The Indianapolis journal., 1899-08-14
THE wINDOW-GLAss TRUST AND
OTHERS.


has set in in the matter of trusts. The win
dow-glass combination. which, with $1,000
600 of capital behind it, was expected TO be
one of the strongest in the country, has
gone TO pieces and it is reported that the
wire-nail trust will soon follow. These dis
solutions are as much in accordance with
the natural laws of trade and individual ill.,
The Journal has insisted from the beginning
that trusts were largely the result of natur-
al conditions, great commercial prosperity
and high competition. and that in the end
they would be governed by natural condi-
tions and the law of the survival of the
fittest. 1t is absurd TO suppose that trusts
are due to the success of any political party
or the existence of any particular tariff law.
except in as far as these conditions may
contribute to state of general prosperity.
Sufficient proof of this is the fact now IA
miliar to all, that trusts are as common in
England as they are in the United States
The business world has laws of its own as
distinct and arbitrary as those of the phys
ical. the moral or the spiritual world Given
ments and results. and great combinations
of capital are sure to occur, while under
other conditions they are as sure to go to
pieces. AS the formation of trusts is in
tended to prevent or control competition.
and does have that result, it follows that
they carry in themselves the germ of their
own dissolution or correction, because as
soon as competition is curtailed beyond
certain point it will spring up again.
The failure Of the window-glass trust and
the prospective dissolution OF the wire-nail
trust are not due exactly to the cause above
alluded to. but they are due to other natur-
al causes and show the difficulty of main
tanning trusts that conflict with the laws OF
trade or with individual interests. The win
dow-glass workers had much to do with
breaking up that trust, first by threatening
legal proceedings against the companies ii
they entered into a combination to control
production and prices. and then by entering
into compact with the independent manu-
facturers. 1t is said the latter have agreed
to pay the workmen the ~ per cent. ad-
vance in wages which they have been ask
ing and which the combination would have
refused. Thus. by forming an alliance with
the Independent and cooperative manufac-
turers the workmen virtually formed new
combination and turned the trusts guns
against itself, for If they held to their agree
ment to work only for independent manu-
facturers the trust factories would have
been unable to obtain workmen. 1t was
combination against combination and one
set of interests against another If the or
ganized window-glass workers, with the aid
Of few Independent factories could pre-
vent the formation of a trust which threat
ened to control the entire window-glass bus
mess of the country 1t is worth while to
consider whether the same thing cannot be
done in other cases.
In the osse of the wire-nail trust II is
said some of the .ockholders think the
trust management Is playing a kind of
freeze OUT game to benefit some stock
holders at the expense of others. Other
stockholders in factories embraced in the
trust think the mills in which they are in
terested not getting their share of the
total amount Of work. A house divided
against itself cannot stand, and trust in
which some of the stockholders are profit
ing at the expense of others must go to
pieces
These cases do not show that all trusts
contain within themselves the seeds of their
own dissolution or that they should not be
regulated by legislation. but they do show
that trusts cannot escape from the natural
laws of trade or the conservative influence
of individual interests and competition.