The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1900-09-14
Thew Have Never Succeeded in Creating Monop-
DIV Because There Never Can Be Monopoly
of Brains Competition Always Open.
WHEN THEY GET GREEDY THEY BREAK THEIR own BACKS
AS They Transact Business Large Scae They Are ADe
to Buy Cheaper and to Sell Cheaper to All Consum'
ers-No Trust Can Hold Monopoly

There was peace. There were economies
that could be effected and that he was
q fool not to effect. There was chance
to steady things and know whether he
had anything in the world or not. Pos
sibly 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 web as
for the manufacturer. IL the manufsc-
turer hadn't been in the condition de-
scribed, the promoter and the banker
couldn't have done anything with him
or for him. Il 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- I
moter now, by the way. and where IL
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, be has plenty Of ,
capital, his machinery Is bu2zng, he 10 !
selling twice as much stuff as before, /
probably Just as much abroad as at home. .
| There is a 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 organiz-,
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 concerns
should pool their issues, cut expenses and
lop off the dead stuff and get there in
true business style, whether ten men or
thousand men are required TO do it.,
whether a hundred thousand dollars or q
million dollars are required TO do some
thing in this, that or the other part Of
the world, or in any old part Of the world
Now without going into definitions too
much-especally since we are agreed
what a trust really is-let me say that q
trust, in the right acceptance of the word,
is not a monopoly. 1t can't be, or il 1t
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 a 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 its business.
Judge Gary of the Federal Steel Com
pany-a little two hundred million dollar
oration--which doesn't mOnopoliEe
the steel business as | notice, and prOba-
bly, never will while Andrew CarnegieI
and a few other good scrappers are in thel
field-says that a well-orgsBized andl
well-managed trust is all right up to the
| point where it tries to monopolize Its pro-
duct. There it over-reaches itself, tI
gets into danger, it invites competition,
and this, mind you, is the competition Of
giants and not Of pigmies.
Mr.. f. 0. Mathiessen, once the chair
man Of the manufacturing committee Of
the sugar trust land | don't know Of
higher authority that could be cited, says
that the Glucose Trust, which, believe,
he organized and is at the head of, Is In
the field for only about seven per cent
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 (for 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 a political handspring. The.
Glucose Trust, you understand, might
not hesitate to squeeze an eight or ten.
per cent dividend out Of the consumer IL.
it thought it could succeed in doing 80.
1t can't succeed, and it knows 1t.
A DRUMMER.
(To be continucd.)