The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1900-09-14

| There was peace. There were economies
that could be effected and that he was
fool not to effect. There was a chance
to steady things and know whether he
had anything in the world or not. Pos
slbly there was chance for profits again.
This was the chance for the promoter
and the underwriting banker, or what
ever you choose to call him, as well as
for the manufacturer. If the manufac-
turer hadn't been in the condition de-
scribed, the promoter and the banker
couldn't have done anything with him
or for him. It required cash money, or
its equivalent, in guarantees, to buy, or
partly buy, one plant here and another
plant there. This the underwater could
furnish. 1t required the promoter to see
about it all. But the promoters employ
ment didn't last long. Where is the pro-
moter now, by the way, and where is
| the underwriting banker?
Things have been going SO well in the
| last two or three years that the manu-
facturer, the man who used to want to
combine, doesn't want to combine any
longer. He isn't tired, he has plenty Of
capital, his machinery Is buzzing, he is
selling twice as much stuff as before,
probably just as much abroad as at home
| There is chance for all. Competition
| Is active, but buyers are not haggling
about the price quite so much, or at least
| they have got some money with which to
| buy something once in a while.
| This isn't saying that trusts are not
| now forming, and that many more Of
them, great many more, will not be
formed. They are forming, and they will
be formed; but they will only be organic
ed successfully where there is some econ
omic reason, some reason in good BUSH
ness economy and judgment, why two,
or twenty, or two hundred concerns1
should pool their issues, cut expenses an,
lop off the dead stuff and get there il J
true business style, whether ten men
a thousand men are required to do
whether hundred thousand dollars or, (;
million dollars are required to do some [
thing In this, that or the other part o;
the world, or in any old part of the world Z
| Now without going into definitions toe :
much-especially since we are agreed
what a-trust really is--let me say that az
trust, in the right acceptance Of the word,
is not a monopoly. 1t can't be, or if it
thinks it can be, let it try! Ten to one,
yes, thousand to one, it knows better
! than to try. The Standard Oil Com,
pany is not monopoly, and I'll wager,
if the truth were known, that it makes
money by its methods just as much as
| it does by the volume of it's business.
Judge Gary Of the Federal Steel Com
pany-a little two hundred million dollar
corporation-which doesn't monopolize
the steel business as notice, and proba,
bly, never will while Andrew Carnegie
and few other good scrappers are in tn
| feld-says that a well-organized an
well-managed trust is all right up to 7.
point where it tries to monopolize its p.
| duct. There 1t over-reaches itself, i.
gets into danger, 1t invites competition
and this, mind you, Is the competition O.
giants and not Of pigmies.
Mr.. f. 0. Mathiessen, once the chair
man of the manufacturing committee o.
the sugar trust land I don't know Of (
| higher authority that could be cited), say
that the Glucose Trust, which, beliey
! he organized and is at the head of, is
| the field for only about seven per cen Z
| for its stockholders; that it would be
| folly for them to try to squeeze more
out Of the consumer for their investing
capitalists; that plenty of money and
plenty of brains flor brains and money
are two commodities that nobody in the
world can corner in a thousand years.
could go right into the field against them
and level them down to the seven per
cent basis as quickly as Brother Bryan
can turn political handspring. The
| Glucose Trust, you understand, might
not hesitate TO squeeze an eight or a ten
per cent dividend out of the consumer if
| it thought it could succeed in doing So
| 1t can't succeed. and it knows it.
A DRUMMER.
(To be continued.)