The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1902-10-08
REPUBLICAN LEADEs ON TRUSTS.
Senator DoIIiver Speaks in Chi
cage With Trusts and Tariff
as His Text.

Chicago. Oct. 2.-The Iowa idea"
came to the surface tonight at mass
meeting under the auspices of the Ma
tional League of Republican clubs
which met in annual convention here
today. United States Senator j. P.
Dolliver of Iowa was responsible. In
terest became intense when it was
realized by the delegates to the conven-
ton and spectators that they were be-
inc treated to The first public speech
on She subject by national leader OF
the party since the Iowa Republican
State convention. Mr.. Dolliver said
in part:
minute, and I select that only because
7 am familiar with it and because
circumstances have arisen to give 1t a
universal advertisement. It has been
presented to the country as the sudden
impulse Of dissatisfied mischief makers
within the Republican party. On the
other hand, it is the mature Judgment
of man whose wisdom has never fall
ed the Republican party in the 40
wears Of his uninterrupted public ser
vice.
SIT is evident that even if it were
desirable to kill the t.usts, it could
not be done by merely remitting the
duties which their foreign competitors
nav at our custom houses. Even Mr..
Bryan, who talks of putting the cap
tains Of industry into q changing and
sending J. Pierpont Morgan first to
the poor-house and then to the peni-
tentiary, admits publicly that the free
trade remedy falls very far short OF the
object he has 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
combinations, under single corporate
management. A successful attempt to
repeal the law of competition in the
American market place would be
speedily fatal to the protective tariff
system, because the whole design OF
that system rests upon the unlmpalred
vitality of that law.
Before anybody makes up his mind
that the so-called American. trust IS
a permanent Institution, let him con-
sider the long list of ambitious com
binations which have already had their
affairs wound up by the courts of
justice. The alcohol, the linseed oil
trust, the alkali trust, the asphalt
trust, the bicycle trust and scores OF
others whose very names are now even
forgotten. What was the matter with
these astonishing creations OF the
promoters art. Nine out of ten Of
them were bogus and, without stretch
ing the law very much, could have
been denied the use Of the mails on
an ordinary fraud order. Only yester-
day one Of the mammoth establish
ments, the National Salt company, haa
a little business before a court OF
equity in New Jersey. The organlzs-
ton of that trust in 1889 wasi looked
upon everywhere as a step in the dl-
rection in monopolizing the necessa-
ries of life.
The more I examine the old law Of
competition, the better it looks to me.
If the duty of settlement has already
come to so many Of these once formld-
able institutions how has it Jared with
G1OSS WHICH nave 81 4oI SIX f4fO0 0AiO
test? Already the evidence is accumu-
lating from which the doom Of the
trusts can be foretold, even the most
solvent and best managed of them all.
The figures of the census show that
neither in the mercantile nor the man
ufacturing world has the small dealer
who owns his business and gives it his
personal attention, anything to fear in
competition with the oVergrowth and
top-heavy investments Of capital that
surround him.
= g There is no room in this discussion
for vain ordinations of alarm and de-
spair Up to this time the tariff policy
to which we owe the prosperous eondi-
tions which now surround Us, has been
the ally of independent capital, in its
grapple with the modern trust system !;
but If the day should ever come when
the productive energies of the Ameri-
can people are important in the pres
ence of monopoly, the protection which
for more than a generation our laws
have given to all our industries alike,
is not likely to remain to enrich such
conspiracy of ayarice and greed. -