Daily new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1897-1906, 1902-10-03
Dolliver Asserts a Belief That
Industrial Combines Are
Not Dangerous.
If BECOME so, REMOVE TARIFF
But Even Bryan Admits This Club
Would Not Smash Them-lowa Sen.
ator Abuses the Combinations.
Points Out Many Have Failed.


clubs, which met in annual conven.
ton here yesterday. United States
Senator ]. p. Dolliver, of Iowa, was
responsible. Mr.. Dolliver, in his
speech, said in part:
Let us look at the Iowa Idea" foT
a minute, and | select that only be.
cause | am more familiar with it and
because circumstances have arisen to
give it universal advertisement. II
has been presented to the country as
the sudden impulse of dissatisfied mis-.
chef makers within the Republican
party. On the other hand it is the
mature judgment Of man whose wis.
dom has never rallied the Republican
party in the forty years of his uninter.
rupted public service.
The Government Must Protect.
Our people recognize the value of a
large capital for the transaction of a
great business, and especially for the
commercial conquests upon which we
are now entering. But they recognize
also the danger OF abuses. both in the
organization and the management OF
great industrial enterprises, and would
have the government of the United
States stand between the community
and the reckless peryersion of the
benefcent law of corporate property
1t is evident that, even il it was desir.
able to kill the trusts, it could not be
done by merely RENTING the duties.
which their foreign competitors pay
at our custom houses. Even Mr.. Bry.
an, who talks of putting the captains
of industry into chain gang and send
ing j. Pierpont Morgan first to the
poor house and then to the peniten.
tiary, admits publicly that the free
trade remedy falls very far short of
the object he has in view. Nearly
evry sober student of the subject ad.
mits that 1t was the pressure of COM
petition which has drawn some Of our
Industries first into groups and then
into gigantic combinations, under a
single corporate management. | con-
fess that as a lifelong friend of the
protective system. I take a very pro-
found interest in the question. A
successful attempt to repeal the law
of competition in the American mar
ket place would be speedily fatal to
the proteN tive tariff system, because
the whole design of that system rests
upon the unimpaired vitality of that
law Our tariffs have been defended
out of consideration for infant indus
tries, but that is not the foundation
of the protective policy. They have
been defended on account of the
difference in the wage scales of Eu-
rope and America; but that is not the
foundation of the protective policy.
What Blaine Said on Protection.
Protection in the perfection of its
design, as described by Mr.. Hamilton,
does not invite competition from
abroad" says Mr.. Blaine in his famous
chapter ON the tariff question in its
relation to the political revolution in
1860, in Twenty Years Of Congress,
but Is based on the controlling princi-
pie that competition at home will al
ways prevent monopoly on the part
of the capitalist, assure good wages
to the laborer and defend the con-
sumner against the evils of extortion.
That principle, which never failed to
justify the doctrine of protection in
any period OF the past, is today pass
ing through an ordeal hardly even
anticipated when the tariff law of
1897 was placed upon the statute
books.
The census of 1900 has given an ac-
curate account OF the trusts and what
they are doing, and the daily reports
Of the market place Indicate what
their present standing and future
prospects actually are. We know that
they are 1876 in number. representing
the consolidation of 2,040 separate
plants. We know that less than 10
per cent of the factory labor of the
country is employed by them, and
only IA per cent of our manufactured
to do h.x ax,1
out chemicals and the pdoucts of iron
and steel, the percentage is hardly
visible to the naked eye. In the tex
tile industries they are almost I'M
known, and most of the other fields
of American production they have en-
tered as mere intruders and disturb
ers OF the peace.
Established Of Recent Years.
Between 1890 and 1901 most of them
have been established, and, in the ag-
gregate, counting all kinds of stocks
and all kinds Of bonds, which they
have issued, their gross capitaliza-
ton has been six and half billions
Of dollars, from which at least two
billions should be deducted to cover
spurious stock, which represents moth
ing except the swindling projects of
adventures and cheats at common
law. So that, putting all the consoh-
dations which have been effected in
the last IL years together, four and a
half billions OF dollars may be set
down as their true aggregate capt.
talization, including their bonds.
These corporations have enlarged our
productive capacity by the addition
Of new bona fide capital in a degree
hardly noticeable. They have merely
undertaken to dazzle the speculative
world by playing upon the popular
fancy for full page advertisements.
And In nearly every one of them the
motive of the organization has been
mainly to shield capital already in
vested from the operation of natural
forces always present in the CONNER
ell world. II they have failed In that,
they have failed In everything, and
the power which some have been
afraid would be used to wrong and
burden the community has not even