The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1900-09-08

perfection OF the policy, having thus been
obtained as to that market, our people
were enabled to and did become a COM
petitor in the foreign markets Of the en-
tire world. This exhibit of our prosperity
as to exports demonstrates what must
have been the volume of our internal
during the same period. There
are no statistics to accurately express
this. but the great internal commercial
and industrial activity for the last three
years. the Astounding prosperity which it
has created. sufficiently demonstrate the
immensely Of these transactions.
In every element which goc to
constitute our prosperity as a ma
ton the last three years have been
the most productive in American
history. At the close of the last
Democratic administration we were
a debtor nation. Our gold was be,
ing exported and the outflow could
not be checked. Our securities of
all kinds were held abroad as in
vestments. We have paid our debts
within the last tire years. To do
4 this we took uA. first those securities
in part payment; payment was made
to us In gold for a portion of what
remained due and for the
we became and are great creditor
nation. We are becoming h
banke of the world. Our capital
lists undertake a great Russian
loan, and have bid three times h
amount of the English loan of $780,
boo 600 now upon the market. No
man need to be o that these great
financial operations could not posi-
bly, have been conducted, or even
thought of, had the United States
been upon the free-cOinage basis In
the ratio of 10 to I.
The raa1 tho ma ra mount question before
the American people is not Imperialism.
It is whether these conditions and the
policies which have produced them are to
be abandoned or even put to the chance
of abandonment in the pursuit Of
theories, I was about to say. but not of
theories-in the repetition of experiments
which have always proved disastrous In
the very respects in which our prosperity
Is now so Astounding, for it is never to be
forgotten that the Kansas City platform,
while it dencunces expansion n what
it calls imperialism, also specifically con-
dennis the policy of protection as en-
forced by the statute which passed imme-
diately after the Inauguration of Presi-
dent Mckinley; condemns our financial
policy and the gold standard under which
money has become more abundant than 1t
GteE was Uc1OIc dIAO ANNCACok oiAN
twice demands the free and unlimited
coinage of silver at the ratio of Is to 1.
This implies that, in case Of Democratic
success, these policies are to be reversed
and the American people, taken back
again to the beginning of the road which
started in depression and disaster and
which has been traversed YEARLY, yet
~triumphantly, until it has taken us to the
very heights of prosperity.
THE TRUST UESTION.
The question as to the trusts (~So-called)
is one of the most important and difficult
| OF the present time. 1t is not a question
upon which parties are divided and OPP
posed, for both parties condemn them. In
the sense of being colnbina tions to reg
ulate production by crushing competition
| and to raise prices when competition
ceases, they are unquestionably an evil
of the greatest magnitude. They have
always existed in every industrial and
manufacturing nation and they have al
ways been unlawful. There is another
kind of combination to which the word
''trust' in its later misuse does not prop
erly apply, and that Is those large con-
%sol:dations of capital, intelligence and
labor, made necessary by the vast extern
| sion of modern commerce, which stimu-
| late the production OF the raw material
and. change it Into various forms of util-
ity, and which, employing in a thousand
ways skilled and unskilled labor of every
description, pay immense sums In wages
and cheaper the price of the ultimate
and finished product.
The trust Of the first class Is hostile to
every material and social interest. The
! trust Of the second kind Is a most efficient
agent in the creation Of national and per-
sonal prosperity. Demagogues may at
tempt to confound them, but the people
will say that they differ essentially. The
two are in fact hostile to each other, and
nothing Is more certain, unless all history
ia false. than that in time and by ma
tural and economic processes the latter
will exterminate the former v in their
most thoroughly ~intrenched strongholds.
REPUBLICAN, ANTITRUST LEGISLA-
TON.
But in the meantime the action Of gov
eminent Is necessary to assist as far as
possible in e%xtirpating the harmful and
unlawful combinations.
The president in his last annual mes
sage called the attention Of congress to
this subject in wise and comprehensive
terms. That the only legislation which
can completely remedy the evil was de-
feated is due entirely to the vote Of the
Democratic members of. the house of
representatives.
The Republican party, by the Sherman
act. passed during the administration Of
President Harrison, afforded remedial
legislation upon this subject. That the
remedy was not complete was not the
fault Of the statute, but was due to the
limitations of our system Of government.
The Constitution empowers congress to
| regulate with foreign nations
| and among the several states. The power
of congress Is limited to that regulation.
Production and commerce within any
state are exclusively subject to state
Jurisdiction Inc are entirely exempt from
federal regulation or interference. This
has been so often decided by the supreme
court az to become matter Of COMMON
knowledge.
The forty-fve states, exercising power
within their exclusive sphere, have, with
few exceptions, placed no limit upon the
right or purposes of Incorporation, or
upon the capitalization of corporations or
their power to do business In any man
ner or place, or upon their power.to con-
solidate with each other. The states have
seldom reserved any efficient right Of
yisitatorial control. ,5
Hence it is that ongress cannot ade-
ouately legislate as to production and
comerce within a state, even as to cases
where the purposed ultimate destination
If the product is another state. its power
being limited to the regulation of inter-
.4o+o ord foreign The state,