Arizona republican., 1902-10-13
CURRENT COMMENT
 The Size of the Trusts.

Senator Delivers optimistic elo- quence before the national league of republican clubs last week may not be entirely convincing to all We have record of some of whom it was said that. since they would not listen to Moses and the prophets, they would not pay attention if one arose from the dead to admonish them. Men may. in deed, be considerably less obstinate than they and yet insist that there are grave phases of the question other than those presented by the Iowa sen- ator. Yet it seems impossible that any fair minded and thoughtful man should fail to be profoundly impressed by his presentation of the problem of the trusts and of the solution of 1t which he anticipates through the operation of natural and familiar forces.
 We have all heard, ad nauseam, the partisan batter about the universality of trusts. We have been told in screed and speech and grotesque cartoon, that the hapless American citizen is reused In the morning by a trust made alarm clock, rises from a trust made bed bathes in trust made tub, using trust made soap; dons trust made clothes sits down on a trust made chair at a trust made table to eat trust made food from trust made dishes, and then goes to work with trust made tools in the workshop of a trust. Such stuff may sound plausible, and may even be ef- fective, to some minimizing minds. If 1t were true we should doubtless be in m unhappy plight. But, as Senator Deliver forcibly reminds us, it is not true. It is not even approximately true.
 Here are the figures which Senator Deliver sets forth. on the authority of the census of 1900. There are 1855 trusts, representing the consultations of 2,O4O separate establishments Those are large numbers in themselves. and might indicate a formidable state of affairs were it not that the United States is so much larger. But, viewed in just perspective to the whole mass of Amer ican industry, they are insignificant. Less than 10 per cent of the factory labor of the United States is employed by trusts, and only IA per cent of our manufactured output is produced by trusts. Then more than 90 per cent of our factory labor Is independent of trusts, and S6 per cent of manufactured articles are not trust made. Those are the facts of record which Senator Dol liver opposes to the fiamboyant fancies of the octopus hunter. We think they are worthy of consideration.
 Equally pertinent and suggestive is his reminder of the trusts that have failed. Upon this point there can be no dispute. The facts are before us in the daily news. little while ago there was a wild wall because the bicycle trust would doom every hump backed scorcher to contract kyphosis bicyclis- tarum on a trust made wheel. But the other day the bicycle octopus went into the hands of receiver. The salt trust, too, was 9 monster of iniquity which would compel every American citizen to flavor his breakfast egg and to mod fly the anti-octopedian tales he heard with trust made salt. But last week the salt trust went the way of many another. Senator Deliver recalls the names of a number of trusts which have failed. Every observant reader can supply many more.
 It may seem primitive optimism to hold that only the good trusts will en- dure and that all the bad trusts will fail Yet we should not be without some ground for that comfortable faith It would not be difficult to name vari- ous trusts of vast magnitude, of long