The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1901-04-11
IN DEFIANCE OF LAW
AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS.

a hundred different ways, and we know
that its unsafe accumulation of power
has in some of the most marked cases
come in close connection with our own
neglect and watchfulness. Then the
Standard Oil Company owes its pros
perity largely to unfair terms made
with railroads, and has build up by the
indifference of the people in prosecuting
their own rights. Other formidable
combinations such as the Sugar and
Steel trusts have been safeguarded by
the tariff. The people have protected
them in their infancy and nourished
them in their strength until they can
bid defiance to all-and shape legis-
lation, state and national, to their
wishes.
Liberty in Productive
Opportunities
In the triplet, life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness, an essential part
is liberty, liberty in all the productive
opportunities of life. Shorten in liber-
ty and to that degree you render
nugatory the other two, life and the
pursuit of happiness.
Unrestrained competition stands for
unrestrained power and the prosperity
that goes with them to one and all.
If we can permanently raise prices by
law against our fellow citizens, what
principle of equality remains to prevent
still farther pushing up of prices by
combinations What we want then is
not more, but less legislation, a full
restoration of natural forces, that we
may see what connection there is in
them. Throw down the wall with
which we have made the great corpo-
rations and trusts SO safe in getting
power and let il contend in its use of
that power with the full stream of
commerce, which is wont to bring
blessed opportunity and liberty to the
great mass of citizens.
Temper of the
Trust
The temper of the trust is danger
Gus one, disregardful of the general
welfare in pursuing its own interests.
But protection from the beginning has
nourished the evil disposition and con-
secrated it as patriotic. When therefor
it eliminates in combination, it is
only the flower and fruit of a plant of
our own planting-the interest of the
business men and workmen having
been kept in the foreground as cloak
in framing protective laws, for, what
sympathy was shown with the work.
men in the Homestead affair a few
years ago? Why was there the need
of a law then to protect the interest of
the Carnegie company? What respect
does that colossal corporation have
now that it has passed into the hands
Of milliOnaires and into the stage of
political power? In the state of Ohio
less then year ago, an honest and
upright attorney general of that state
went into the courts, backed up with
antitrust laws and legislative enact
ments in order to check and control
this monstrous giant; but in defiance
of all law, went down to utter defeat
through the terrible power that the
Standard Oil Company can exert when
its interests are in peril. The same state
of facts existed in Nebraska while the
last presidential campaign was in pro-
gress, and even at the present time the
trust influences at work in the state of
Indiana are so powerful that they have
succeeded in having repealed at this
session of the legislature the antitrust
laws passed two years ago.
Fruitage of
their Developments
So, in every channel of business life
and competitive enterprise, these can
|cerous vultures are eating into the life
and substance of the people. We can