The record-union., 1899-09-07

| not to have to buy. We are exporters
of food, but what we import in pay
| ment should not be other food
DEFENSES OF TRUSTS.
| Portland Oregonian: Defenses of
| trusts may be divided into two classes,
| according as they deal with theory or
practice. On the one hand are. those
who seek to show that the theoretical
objections to the trusts are based on
| misconceptions. You object because
travelling men are thrown out Of work ?''
they say. "Eell, it is the same sort of
complaint that greeted the railroad, the
| sewing machine and labor saving de-
vices of every description, and it will
not avail. You object to combination,
but combination is the order of the in
| dustrlal world, and cannot be resisted.
You object to economies of administra-
ton, but these are an inevitable and a
! penefcent rule of progress, whose erect
to the consumer is cheaper products, to
| the producer a steady and uniform
| market and to the investor a moderate
and certain return on his savings.
| Whatever these arguments are a de-
| tense of, they are not defenses of the
trusts. They apply to economy and
| to iabor-saying devices, to steadiness of
prices and the evils of market parox
ysms, but they do not apply to trusts.
| We have always had these things, good
and bad. They belong to industrial
development. But they do not belong
specially or primarily to the trusts. The
| objection to the trust is that it is a
monopoly. That is its end and aim. 1t
does not offer to check disastrous COM
petition; it proposes to destroy compe-
| tltlon altogether. 1t seeks to control
absolutely not only the market where
| 1t sells, but the market where 1t buys.
1t will fix the price it pleases the peo-
pie shall pay for it's shoes, and that
price they must pay. 1t fixes the price
1t will pay a farmer for his hides, and
that price only he can get. This is not
natural industry; it is contrary to ma
ture. 1t is not the law of supply and
| demand at work; it is an attempt to
nullify that law. 1t is not industrial
| development in any proper sense. It
is monopoly; and monopoly is a crime
against industry.
The second class of attempts to de-
fend the trusts is derived from their
practical manifestations. 1t is sought
to be shown that the trust is not SO
bad as it is painted, because it some
times carries the seeds of it's own over
/ throw. 1t is necessary to follow the
rise and fall of a trust and to explain
it's collapse; but it is a great mistake
TO imagine that the iniquity of the trust
is in any sense mitigated by the cir
cumstance Of it's eventful dissolution.
Some trusts fail because their overcap-
| toll ic nd IN
vestors; some collapse because compe-
tition reaches their vitals in vulnera-
BILE point that has not been guarded.
/ There are mistakes of judgment and
| strokes of accident against which no
trust is proof. But these are not de-
fenses of the trust They do not con-
done it's evil purposes, or alter its per-
nicious tendency, or in any way justify
apathy or negligence in the treatment
it should receive from public opinion.
from Congress, from Legislatures or
from courts
MARRIED TEACHERS.
Willows Journal Recently the San
Francisco Board of Education made a
| rule providing for the expulsion of any
| female teacher who might thereafter
marry. Last Thursday teacher who
had violated the rule was forcibly ex-
PEELED from her classroom and the
school house by orders of the Board
She intends to test the anti-marriage
rule in the courts, and will win, says
the Stockton Mail" The courts will
not sustain any law or rule in restraint
of marriage, for such regulations are
rightly held to be contrary to good poll
cy and good morals.