The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1902-09-25
THE TARIFF AND THE TRUST
Presidents View of the Plan to Give Free
Trade in Trust Products.


Trade in Trust Products.
When he came to the branch of the
subject made prominent by the Iowa
Republican platform and the declina-
ton by Speaker Henderson of a re-
nomination in his district, he said:
"A remedy flor trustsl much advo-
Gated at the moment is to take off the
tariff from all articles which are made
by trusts. To do this it will be neces-
sary first to define trusts.
1.-THE president, generally, defined
trusts as big corporations which do
ILL., Take any very big corporation
which cOntrOls-say something over
half the products of a given industry
Surely in rearranging the schedules
affecting such a big corporation it
would be necessary to consider the in
terests OF its smaller competitors
which control the remaining part, and
which being weaker would suffer most
from any tariff designed to punish all
the producers; for, of course, the tariff
must be made light or heavy for big
and little producers alike.
Moreover, such a corporation neces-
sarily employs very many thousands
OF wOrkmen, and the minute we pro-
ceeded from denunciation to action it
would be necessary to consider the in
tereSts Of these wOrkmen. Further
more, the products of many trusts are
unprotected, and would be entirely un-
affected by any change in the tariff,
or at most very slightly so. The Stand
ard Oil company offers q case In point,
and the corporations which control the
anthracite coal output offer another
for there is no duty whatever on
anthracite coal.
| "My point is that changes in the
tariff would have little appreciate eff
| feet on the trusts save as they shared
in the general harm or good proceed
Ing from such changes. No tariff
change would help one Of our smaller
corporations, or one of our private in
| dividuals In business, still less one of
our wage workers, as against a large
corporation in the same business; on
the contrary, II 1t bore heavily on the
large corporation 1t would inevitably
be felt still more by that corporations
weaker rivals, while any injurious re-
suit would Of necessity be shared ny
both the employer and employed in
the business concerned.
1.-The immediate Introduction of sub.
stantial free trade In all articles manu-.
featured by trusts = that is by the
largest and most successful corpora
tions-would not affect some of the
most powerful of our business com
binations in the least, save by the
damage done to the general business
welfare or the country; others would
undoubtedly be seriously affected, but
much less so then their weaker rivals
while the loss would be divided be-
tween the capitalists and the labor
ers, and after the years of panic and
distress had been lived through, and
some return to prosperity had oc
Cured, even though all were on low.
er plane of prosperity than before, the
relative difference between the trusts
and their rivals would remain as
| marked as ever.
'In other words, the trust, or bic
corporation, would have suffered rela-
lively to, and I'm the interest of, its
foreign competitors; but its relative
position toward its American compete
tors would probably be improved"