The Saint Paul globe., 1900-04-22

nessee Coal and Iron company. II the
competitors of the wire trust should find
their supplies of steel restricted, which
is the one thing they have to fear now,
they can build their own blast furnaces,
as some of them are alreadyspreparing to
do. When the trust interests planned to
prevent competition by controlling all the
blast furnaces, they based their plan on
the fact that the building of a blast fur
mace was too big and expensive an en-
terprise to be undertaken in the face Of
the trusts powerful opposition.
HALF A MILLION BUILDS A FUR
MACE.
Blast furnaces are great deal cheaper
now, and 1t does not take very strong
company to build one.
]. w. Garrett, of the Garrett-Cromwell
Engineering company of this city, the
builders Of the Alabama Steel and Wire
company's plant, says that an excellent
blast furnace, one large enough to make
Bessemer pig iron as cheaply as any
there is in existence, can be built for
$500,000 This would build a furnace Of
600 tons a day capacity, and few furnaces
of larger capacity are in existence, this
being about the limit of useful size under
present conditions. Mr.. Garrett says,
however, that the death of the wire trust
win be slow and lingering, and that there
will be a nice long period of high prices
before the public awakens to the fact
that the trusts are not so powerful as
they have been; in other words, that the
conspiracy of silence will succeed. But,
while the owners of the trusts are get
ting so small return for their money
as TO disgust the early piungers In the
Industrial investment market because of
the heavy capitalization and the high
cost of the plants that were bought, the
owners of the new wire and nail plants
expect to make from so to so per cent
as long as the prices remain where they
are. So far as is known the shares or
none of these new non-trust companies
are offered in open market. They are too
good a thing for the general public, just
as trust shares were at first.
TROUBLES OF TOBACCO TRUST.
The troubles of the American Tobacco
company are even more serious, apparent
ly. All over Ohio and doubtless through
other states small tobacco factories are
springing up. At Norwalk, at Cincinnati,
at Toledo. here in Cleveland, and in num-
ber of other places-so fast that 1t Is not
easy to keep track of them-tobacco fac
tories have been started. They work very
quietly, being well satisfied to have the
trust keep on killing itself by deteriora-
tion of product, for they know it is all
good for their business. Perhaps no trust
that has been formed has been so con-
scienceless in the cheapening of its wares
without cheapening their prices as the
American Tobacco company. Its affairs
are kept secret, but every few days there
appear In the newspapers kilograms an
nouncing the closing of some of the trust
tobacco factories. These statements, tell
ing Of decreasing output, for the trust is
not starting any new factories, and the
advertisements of the new, non-trust to-
bacco manufacturers that one sees from
time to time, tell the story Of the passing
of this second hog of the trusts.
The shrewd capitalists of the country
have learned the second lesson of the
trusts. This is that every dollar a trust
spends to prevent competition and keep
prices up is worth as much to a compet-
flor that does succeed in competing as
though it had been spent for the sole bene-
fit of the competitor OF course, as long
as antitrust legislation continues to be
talked about, and now and then legislated,
the sort of capitalists who would patron
lie "get-rich-quick syndicates, If they
we're not ashamed to do SO, will continue
to invest in the trusts and keep them in
existence. Some trusts of unusual
strength, like the Standard Oil company
and the bicycle trust, the first of which
has not been such a hog after all, and
the second of which, ike the typewriter
trust, has patents on which to live, will
live and prosper for years. But the trust
that is a hog or a busiy, and nothing else,
is doomed, and nothing but legislation
against it-can keep il alive much longer,
unless some other way OF attracting
financial good things" is devised.