The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-08-13
AN ECONOMIST ON TARIFFS AND
TRUSTS.

Professor Gunton, the political econe-
mist and vigorous essayist, in his crit
zeal magazine, has a good word to say
for powerful organizations which con-
tribute to Industrial development, al
belt he is never an apologist for wrong,
tyranny or extortion, nor combinations
in restraint of trade. His latest essay on
the subject is frank paper and gives
a fair view of one side Of a currently
debated question.
He proceeds to say that to declare
the triff the mother of trusts, is to say
that the tariff is the mother of bust
ness prosperity, which is not wholly
without truth. He takes for example
the great surface railroad corporations
in large cities. They come nearest in
his opinion to being monopolies of any
thing in the land. These give better
and cheaper service than was ever be-
fore rendered to the public. They are
making big profits unquestionably, but
such are made possible by general
prosperity and without which they
would not have come into existence
here any more than they have in China
To prove that the trusts are not nee
cites the greatest of them all. the oil
trust, which does not depend upon the
tariff at all. Yet it has developed
the largest industries in the world, i'm
proved the quality of the product, low
cred the price to the community and
made fortunes for many, without any
aid from the Government by tariffs
He insists that in the debate of trusts
and tariffs that there shall be fair play.
That if large corporations are men
ace to. public welfare the fact should
be established by the data connected
with corporate industry. If tariffs are
bad things let that claim, he insists,
be maintained by the facts arising out
of tariff legislation. To confound the
two when they have no necessary con-
nection is demagogy, not discussion.
Professor Gunton's contention is that
when millionaire journalists, million
aire hard-fisted capitalists, heads of
millionaire trusts and ambitious mil
lionaire politicians talk against wealth,
they are performing to the galleries,
and are not to be taken seriously 'They
are catering to a public sentiment that
has been created by systematic traduc-
ing Of successful business men for po-
litical purposes. This has become SO
y, f,o IL
ion of the public aspects of industry
has become difficult and in many
quarters impossible. Intellectual in
tegrity In this field of public interests
is rapidly being submerged by economic
cant and public sensation"
He takes Mr.. Havemeyer, head of the
sugar trust, for instance, that is noto-
rious as a. stock manipulation and
plays ducks and brakes with it's own
stock in the market place." making
large profits out of unsuspecting invest
ors. In 1894. Gunton alleges, when the
Wilson bill was before the Senate that
trust was the most active factor in the
lobby. Its head was for high protec-
ton, and it's employees and officers were
sent to Jail for refusing to answer ques-
tions. Then the enemies of such tar
if as we now have were denouncing
Havemeyer as debaucher of public
morals Now he appears declaring that
the tariff is the mother of trusts, and
his utterance is received as from one
who speaks excathedra.
If he believes trusts are bad things,
then he should be condemned, declares
Gunton, for being at the head of one.
If he does not then he is a humbug
for saying what he did recently. He
insists that Havemeyer's case is one of
'ssour grapes and whining" and his ut
terance worthless from a moral or an
economic point of view. IF he con-
tends the tariff is the mother of trusts,
it is a fact capable of demonstration.
But Professor Gunton at this point de-
MES that the American Sugar Refining
Company is trust. 1t was disor-
eanized by law and is now but a large
corporation, and he AYERS that the larg-