Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-05-20

would plant thistles upon the graves OF
it's Industrial ancestry. Rather let it be
said that the trust should be met as a
naturally evolved condition, and convert
ed into a factor of good if possible instead
of a messenger Of evil .~s. as
The argument that it is a menace to
labor was made in the days when the
village shops were combined in the fac
tory. and no doubt the j~ourneyman
tinker who soldered the holes in the FAM
lily tinware, as he travelled from house
to house in the days of our forefathers,
saw ruin staring him in the face when
wiggling pollywog Of a trust was born.
But the demand for work grew with the
creation of the tinshop, and the Journey
man had more work and steadier work
and better and surer pay than ever be-
fore. As the averages of the world go.
year in and year out, the evolution into
the factory and into the corporation has
produced essentially better conditions for
those who toll. in that it has increased
production and educated the consumer
to the belief that the luxuries of yester-
day have become the necessities of to-
day.
There is no ground upon which to
base the argument that the organization
of the trust will lessen the average pro-
duction or output of the industrial voca-
the price of a given article is to destroy
the capacity of the people to buy it,,
first, by lessening the income Of wage
earners in the aggregate, and, secondly,
by placing the article beyond their reach.
To do this would be to diminish the
profits Of capital invested and cripple
the business enterprise. The trusts can
not afford to establish a rule Of that kind,
and, with the exception Of an isolated
ously anticipated. Capital cannot afford
to establish a law Of procedure that
would be a crime against itself.
="
The argument that laboring men will
have their chances Of earning a living
curtailed or abridged is not we'll taken.
Opportunities for work depend upon the
demand for labor. whether that demand
comes from IN individual, a corporation
or a trust. To say that the trust will
lessen the opportunities Of those who toll
is to say that industrial paralysis is to
follow its introduction. If such should
be the case the trust will evolute out of
existence with great celebrity. To say
that it will place labor at a ~disadvan-
tage by denying to the operative an OPP
portunity to secure a job When once dis
charged, having destroyed competition
in management, is to say that the black
list will be introduced as an industrial
feature. An innovation of that charac-
any combinations of capital in this coun-
try, for it would be a feature in contra
vention of the constitutional rights Of
man, and would hasten the end of the
ret2utlic. Invested capital can not afford
to make war on mankind by depriving
men Of bread, any more than it can af-
ford to court its own destruction by de-
stroying the purchasing power of the
people.
On the contra nv a SNEIHn Oh CIVIL ser.
vice that will guarantee permanency of
employment, and which has worked so
satisfactorily in the affairs Of the gov
inner in the departments at Washing
ton, as we'll as in manufacturing enter
prises where undertaken, is more likely
to become the rule. The uncertainty of
employment contingent upon the uncer-
tain tenure of existence on the part of
sinai rival manufacturing concerns may
he done away With. Civil service regu-
lations, properly applied in the affairs Of
a great concern, is the first step toward
q system of cooperation that will ulti-
mately make the operative a part of the
enterprise ltseil. Ahu" - may - Po'
sible to convert the trust into an engine
of human happiness, despite the fact that
its initial work is out Of line with the
fixed ideas of the public and may tenn
porarily prove disadvantageous to many.
1. is pretty certain that the trust can
not be destroyed, unless it overplays it's
hand and topples from it's own weight.
If the average prosperity of the country
shows no sign of being interrupted