The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-05-14
THE COMING TEST OF TRUSTS

AuOSUA 1O0SAJ O8nh4AIuS trusts. r,
the next decade we shall be tas+;S
their strength.
A few years ago the line betvoo.
public and private management 80
industries was sharply defined. M
private industry belonged to an in
dividual owner, or to a small gronn
of owners associated in a firm or COZ
poration. 1t was an axiom that e..
a business to be successful it mnst
be "under the masters eye" Gov
eminent management was Con
demned by the maxim that "what !,
everybody's business is nobody,
business" An individual voter j.
was said, had not enough interest in
public affairs to make him keen his
servants up to their work.
The chief feature of trust devotion.
ment has been the tendency to wine
out this distinction. The typical
trust is a State in itself, with the
characteristics that were formerly
held to condemn the State manage.
ment of industries. It spreads over
as much ground as a government,
It's operations are as far as a govern.
ment's from the masters eye, and it
may have as many citizens as some
kingdoms.
The most successful examples Of
concentrated control of industries
the Standard Oil Company and the
Carnegie Steel Company-have been
concentrated in Ownship as we'll as
in management. The Standard Oil
Company has been owned almost en-
tirely by half a dozen men, and very
largely by one person. The CONTROL.
ing majority interest in the Carnegie
Steel Company has been owned until
recently by a single man. Thus
these great organizations have COM
bined the advantages of vast opera
tions and of the vigilance of the in
dividual owner.
But how would it be if, as has
been foreshadowed, all the railroads
of the United States, with perhaps
two million stockholders, should be
united? We should have there a
genuine test of the solidity of the
TRUST system. It is hard to see in
what respect such a combination
would retain any Of the advantages
that used to be claimed for private
as opposed to public management.
The influence of the individual stock
holder on the proceedings Of the
officials would be as small as that of
an individual voter upon the pro-
ceedings of a man in the public ser
vice. Indeed, the corporate form of
organization is much less ~satifaCtor-
lily adapted to rejecting the will of
vast numbers Of stockholders scat
tered over immense distances than
is the organization Of our govern
ment to rejecting the will OF the
citizens. The Roman Republic broke
down through the imperfection of its
election machinery. The citizens in
the provinces could not vote unless
they went to Rome and gathered in
one place, and so the elections were
left, in practice, to be decided by the
Roman mob.
The position of a great corporation,
with it's scattered stockholders, is
precisely similar. There are no rep
resentatives from localities each
stakeholder must go in person to the
headquarters Of the company on the
day of the annual meeting, if he
wishes to make his influence count.
True, he can send a proxy, but the
collection of masses of proxies in the
hands of the men on the inside OF
the management is the exact coun-
terpart of the Roman mob. Informs
a force against which, as a rule, 1t Is
useless for any outside stockholder
to contend,
The great life insurance companies
T in theory purely mutual. Every
policy holder has a right to vote,
and to run for president of the com
pany, If he wishes. But how many
avail themselves of the pri7llegeF
How many give their proxies with
any intelligent purpose of having
them used in a certain way, rather
than in INDECENT response to the re-
quest of the management?
When the present boom is over
and the efficiency Of the trusts is Pa'
to a genuine test, one OF two things
may hannah. Either the industries