Amador ledger., 1900-10-19
THE TRUST IT'S OWN PARTIAL
REMEDY.


one no Republican will deny, and yet
it presents certain aspects of hopeful
ness to those who can 80 far control
their fright as to examine it with calm
ness and reflect on it with fortitude.
The trust is to a considerable degree
self limiting.
The conservatism of bankers and in
vestors has put stop to the craze for
trust formation that swept over the
country year or two ago.
1t has occurred to thoughtful people
too, that IN so far as the trust is a nat
urdt effort to secure greater efficiency of
production By means of higher degree
Of centrdlizdtion under the direct super
rision Of one keen mind and strong aoiu,
it is probably not to be legislated against
with success.
And, too, if prices are not advanced
unjustly through the workings of a
trust the public law has no rational
ground for interference.
If, on the other hand, prices are un-
justly advanced the tendency is to Gre
ate opposition to the trust by the organ
ization of some powerful competitor.
An unjust advance Of prices turns
the attention Of consumers to the use
of substitutes for the product controlled
by trust and nearly every product in
the market has a substitute of some
sort.
The consumer has another very eff
cacious way of furnishing a trust for
an unjust advance of prices. He di-
minishes consumption, gets along with
less. and the market of the trust is in
juriously restricted.
There is limit beyond which the
trust can not go in its oppression of Ia
Dor, for the dearest labor in the world
is an underpaid labor that knows that
it is underpaid. The service it renders
is unwilling and an unwilling service is
always costly service.
There is also limitation to the size
of trusts fixed by the obtainable capac-
ity for management. When trusts at
tempt more than the managers can man
age there is general breakdown and
dissolution of the trust.
AS matter of fact not one of the
great trusts recently formed secured en-
tire control Of any industry. Even the
Standard Oil company does not control
production of the oil, but only the re-
fining.
The trusts that have been successful,
and are likely to be permanent, are
those that rest satisfied soith the econo-
mics of concentration under a single
management and are not trying to raise
prices unjustly or to oppress labor.
Time is, after all, the best cure of
most ills and some of the evils of trusts
will work out their own cures, and yet
when these cures shall have been effect
ed there will be enough of evil remain
ing to give profound concern to patri-
otic men and women and they must
sleep on their arms that they may be
ready to oppose wrong and defend
right.
The foregoing suggestions relative to
the self limiting tendencies of trusts
are made, not with the view of imply
ing that trusts are not evils, for they
are, but they have not yet brought our
beloved country to that awful "verge "
that "brink" that "chasm into
which clamorous politicians are ever
striving to induce people to gaze with
terror. The problem is serious but
serious men will solve it.
But Republicans insist that no prob
lem that ever confronted human society
was ever solved by hysterical clamors
ing. Before there can be mastery of any
difficulty there must be knowledge and
calm deiberation followed by forceful,
but not Incorporate, action.
The Republican policy is to investi-
gate and afterward to educate public
opinion to remedial measures.
The policy Of the new Democracy is
to exaggerate and vituperate and so ex.
cite the public to an incorporate zeal
for a self constituted leadership.
Which policy is the more wise and
patriotic is for the wise and patriotic to
determine.