The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-10-03
SPEAKS OF flowA IDEA" Sc 2 tor Deliver Assaults ;, the Trusts. g
 RE NOT VERYDANGEROUS Many Have Already Gone to
 the Wall. Protection Afforded by the Tariff Not Intended to Foster Avarice
 and Greed of the
 Monopolies
RE NOT VERY DANGEROUS

Chicago. Oct. 2.-The Iowa idea" came to the surface tonight at a mass meeting under the auspices of the National League of Republican Clubs which met in annual convention here today. United States Senator J. P. Deliver of Iowa was responsible. Mir. Deliver said in part:
 Let us look at the Iowa idea for a minute It has been presented to the country as the sudden impulse of dis sitisfied mischief makers within the Re- publican party. On the other hand, it is the mature judgement of a man whose wisdom has never failed the Republican party in the forty years of his unin- terrupted public service. Our people recognize the value of a large capital for the transaction of a great business and especially for the commercial con- quests upon which we are now entering. But they recognize also the danger of abuses, both in the organization and management of great industrial enter prises, and would have the government of the United States stand between the community and the reckless perversion of the beneficient law of corporate prop erty.
 Deliver Agrees With Bryan. Tt is evident that even if it were de- sirable to kill the trusts 1t could not be done by merely remitting the duties which their foreign competitors pay at our cus- tom houses. Even MT. Bryan who talks of putting the captains of industry into | Al,ot., | Morgan first to the poor house and then | to the penitentiary, admits publicly that the free trade remedy falls very far short | of the object had in view. Nearly every | sober student of the subject admits that it was the pressure of competition which has drawn some of our industries first into groups and then into gigantic com binations under single corporate management.
 Our tariffs have been defended out of consideration for infant industries. but that is not the foundation of the protec- tive policy. They have been defended on account of the difference in the wage scales of Europe and America; but that is not the foundation of the protective policy. The long debates that were held in other generations about the rates of duty, whether the wall should be low enough to allow foreign merchandise to flow over it or high enough to barely allow it to leak over, or to be pumped over, failed utterly to comprehend the princi- pie which has identified the doctrine of protection with the present day miracles of our industrial progress.
 Blaine on Protection.
 Protection in the perfection of its de- sign. as described by MT. Hamilton. does not invite competition from abroad. says PIain in h ia tariff question in it's relation to the poli- tical revolution of 1860 in Twenty Years of Confess, but is based on the con- trolling principle that competition at home will always prevent monopoly on the part of the capitalist. assure god wages to the laborer and defend the capitalist. the consumer against the evils of extortion.'
 That principle which never failed to justify the doctrine of protection in any period of the past is today passing through an ordeal hardly even antici- pated when the tariff law of 1897 was nlaced upon the statute books. The cen- sus of 1900 has given an accurate account of the trusts and what they are doing ana the daily reports of the market place 1n- dicate what their present standing and future prospects actually are. We know that they are 1S5 in numhar 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 man. ufactured output is made by them. and' leaving out chemicals and the products of iron and steel, the per centage Is hard- lv visible to the naked eye. In the textile industries they arc almost unknown,
 S2,OOO, ,OO,OOo in Spurious Stock.
 "Between 1890 and 1901 most of them have been established and. in the aggre- gate counting all kinds of stocks and all kinds of bonds which they have is- sued. their gross capitalization has been six and a half billions of dollars, from which at least two billions should be de- ducted to cover spurious stock which representa- nothing except the swindling projects of adventurers and cheats at common law So that putting all the consultations. which have been effected in the last twelve years together. four and a half billions of dollars may be set down as their true aggregate capitali- zation. including their bonds.
 "These corporations have enlarged our productive capacity by the addition of new bona flde capital in degree hardly noticeable. They have merely undertaken to dazzle the speculative world by play ing 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 invested from the operation of natural forces always present in the commercial world. If they have failed in that. they have failed in everything and the power which some have been afraid would De used to wrong and burden the community has not even proved equal to the task of taking care of itself
 Before anybody makes up his mlnd that the so-called American trust is permanent institution. let him consider the long list of ambitious combinations which have already had their affairs wound up by the courts of justice. The alcohol trust, the linseed oil trust the aIkal trust, the asphalt trust the bi- cycle trust and scores of others whose names are now even forgotten.
 What was tbe matter with these as- tonishing creations of the promoters art?