading sponsors of the Pettigrew
antitrust proposition are themselves the
advocates of the most destructive trust that
the world has ever known-the proposition
to compel the United States to stamp every
fifty cents worth of silver bullion brought
to the minis one dollar TO enrich silver
spectators, or TO give 5000 of legal tender
certificates for much silver bullion as
can be purchased for 500 when brought to
the federal minis. All but four or five of
the senators supporting the Pettigrew prop
osition propose to compel every savings
bank depositor, every holder of a life in
surance policy and several million other
owners of invested money to take such
coins and certificates at their face value
when, in the markets of the world, they
will have but half their face purchase
power. All the rest of the trusts in the
world are nothing to this.