Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1899-10-20

4 S3F
SO society has no assurance that it will
| get any; Of the benefits from that re-
-ductiOn Of cost in reduction of price.
/ But you will take away the necessity
| for that skill, for that brains: YOU
will take away the.stimulus that hes
| given to us the qllickness, the alert
ness Of the commercial eyangelists
who go from one part of the country
to the other carrying the, merits OF
their respective goods, will not be
needed, because when anybody wants
them all he has to do is to write to
| the one man who has the things for
sale, and say, What will you let me
have it for today? - -
Tariff Aids Monopoly.
'"The primary cause Of monopoly is
the love of money and the desire to Sc
( cure the fruits Of monopoly; butt L be-
l1eve that falling prices caused by a
rising dollar have contributed to this
desire and intensified it, because peo-
| pie with their plains, seeing the fall
! In prices and measuring the loss on in
| vestments, have looked about for
some means by which they could pro-
tect themselves from this loss, and they
! have joined in combinations to hold
up prices to protect their investments
from loss which would not have &C.
CURED but for the rise in the value
of dollars and the fall in the level OF
prices.
"Another thing that, in my Judgment.
has aided monopoly is high tariff.
Nobody can dispute that tariff law,
an import duty, enables a trust to
charge for it's product the price of a
similar foreign product plus the tariff.
Nov some have suggested that to
put everything on the free list that
trusts make would destroy the trusts.
do not agree with this statement as
1t is made SO broadly. 1 believe that
the high tariff has been the means of
extortion and that it has aided the
trust to collect more than the trust
otherwise could collect. But do not
believe you could destroy all trusts by
putting all trust-made articles on the
free list. Why? Because, if an article
can be produced in this country as
cheaply as it can be produced abroad
the trust could exist without the bene-
fit of any tariff, although it could not
extOrt SO much as it could with the
tariff, and while some relief may come
from notifications of the tariff, we
cannot destroy monopoly until we lay
the AK on the root of the tree and
make monopoly impossible by law.
Remedies Suggested.
''Now what can be done to prevent
the organization Of monopoly? L
rather think we differ more in remedy
than we do in our opinion of the trust
I venture to guess that few people will
defend the trust as a principle, or
trust organization as a. good thing, but
| imagine our great difference will be
as to remedy, and I want, for a mo-
ment, to discuss the remedy.
1--WE have dual form of govern
ment. We have state of government
and a federal government, and while
this dual form of government has it's
advantages, and to my mind advan-
tages which can hardly be overestimat-
ed, yet it also has it's disadvantages.
yet it also has it's disadvantages.
When you prosecute trust in the
United States court it hides behind
states sovereignty, and when you
prosecute it in the state court it rushes
to cover under federal jurisdiction
and we have had some difficulty in
prosecuting remedy.
II believe we ought to have remedies
in both state and nation, and that they
should be concurrent remedies. In the.
first place, every state has, or should
have, the, right to create any private
corporation which in the Justice of the
people of the state is conducive to the
welfare Of the people of that state. I
believe we can safely intrust to the
people of state the settlement of a
question which concerns them. If they
create corporation and it becomes
destructive OF their best interests they
can destroy that corporation, and we
can safely trust them both to create
and to annihilate if conditions make
annihilations necessary. In the Sec
Ond place, the state has, or should
have, the right to prohibit any foreign
corporation from doing business in the
state, and it ought to have or has the
right to impose SUCH restrictions and
limitations as the people Of the state
may think necessary for foreign cor
porations doing business in the, state.
In other words, the people of the state
not only should have right to create
the corporations they want, but they
should be permitted to protect them
selves against any outside corpora;
ton.
Congress Should Act.
But do not think this is sufficient.
I believe in addition to a state remedy
there must be federal remedy, and
believe congress has, OF: should have,
the power to place restrictions and
limitations, even to the point Of .prohi-
bition, upon any corporation organ
1. lied in one state that wants to do
business outside of the state say
, that congress has, or should have,
power to place upon that corporation
such limitations and restrictions, even
to the point Of prohibition, as may to
| congress seem necessary for. the pro-
lection Of the public good.
:Now l believe that these concur
rent remedies will reach the difficulty,
that the people of every state shall
first decide whether they want to scre7
ate corporation; that they shall, sec
ondly, decide whether they want any
outside corporations to do business in
the state, and, if so upon what condi-
lions; and, thirdly that congress shall
exercise the right to place upon every
corporation doing business outside of
tho Stato in Switch If is orUa pi1od e,,oh