The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1899-08-24
A SOUTHRON'S VIEW.
tAvEMEYER's TESTIMONY ANALYzED
BY AN EXPERT.

Pedigree of Trusts Traced to the
Free Trade Country OF Their ORR
gin. Where the Father OF Them All
Had His Birth.
In a letter to The American Econo-
mist Mr.. D. d. Colcock, secretary Of
the Sugar and Rice Exchange of New
Orleans, says that IL appearing before
the industrial commission Mr.. 81. 0.
Havemeyer, the sugar king, took leaf
out Of General Eagan's book and pro-
duced a written statement and pro-
ceeded to attack the revenue policy OF
the Republican party. This, says Mr..
,Colcock, is styled the testimony" OF
Mr.. HaYemeyer, just as Eagan's screed
against Miles was styled testimony"
and we may soon expect prisoners IN.
der trial, when allowed to testify in
their own behalf, to deliver philippics
against the mode Of administering JUS
tice, organizing of courts and impanel-
ing Of juries. 1t is quite fin de steele.
Nevertheless, the statement is worth
criticising, for it is evident that Mr..
Havemeyer put into 1t all the logic at
his command. Unfortunately for him,
he begins with q ''half truth"-viz,
that "the mother of all trusts is the
customs tariff bill" Nobody has ever
predicted for trusts anything like i'm
maculate conception, so If they have
any mother" at all they must have
also a father" and as the eldest Of
the brood is the great old "he" trust OF
them all, the ''alkah trust" Of England,
with a "kid" on this side of the wa
ter, papa's name must be Free
Trade"
If such be the pedigree Of these cor
morants, to rush from protection to
free trade would simply be placing the
children under the care Of the father
instead of the mother.
OF course the people will have to act
through their representatives in con-
gress, and so far as Mr.. Havemeyer's
particular bantling is concerned the
people can safely put their trust in
Republican congress, for they have
been educated up to the point of fully
comprehending the iniquities of an lad
valorem" system. Indeed, the discus
sion in the present congress when the
Dingley bill was up for debate in the
senate was postgraduate" course
in revenue and protection.
In the hearings before the ways and
means committee In January, 1897,
speaking for the American Sugar Re-
filming company as it's secretary and
treasurer, Mr.. Searles said (wrote): "In
conclusion, the American refners ask
that in fixing the duties on raw sugar
they be based upon the intrinsic value
Of the various grades" For good and
sufficient reasons, supplied by the do
nestle sugar producers and the i'm
porters Of foreign sugar, the commit
tee refused this plea for "ad valorem"
duty, and Mr.. Havemeyer has been
sore ever since.
At the same hearing Mr.. McCahan,
an Independent refner, when asked,
''Who has taken the 40 per cent of your
customers which you say you have
lostY' replied, 81 suppose that we have
that much more capacity than the
country needs possibly" Since then
Doscher and Arbuckle have built re-
fneries, so that the possibly" is now
actually" if not more so. Yet the
sugar trust goes right along declaring
dividends Of per cent on preferred
and IL per cent on common stock.
Mr.. Havemeyer boasts that the pub
lie invests in trust stock and won't
touch the stock of the independent re-
fineries and then admits that while the
refineries could be replaced for $780,
100000 they are capitalized at $751;
0OO,0O0; this, too, under a tariff law
which gives a differential Of one one
eighth OF a cent between raw and re-
fined sugar.
If the sugar trust be fair sample
Of trusts in general, we are forced to
the conclusion that by this system Of
organizing industries stock can be
issued on four or five times the value
Of the plants employed, and dividends
approaching 10 per cent or more may
be earned. Clearly, then, either the
consumer must pay higher prices or
the labor employed and the raw ma
terial to be converted into finished
products must be cheapened. The
trust must have threefold toll, and
it may make it fourfold or tivefold,
and neither consumer, laborer nor pro-
Queer must get excited about such a
trife.
Although high authority in the Unit
ed States senate proclaimed in 1897
that customs dues must no longer be
depended upon for the support Of the
government, but that excise taxes
must be substituted, and although
since the outbreak of the SO called war
with Spain the United States has re-
lied. upon that mode Of taxation to
raise adequate funds, the new policy"
is by no means permanent. Customs
dues have been and will continue to
be the mainstay, and no amount Of
Havemerican poppycock is going to
wreck the good old ship Of state on the
scraggy rocks Of "free trade"