The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-12-11
Reading Up on Trusts.

Any one who keeps in touch with new
development and changing sentiment in
the financial world, cannot fail to be
impressed with, the growth Of the new
factor bearing upon the trust question
the demand for greater publicity. A
feature of the closing year has been the
spread Of this idea. On the part of
bankers and investors. there has always
been desire for clearer insight into the
workings of the companies-usually
spoken Of as trusts. In majority of
cases the great industrial corporations
have not taken the public into their
confidence by the issuance of regular
statements of earnings, as have the rail-
roads. and to this fact is due in part the
discrimination by investors against indus
trial securities as a class.
From the investors also came the orig
inal demand for publicity, demand lost
upon the trusts, whose semi -secretive
policies OF administering financial affairs
remain in force in a majority of cases
The first swing towards the side of pub
licity followed the organization of the
greatest corporation of all, the billion
acts.
and one that came as a startling innova-
ton, was the issuance of a statement
showing gross and net earnings The in
corporators were credited with favoring
the growth of public sentiment in favor of
publicity, and with having decided that if
would be wise to anticipate it in some
degree, since theirs was the largest in
dustr1al combination of all, and the one
likely to be singled out for first attack in
any general rise Of feeling against the
trusts. How well they anticipated was
shown later, for in the first message Of
president Roosevelt, he touched upon the
trust question and urged publicity as q.
step towards that comprehensive graso
OF the situation necessary to the remedy
ing Of trust evils. - .,.. r.
Since that day. the feeling has been in
tensiHed until there is a general crv for
publicity. The public desires to know
about trusts, what they accomplish, what
good purpose they serve, what harm thew
co. 1t Is not only that the investor and
the banker want this informa ton, but
men who have no direct interest in trusts
OF combinations want to know about them
as we'll. The politician sees the trust is
sue looming up, and realizes that he must
know something about them. To s,,ch
an extent has the interest spread that
writer's find increasing demand for rea da .
Bile articles on the subject. Public taste
Is changing, and where formerly the
magazines would relegate to the back
ground an article that Of necessity must
carry a dry weight Of facts and figures
they are now found giving them prea+
prominence. Witness the illustrated ar
t1cle on the new ship combine by Win.
throp L. Marvin in the current number If
the Review Of Reviews, the featured ar+i-
Gle by Ida NJ. Tarbell on the rise of +ba
Standard Oil company, running in Mo
6 Cures. tho article on the United States
Steel corporation by Henry. Loomis- Mel
son in the Christmas Century. and manv
othersI The magazines would not nr;nt
this matter if it did not pay It would
not pay If the public did not want to read
It,. This is one Of the most gratifying
signs Of the times.
on can trust the average American
citizen to get right. He may not under
stand all the weighty economic problems
involved in the trust question. as indeed
there are few who have mastered them,
but he knows that the trust question il