The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-12-15
JUDGE GRosscup on TRUSTS.

sive thinker concerning social and economic
his reputation in that regard. His topic
trusts, their evils and how to cure
them. Briefly, his argument was that
country is not made great merely by be-
coming rich, and that the real greatness Of
| a country and the permanence of govern
ment can only be secured by making the
people to the largest tent possible stock
holders in and proprietors of it's productive
industries
Without seeking for a definition of trusts
that would be accepted in a court of law,
Judge Grosscup used the word in it's popu
lar sense as including all the industrial
| mergers, combinations and consultations
of the day. In this sense he regarded them
as natural result of industrial develop
ment whose total suppression is not de-
sirable, and, if desirable. would be impos-
| sibe. Without CHASING railroad consolida-
tions as trusts he pointed out what enor-
nous benefits they had conferred upon the
country, and that some of the industrial
trusts had done the same. who OF this
generation" he inquired. would now go
back to the railways of our fathers? Who,
except the irresponsible agitator, stops to
question even the private fortunes picked
up in the process of consolidation? Who,
indeed. looks upon the railway system thus
| consolidated as other than the normal state
of such affairs-the necessary and bene-
fetal outcome of railway evolution?" And
as in the railway world SO in the industrial
world, every successive development under
economic law has been beneficial to man
| kind. Therefore, he regarded trusts in
themselves as potential for good in that
| they tend to reduce the cost of production
and distribution. and lessen prices to the
consumer. He admitted the possibilities of
danger from trusts, but they were not Of
| the kind usually dwelt upon. He showed
that they had not arrested the increase
of wages nor added materially to the cost
of living. Moreover. there was reason to
| believe that prices would have advanced
| just as much in prosperous times under the
old system of individual ownership and
| competition they had under the trust
4
Grosscup, that under the increased con-
sumption always attendant upon the COM
ing on of good times, prices would have
gone up fully much. and perhaps more,
under the old system of individual manu-
facturers." But, even if some trusts have
put up prices. that was no reason why all
of them. with their possibilities of good
The wheat should not be destroyed with
the tares.
These and other common objections to
trusts being disposed of the speaker came
| to the question of how to deal with them.
First, he held that the Sherman antitrust
law was based on a wrong principle. was
a practical failure and should be repealed.
1t was based on wrong principle because
it represented a policy of determination,
and 1t was failure because trusts had
continued to multiply since as before its
passage. The speaker said:
AS interpreted by the Supreme Court that
act embodied public purpose, unwisely
| formed L think, to deal with the so-called
trusts on no basis other than that OF exter-
| minatiOn-to cut them out root and branch
to sweep the land with a decree like
| Herod's, that no child OF consolidation
should be found TO have escaped. We are
| now well into the thirteenth year since the
passage of the Sherman act. In its means
OF enforcement. as well as in its purpose,
the act was as comprehensive as language
| could make it. 1t withheld no power civil
or criminal, that the lawmakers thought
would contribute TO the complete eradica-
ton of the supposed evil. 1t had been
| preceded in Texas, Kansas, Michigan and
Maine, by state laws directed to the same
end; and was quickly followed by like law S
in one-half the other States, including New
! York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois Wisconsin.
| Iowa and the West generally. Thus, so
| far as enactments make law, the law, both
! national and state, has, for a period three
times longer than it took to put down the
rebellion, been in battle line against the
| so-called trusts.
That this legislative warfare against
trusts had not exterminated them was evil
dent, the speaker said from the fact that
of 112 leading so-called trusts all but thir-
teen have been created since the passage
of the Sherman law. From this he argued
that the policy of determination was as
impossible it was unwise.
In Judge Grosscup's opinion the great
est evil and menace of trusts was that the
individual operators and manufacturers
who were either bought out or, by compe-
tition, were driven out of business ceased
TO be interested in the productive indus
tries of the country and became nonpro-
ducers. He attributed the immense in
crease in the bank deposits of the country
during the last twenty years-an increase
he said, out of all proportion to the in
crease of population or of ~wealth-to the
fact that SO many persons had either sold
out TO trusts or become their employees
thus ceasing to be proprietors in the indus
tries of the land and in the absence of op-
portunity TO become stockholders in the
big concerns had put their money in bank
He regarded a widespread withdrawal, by
the people at large. from general ownership
in the properties of the country as involv-
ing the gravest dangers. He said:
a few of these are so obvious that
need only indicate them. Such withdrawal
will diminish, If not destroy. popular in
terest in national prosperity; for, from
those only who have stake in prosperity
can expect great interest. 1t will kill
| off competitions: for the competitor of the
trusts must itself be trust. and there will
be no independent field from which to re-
cruit the means to Great such competitor
cruit the means to create such competitor
Garner in any hope of becoming part owner
| and thus deepen and widen the existing
gulf between wealth and labor. Ii will sap
to its foundation the real strength of gov
f-r n.