Morris tribune., 1899-10-07


duction of cost in reduction of price.
But you will take away the necessity
for that skill, for that brains. You
will take away the stimulus that has
given to us the quickness, the alert
ness of the commercial evangelists
who 60 from one part of the country
to the other carrying the merits or
their respective goods, will not be
needed, because when anybody wants
them all he has to do is to write TO
the one man who has the things for
sale, and say, What will you let me
have il for today?
Tariff Aids Monopoly.
1.-THE primary cause of monopoly 10
tAe love of money and the desire to Sc
cure the fruits of monopoly; but be-
lieve that falling prices caused by a
rising dollar have contributed TO this
desire and intensified 1t, because peo-
pie with their plains. seeing the fall
in prices and measuring the loss on in
vestments, have looked about for
some means by which they could pro-
tect themselves from this loss, and they
have Joined in combinations to hold
up prices to protect their investments
from loss which would not have oc-
cured but for the rise in the value
of dollars and the fall in the level OF
prices.
Another thing that, in my judgment,
has aided monopoly Is high tarin.
Nobody can dispute that tariff law,
an import duty, enables a trust 10
charge for its product the price OF a
similar foreign product plus the tarif1.
Now some have suggested that to
put everything on the free list that
trusts make would destroy the trusts.
l do not agree with this statement as
it is made so broadly. believe that
the high tariff has been the means or
extortion and that it has aided the
trust to collect more than the trust
otherwise could collect. But / do not
believe you could destroy all trusts by
putting all trust-made articles on the
free list. Why? Because, if an article
can be produced in this country as
cheaply as it can be produced abroad
the trust could exist without the bene-
fit of any tariff, although it could not
extort so much as it could with the
tariff, and while some relief may come
from notifications of the tariff, we
cannot destroy monopoly until we lay
the ak on the root Of the tree and
make monopoly impossible by law.
Remedies Suggested.
"Now what can be done to prevent
the organization of a monopoly? l
rather think we differ more in remedy
than we do u our opinion of the trust.
| venture to guess that few people will
defend the trust as a principle. or
trust organization as a good thing. but
l imagine our great difference will be
as to remedy, and / want, for mo-
ment, to discuss the remedy.
eve have a dual form of govern
ment. We have state of government
and a federal government, and while
this dual form of government has its
advantages, and to my mind advan-
tages which can hardly be overestimat-
ed, yet it also has it's disadvantages.
yet it also has its disadvantages.
When you prosecute trust in the
United States court it hides behind
states sovereignty, and when you
prosecute it in the state court it rushes
to cover under federal Jurisdiction
and we have had some difficulty in
prosecuting remedy.
81 believe we ought to have remedies
in both state and nation, and that they
should be concurrent remedies. In the
first place, every state has, or should
have. the right to create any private
corporation which in the justice of the
people of the state is conducive to the
welfare, of the people Of that state.
believe we can safely intrust to the
people of a state the settlement of a
question which concerns them. If they
create a corporation and it becomes
destructive of their best interests they
can destroy that corporation, and we
can safely trust them both to create
and to annihilate if conditions make
annihilatiOns necessary. In the Sec
ond place, the state has, or should
have, the right to prohibit any foreign
corporation from doing business in the
state, and it ought to have or has the
right to impose such restrictions and
limitations as the people of the state
may think necessary for foreign cor
porations doing business in the state.
In other words, the people of the state
not only should have right to create
the corporations they want, but they
should be permitted to protect them
selves against any outside corpora
ton.
Congress Should Act.
But l do not think this is sufficient.
I believe in addition to state remedy
there must be a federal remedy and
believe congress has, or should have,
the power to place restrictions and
limitations, even to the point Of prohi-
bition, upon any corporation organ
lied in one state that wants to do
business outside of the state. / say
that congress has, or should have,
power to place upon that corporation
such limitations and restrictions, even
to the point of prohibition, as may to
congress seem necessary for the pro-
lection of the public good.
Now l believe that these concur
rent remedies will reach the difficulty,
+ho+ tho noon1p of every state shall