The Globe-republican., 1900-09-13

have been a drummer for fourteen
years, have travelled enough throughout
the country to know that human nature
and business conditions are about the
same everywhere. and have learned, be
cause the question has come right home
to me, considerable about Trusts
Perhaps this seems like over-confi-
dent statement, but / want TO say that
if any drummer, or anybody else, can
gainsay what am now writing, should
like to hear from him In this discussion
we must, like busy men engaged on a
hard business proposition that actually
concerns US. eliminate all the pipe
dreams, all the cheap stories, all the Hun
carian jokes, all the stuff and nonsense;
we must get right down to cases-as L
will now.
First-Remember that trusts are big
combinations for business purposes; big
ger and bigger, if they are necessary, and
can do themselves good by being bigger
and bigger; smaller and smaller, or fall
ing to pieces altogether, If they can't do
themselves any good
1t is little vulgar to say that every
body is tout for the DUST but every
body is, just the same To be little
more exact, let believe, because 1t is
perfectly true, that anyone who has gone
into trust, or has helped to form a
trust, has done it for what he expects to
be his own advantage. Anyone who is
opposed to a trust will succeed in inter
fering with it, breaking it up, just in
proportion as he, and not the trust, is
working in harmony with some economic
law.
Economic law is a ]arge-sounding ex-
preston. but I know what it means
Years ago, no matter how many. there
weren't any factories; people made things
at home. Afterwards they gathered in
factories and made things there. Then
came machinery, which displaced many
of the work people This was hard
ship to them, but they couldn't help it,;
and after they got over feeling badly.
they were glad to live under the new con
ditions.
Years ago Jones & Son, or Jones &
Co, had capital enough and brains
enough to do everything that was requir-
ed of business concern. After a while
no partnership had money brains
enough for the business requirements OF
the time. Then corporations were
sary- By the way. corporations are char
tered by State legisla lures, and what
State legislatures do for them, or to
them, they can undo-provided, OF course,
nobody is wronged in the process. Please
keep that all in mind, because it is i'm
portant. 1t is important to know that
corporations, and after them trusts,
'crea lures of the law and can't transcend
the law, and since we, the people-the
peepul. Mr.. Sulzer would call us-elect
the lawmakers, it is our own fault if the
laws don't suit
Come down to the present time in this
matter of the development of industry.
This matter of the development of pro-
duction, manufa curing and commerce, is,
according to economic laws; that is, ac-
cording to things a they must absolutely
happen, according to things that couldn't
cry has more and more replaced hand
work-greatly to the advantage of the
manual 1aborer in the end-because he
could turn to better things and could
make more money at it, and could buy
the neceSSarieS and the luxurieS of life
cheaper, because they made cheap
by machinery and could be sold cheap
er-so the financial end of~it, in the
way of providing and using capital, in the
matter of selling in all kinds of markets,
there has been corresponding change;
big capitals taking the place of small
ones. smart fellows going out. and tack
ling all the problems of invention, econ
omics, travelling, selling, advertising, etc,
instead of old-fashioned ones The cor
poration is pretty old, the trust fairly
new When the trust dropped down up
on us nothing new happened in particular
except that bigger and bigger corpora
tions were to take the place of the older
and smaller ones.
Here are, then, down to the present |
time. Business was bad around '93 and |
"a Hundreds, yes, thousands, of man |
ufacturers, jobhers and merchants were |
dattened out; first, by the uncommonly /
hard conditions brought upon them by |
the Cleveland panic, and then by a kind |
of structural weakness in their business |
caused by the violence of competition
These hard times. making this too VIC
lent competition weakening than
it could ever have been under other CON
made the formation of trusts ali
of them that could possibly be formed !
very easy The manufactures wanted to
reduce the violence of the competition or |
do away with 1t altogether He was tired |
of worrying He wanted peace He
saw. too, that there Were economies in
production and distribution that he him |
self, working alone, could never realize. |
that would be realized the moment he
and his competitors worked together
fore together, making things up togeth-
err, selling then together, cutting the
price a little together perhaps, and, If
so, increasing the quantity of sales. In