The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1900-10-30

CelVlng DGn6ht from them would u6-
fend them-sOunds like a plea set up
by a young lawyer whose client was
sued for damaging a kettle he had
borrowed. His plea ran this way /:
% The kettle was not cracked
when he returned it. (2) 1t was
cracked when he got it. (3) He never
had the blamed old kettle. So these
employees of the trusts say-O
Trusts are a necessary and unavOid-
able evil. CD They are very useful
and beneficial. (3) There are no
trusts.
You know very we'll that there are
trusts, that they have eaten up your
just earnings like the locusts of
Egypt, that they are not beneficial
to those not in them, and you know
that being illegal and injurious, the
people a and ought to suppress
them.
You will ask how this is to be
done. An honest, faithful execution
of the laws already upon the statute
book would destroy them, and that
faithful execution can be had when
ever the public will arouse them
selves to select only such public ser
wants as will faithfully execute these
laws.
But it will be suggested that addi-
tiOnal enactments will be useful. l
would not be understood as opposing
any suggestions made by others at
this meeting who are more familiar
with the subject than I and who have
studied it more profoundly, but 1
venture to suggest some others that
may we'll be enacted by any legisla-
ture which is really and genuinely
hostile to these cancers upon the
body politics. First, consider the
nature of the operation of these
illegal corporations. They combine
vast masses Of capital, then when
ever they find an honest dealer or a
competing manufacturer making a
reasonable profit OF the same goods,
they put an agent, or open a store
nOminally in the name of another,
alongside of him and undersell him.
When they have broken him up
or forced him to sell out to the
trust, Immediately the price of
the manufactured article is put
up to the consumer and the
price of the raw product is put
down to the producer. The monOp-
oily having no longer any conpeti-
tor, the producer is forced t. take an
unjustly low price and the consumer
to pay an u~nreasonably high one and
the opportunity of countless thou
sands of men who would have been
dealers and manufacturers support
ing their families, is destroyed.
Those dealers and manufacturers
would by their competition have
guaranteed just prices to the creator
of the raw material, and reasonable
prices to the consumer. But the
trusts destroy all classes alike and
put the profit into their own Golfers.
The additional legislation which
has occurred to me are 1st. The
trusts being illegal, they should be
treated as all other outlaws and for
hidden the use of the courts to col
lect debts due to them. When they
sell goods on credit, the defense that
the creditor is u trust may be pleaded
and if proven should bar any recOv-
cry. Enormous as are their illegal
aCCumulatiOns, even the trusts must
do some business on credit. Such an
act as this has been passed in Mis-
souri,, Arkansas and Texas, and pos
sibIy in other States. This statute
in Il modified and milder form was
introduced in the last General AS
sembly By Mr.. Stevens and passed
the lower House, but the agents of
the trusts were able to persuade the
Senate that it was a dangerous
measure-as it was, but to the trusts
only. That the trusts should have
so earnestly opposed it is conclusive
answer to those who say the law
would have done nc good. The trusts
may be trusted to know their own
interests. When the "Stevens'' bill
is introduced in the coming legisla-
ture, if public opinion is expressed
Enthusiastically in it's favor it will not
suffer a second defeat.
2. There is needed a rigid enforce
ment of the Craig law, which forbids
any corporation chartered in another
State to do business in this State
until it has been re-chartered in this