Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-10-23

doubt whether. in the Whole United
States and under the many State laws
enacted against trusts, five convictions
Tor violation of antitrust penal laws
can be found. So difficult is it to prove
criminal intent, SO loath viii jurors be
20 regard combinations of trade as
criminal in their nature, that conyic-
IONS under penal statutes are prac-
tlcally unknown.
The Court of General Quarter Sos
sions of the Peace was onenad s,,g,,s+
= 1854. with Abraham De Pevster "a, as
presiding judge The first indictn,ent
found in this court was asainst Iobn
j. na'oon' VINO was accused Of forestalling
the market. Prosecutions for forasta1i,
,ns Tue market continued for hundred
yeais, ana during a portion of the same
peiiou not Jerseyman could bring a
pouhu VI butter, or pound of cheese,
" uozen hen eggs; not Connecticut
"a "a Aier could bring a load of fireWood
lnto new York, city, without paying a
guy thereon. 1t apparently did not
occur TO any considerable number of
our early legislators that the market
could not well be forestalled if compe-
tillen was open. Our recent legislators
IKE Mr. Mckinley and Mr.. Dingley.
seem 10 understand the problem little
Detter than the early Dutch and Eng
Nsn settlers of New York city. Why
continue TO interfere with the laws Of
trade, which. when left unobstrueted,
prevail with as much steadiness and
certainty as the law of gravitation. and
then attempt by penal legislation to
suppress the very artificial creatures
winch your interference has called into
existence. Wise craftsmanship pre-
vents the existence of evils. Cheap
demagogueS as legislators create evils.
and then attempt to make political cap
ltal out OF an attack upon them. Does
any intelligent, thinking man, who has
observed the tendency of party legisla-
ten in our day, seriously believe that
our politicians sincerely desire to sup
press trusts? We all know that the
politicians fatten upon such sores on
our body polite What would they do
for campaign disbursements of the
trusts did not respond to their solicita-
ticns for money in return for favorable
legislation? Both of the political par
ties are opposed to trusts-so they say,
at least-and yet, Notwithstanding this,
neither of them prescribes any other
remedy than the snowy and harmless
one of penal statute.
When Sumpter was fired upon, Mr.
Emerson summed up the cause of the
strife in "a single sentence: 1--WE have
been trying to do without justice" And
the whole problem. of the trusts to-day
can be summed up in the same Ian
guage-they exist because we have been
trying to do without justice. We can
not impose burdens upon seventy mill
lions Of people for the benefit Of less
than a million; we cannot subject our
legislators to the great temptations
which exist when they are allowed to
lay foundations in legislation for the
prices of necessaries, and still hope to
avoid the corruption and injustice
which are sure to follow.
The existence of the trust imperils
the very freedom Of our government.
1t has already turned thousands of in
dependent employers into employees. 1t
is rapidly destroying individual initia-
tive in the establishment of business.
1t must go, and it will go whenever we
take away the very causes which have
brought it into life
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
New York, October Z, 1899.