Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1900-03-07
THE TRUST ISSUE.
Upon Its Mode of Final Settlement De-
ponds the Nations Choice Betwecn
Competition and Cooperation.

AS time progresses, it becomes more
and more evident that the Industrial
corporation known as the trust"
and not free silver, is to be the prin-
cipal issue in the coming campaign.
Considered from a reform stand
point, this is at it should be. There
is nothing, not even a settlement of
the money question in tie silver is
sue and time spent in it's discussion is
simply wasted. Full legal tender, alb
solute paper money and government
banks will alone settle the financial
issue and may be just as easily at
tanned as silver coinage which would
but be prop under the lettering fall
lacy of metallism and weak COM
promise at the best. But - return to
the consideration of the trnst issue:
The socalled trust is here and be-
lieve is here 10 stay as, indeed, it de-
serves to stay. AS Mr.. Herbert n.
Casson we'll says in the New York
Journal:
"The trust-maker was the first man
who was shrewd enough TO see that
competition as n business principle
was wasteful and uncertain. He rec
ognized the superiority OF co-opera-
ton. He inaugurated socialism for
his own advantage. He discovered the
gold mine of organization, and natu-
rally enough, he wants to keep 1t for
his own personal benefit. The trust
is the greatest industrial triumph the
world has ever seen. 1t is the final re-
suit of centuries of competitive COM
merce. 1t is the ideal of all industry.
1t transforms a chaos into cosmos;
it brings system, which is the mother
of leisure, into the business world
And as the New York Journal, itself,
editorially says:
1.-The trust, meaning cooperation
of maximum production with mini
mum cost, is a most striking, per-
manent and valuable feature of the
worlds progress.
THE fight against it IS as universal,
foolish and hopeless as was the bat
tie against labor-saving machinery
1t will not and should not be Won
1t is the trust of the future.
'The trusts win never be dissolved;
industry will never go back to Its
primitive individual competitive con
dition. But the trusts will become
national, the profits will become
national, and the great saving of la
Dor will mean leisure for the either
| to study, think, recreate and be
man."
And with the trusts as the divid
ing issue, the competitive and CO
operative-the individualistic and so
cialistic-forces will battle for SUI
premacy in the United States. While
this fact may not be clearly apparent
upon the surface, beneath will be the
strongly flowing tides of socialism
ever sweeping irresistably onward to
ward the goal. There will be con
fusion and perplexity and apparent
ly foolish alliances and illogical posi-
tions; while individualistic remedies
will be supported by socialistic voters
only that they may be given tria
and their utter ineffectiveness TIL
sooner be demonstrated.
On the one hand will be aligned
those who wish to destroy the trusts
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for the peoples benefit, while leav
ing their ownership in private hands
On the other side will be those VIII
would make the trust organism tn
form and mode of collective actor
by the organized people, as govern
ment for the benefit of all. Thes
would substitute for the corporation
known as trusts, the people, in thei
collective capacity, as n social organ
ism or government, which would thu
become the employer of the labo
now employed by the trusts an
would use the enormous profits nov
annually absorbed by them to give t
the people cheaper goods, and to labo
shorter hours and better wages.
The platform adopted by the Ant
trust league is in the nature, partly
of experiment and partly of CON
promise. In the planks favoring pull
lie ownership of railroads, telegraph
and telephones, the socialistic elt
ment of the conference obtained a
endorsement of their principles an
weighty public demand for the de
gree of socialism which all socialist
concede will most likely be the frs
to be adopted by the nation. And a
the same time they secured virtuf
service of notice to the Democrat
party that the best proof of it's ant
trust protestations will be the en-
bodiment in its platform of these de
mands. Indeed, if the meeting an
action of the antitrust conference
to be taken seriously and those as
sembled there possess any politicf
integrity, a failure of the Democrat
party to heed the voice of the confer
ence will result in the members of tn
league casting their votes for the pee
pies party, which stands and Away
has stood for these principles.
The demand for the removal of tai
iff protection from goods manufat
tured by trusts will result in givin
the consumer cheaper goods and q
the same time preclude the possibi
ity of any independent, anti-trus
manufacturing concerns being started
because if the trusts, with their vas
economies in production and distribu
tion cannot withstand the compel
ton of foreign goods, no other cor
Germ need hope to do so. This remed
will tend to build up and perfect tn
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