The Portland daily press., 1900-06-29
HOW TO DEAL WITH TRUSTS.
New York Post.)

That there is q vast zeal Of demagngy
In the defamation and legislation
against trusts, 1t is needless to repeat.
Yet there ara some features OF these lat
ter-day inventions that call for grave at
tention, and this they are now receiving
at the hands Of the best thinkers in the
United States. In this category Prof. j..
B. Clark of Columbia University must
be classed. He has gained distinction in
this field already by contributing to the
literature of the subject "a good definition
Of the word Trust, as 1t presents itself to
the public eye. He says That a Trust is
''aay combination of capital large enough
to he dangerous.
Professor Clark continues his examina-
ton Of the phenomenon which goes by
the name of Trust, In the June number
Of the Political Science Quarterly and he
deals with 1t in very vigorous way.
His article is not in the least reconcile or
hard to understand. Although he recog
nizes all the difficulties which legislation
must encounter in seeking to regulate
Trusts and to curtail the evils which at
tach to them, and are, perhaps, inherent
in them, he points out remedies for some
of them. He has a thorough contempt
for buncombe. The spirit in which he
enters upon his task Is shown in the fol-
lowing introd 1ctory paragraph:
"More .neral than the opinion that
the Trusts ought to be crushed Is the
conviction that they will not bs down.
They are here to stay, and we know IL.
An exclamation of the light-hearted way
in which we put upon the statute-books
laws that aim to CT ash them is found In
the fact that such laws do their princi-
pal work before they are enacted, when
they are nothing but planks in political
platforms. In the present temper OF
the public mind severe measures are at
least good for the party that promises
them; and If, by an experiment or two,
IL is shown that they are not workable,
there Is the less danger in continuing to
enact them into laws. In general, polit-
ical platforms hayeDof late required pro-
hibitive statutes, with pains and penal
ties attached to them; and though such
statutes have frequently been enacted, so
far as large results are concerned, that
has been the end OF 1t.
The first remedy which Professor Clark
proposes Is publicity. This had been sug-
gested before by President Hadley and
perhaps others Professor Clark shows
what Is meant by publicity, and why the
light should be turned on the Trusts. In
the first place, there is nothing that the
Trusts dread so much as public knowl-
edge of their business. May we not say,
then. that whatever weakens our enemy
strengthen us? While we require a rail
road company TO publish all OF Its doings
down to the mi 1utesG fraction, we 70
quire no publicity at ali concerning those
Of Trust. Yet Trust is composed of a
body of two classes, i. @, stockholders
and officers, whose interests are by nc
means Identical. The officers may tran
saet the business In a way to take money
for themselves at the expense of the
stockholders, as well as of the consumers
of their goods There have been instance.
where the officers were strongly suspected
of sacrificing their stockholders by "sel
| ling short" and then frightening the LAT