Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-02-21
Was Discussed in New York
Last Evening.
SOME WELL KNOWN MEN
Gave Their Views as to the Effect on
Business of Big Corporations.
Prot Taussig of Harvard Was One
Of the Speakers. l

New York. Feb. 21.-The conference on
trusts before the Peoples Institute, in
cooperation win the Cooper Union, was
continued last night in the hall Of the
union when on THE Economic Effects
on Industries Of Combinations, formed
the discussion.
The first speaker on the economic Gus
toms involved in industrial combinations
was w. H. Baldwin. Jr., president of the
Long Island railroad, who elucidated the
meaning of the term trust" In the first
place. he said, a trust was a combination
terial; secondly, to pay a high rate of
wages. and. thirdly, to sell at a lower
price than could be offered by any small
err combination of capital. That said
Mr.. Baldwin, was the only kind of trust
either economic or political that could
survive public opinion or the final ana
lysis of the great questio nof trusts.
Mr.. Baldwin drew a parallel between
the rate of age paid in the times OF
small railroads, when the average was
$50 a month, and the present rate, as
certified to by Mr.. Arthur, of $3.50 to 1925
a month for engineers working from sew
en- to eight hours a day, which latter
result, he said, was only possible under
the combination OIL railroad interests n
economics of operation that could We
brought about under no other cOmbina-
TONS. MIR. Baldwin gave it as his opin-
ion that the onward current toward conn
binations could not be stopped and that
the aim must be to control the trust and
to guide it along so as to make 1t serve
for the common good.
Prof. F. w. Taussfg, of Harvard uni
versity, drew the distinction between
public service industries and Industrial
combinations, taking the ground in OPP
position to Bour9se Cochran that there
were such things as partial monOpolies.
He said that it was characteristic of
SIN all err combinations That tieyl were un-
der single management under the watch-
ful eye of the man whose pocket was af-
fected by the methods employed. The
test of the large combinations. he said.
was whether they could survive under
hired management and he commended that
some of the alleged advantages of conn
binations on a large scale were inusory.
He defended a telephone monopoly and
said that several competing systems
would work as great hardship as If there
were, several postal systems. He said
tina cities could regulate such monoplies
when franchises were to be granted.
Prof. Taussig said that neither the pro-
tective tariff, railway conditions that
| rave advantages to large ~--.ppers. nor
! the reckless offering Of corporate privl-
| leges in some state was to blame for
present conditions, but that altogether
were in a large measure responsible.
Mere prohibition, he said, could accom-
plish nothing. 1t led only to leglsla-
tive hair splitting and evasion yet this
was the path that the United States and
the various states had followed with con-
| s~picuous failure. He cautioned patience,
quiet, the belief that in the ultimate tri-
umpl of right and every effort to inn
prove the machinery of government and
explanation as the remedies mat would
work out the general welfare.
IN s. Crosby, the single taxer. said
that the sole business of t. government
was to establish justice and not to lend
it's powers for private purposes. In ar
, raigning Wall street and stock gambling
Mr.. Crosby said that this government
responsible for the worst for moi gamb-
to stop boys from shooting craps.