The Advocate and news., 1899-03-29
TRUSTS AND A FIRST STEP AGAINST
THEM.

THEM.
1t is very difficult matter just now to
pick up any newspaper which does not
devote some attention to the trust ques
ton, either in chronicling the formation OF
new trusts or in calling attention to the
danger to the country that comes from Their
existence.
1t is extremely important that something
should be done about them; everyone now
admits that they menace the freedom ana
prosperity of the country. How far they
can be regulated and in what way is the
biggest home problem we have yet tackled.
Let us take a sort of preliminary survey
Of the ground and the material we have TO
work on.
None of us wants to go back to the days
of small and crude production. We all want
individual freedom but no one thinks OF
suggesting that we give up the greater part
of what invention and progress have
brought lis in the last half century. No,
what we must set ourselves to do is to get
rid of some of the evils that have come
with half development
Some persons are confident that the
trusts can be regulated, while others think
that one might as well try to regulate"
a tornado. Leaving all this controversy out
of our dscussion--remember that we are
lust now taking only preliminary sur
vey-what is there to be done in any case
as a necessary first step2
sh
1t is as highly necessary thatwe nave first
class machinery as it is that we pick out the
best plan OF action. We have antitrust
laws all over the country, but somehow
they do not seem to have stemmed the tide
in the least Every now and then we hear
of an attorney general who rises mp in his
might and proceeds to crush the trusts in
his immediate neighborhood--but by the
time his term of Office has expired the trusts
are twice as many and twice as strong. 80
far we seem to have been trying TO "regu-
late" tornado.
1t must be confessed that we have pretty
weak implements to work with. 1t will
not do for us to begin with weak and in
competent legislators and executives in
power, yet we elect officers about whose
ability and steadfastness we are not at all
certain and leave them to the tender mer-
cies of the trusts.
Here is where one of our first steps must
be taken. We must exercise less partisan
ship and higher sense of citizenship in
choosing our public servants, and we must
exercise as well some control over them
while they are in Office.
Il
This matter is very important.
Corporations and trusts have frequently
bought up legislators and corrupted other
"public servants" to their own uses simply
because the voters were powerless to OBJ
ject--and their servants knew this and
pOcketed the Doodle,
Measures we need to cOunteract this state
of affairs are
(l) One which shall tend to do away
with slavish partisan ship and instill in the
minds of voters higher and more unselfsh
ideals;
(2) Another which shall give the people
the right TO pass upon the acts of their ser
wants, correcting those which are wrong and
seeing to the doing of those left undone;
and
(3) A third which shall give the people
the right at once to recall from service any
public official who may fail to do his duty
or who leagues himself with corrupt inRu
ences.
These three would go far toward prepar