New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1899-09-27
Bryan and the Trusts.
The Undisputed Leader of Democracy HOnors
the Chicago Trust Conference with
His Presence.
A Speech that Awakened Great Enthusiasm
and Pointed Out Several Remedies.
He Denies that Trusts are the Ontgrowth of
Natural Laws.

Col. Bryan was the principal speaker
at the conference on the uses and abuses
of trusts in Chicago last week and his
address was listened to by thousands. In
z fact it was the only one that drew out 8
q crowd. Among. other things Col. Bryan
said:
s'The trust question has grown in i'm
portance. Within the past two years
more trusts have been organized, when
we come to consider the capitalization
and the magnitude of the interests in
volved, than were organized in all the
previous history of the country, and the
people now come face to face with this
question: Is the trust blessing or a
curse? If a curse, what remedy can be
applied to the curse? I want to start
with the declaration that monopoly in
private hands Is indefensible from any
standpoint, and is intolerablc. One trust
magnate may be more benevolent than
another, but there is no good monopoly
in private hands, and do not believe
it is safe for society to permit any, man
or group of men to monopolize any ar
ticle Of merchandise or any branch of
business. :
"The defense of the monopoly is al
ways placed on the ground that if you
will allow people to control the market
and fix the price they will be good to
the people who purchase of them. The
entire defense of the trusts rests upon
a money argument. If the trust Will sell
to man an article for dollar less than
the article will cost under other condi-
tons, then, in the opinion of some, that
proves a trust to be good thing. In
the first place, I deny that, uader mo-
nopoly, the price will be reduced. In
the second place, if, under monopoly,
the price is reduced, the objections to
~ monopoly from other standpoints far
outweigh the financial advantages that
the trust would bring.
"But I protest in the beginning against
settling every question upon the dollar
argument.
Sin the early years of Lincoln's ad-
ministration he sent d message to Con-
gress, and IN that message he warned his
countrymen against the approach of
monarchy. He said it was the attempt
to put capital upon an equal footing
with, if not above, labor, in the structure
of government, and in that attempt he
saw the approach of monarchy. Lincoln
was right, Whenever you put capital up
on an equal footing with labor or above
labor, in the structure of government,
you are on the road to aid government
that rests, not upon reason, but upon
force
"Nothiug is more important than that
we shall, in the beginning, rightly un-
derstand the relation between money
and man.
"What is the purpose of the trust or
the monopoly-for when use the word
trust I use it in the sense that the trust
means monopoly-and what is the pur-
pose of monopoly9
"The first advantage of monopo1y
is to lower the price of the raw material
furnished by the people to that combi-
nation.
"The next thing is, after you have
bought up all the factories, to close q
part of them and turn ont Of employ
ment the men who are engaged in them,
and if you will 60 about over the coun-
try you will see where those enterprises,
having come under the control of the
trusts, have been closed up and stand
now as silent monuments to the wisdom
of the trust system. In case of local
strikes and fires, the work goes on else
where, thus preventing serious loss.
What does it mean? It means that if the
people employed in one factory are not
satisfied with the terms fixed by the en-
/. 5ployer, and strike, they can close down
that factory and let the employees starve
while thew 90 on in other factories with
out.loss to the manufacturers.
when a branch of industry is entire
II in the hands of one great monopoly,
SO that every skilled man in that indus
try has to go to the one man for employ
ment then that one man Will fix wages
as he pleases and the laborlng man viii
then share the suffering OF the man who
sells the raw material.
ssWhen monopoly has complete con