The Washington times., 1902-09-21
AMENDMENT THE ONLY
ANTITRUST REMEDY
Continued from First Page.)

tions. We wish to make them subserve
the public good. All individuals, rich or
poor, private or corporate, must be sub
| ject to the law of the land; and the Gov
| ernment will hold them to rigid o5e-
dience thereof.
THE biggest corporation, like the hum
blest private citizen, must be held TO
strict compliance with the will of the
people as expressed in the fundamental
law The rich man who does not see that
this is in his interest is indeed short
sighted. When we make him obey the
law we insure for him the absolute pro-
lection of the law.
''The savings banks show what can be
done in the way of genuinely beneficent
work by large corporations when iptelli-
gently administered and supervised.
They now hold over $4,000, 100000 of the
peoples money. and pay annually about
s100.000.000 of interest or profit to their
depositors. There is no talk of danger
from these corporations; yet they pos
sess great power. holding over three
times the amount of our present national
debt, more than all the currency, gold,
silver, greenbacks, etc, in circulation in
the United States.
Under Wise Laws.
''Tbe chief reason for there being no
talk of danger from them is that they
are, on the whole. faithfully administered
for the benefit of all under wise laws
which require frequent and full publica-
tion of treir condition, and which pre-
Scy hQ -faiy,
which they have to comply, while at the
same time giving full scope for the busi-
ness enterprise of their managers within
these limits.
Now, of course, savings banks are as
highly specialized class of corporations
as railroads, and we cannot force too
far the analogy with other corporations,
but there are certain conditions which
think we can lay down as indispensa-
BILE to the proper treatment of all cor
porations which from their size have
become important factors in the social
development of the community.
A remedy much advocated at the mo-
ment is to take off the tariff from all
articles which are made by trusts. To
do this 1t Will be necessary first to de-
fine trusts. The language commonly
used by the advocates of the method
implies that they mean all articles made
by large corporations, and that the
changes in tariff are to be made with
punitive intent toward these large cor
porations. OF course, if the tariff is to
be changed in order to punish them. it
should be changed so as to punish those
that do i'll, not merely those that are
Prosperity Not a Crime.
''lt would be neither just nor expedi- |
ent to punish the big corporations as |
big corporations; what we wish to do |
IS TO protect the people from any evil |
that may grow out of their existence or |
maladministration Some of these cor
porations do well and others do i'll. If |
in any case the tariff is found to foster |
a monopoly which does i'll. why. OF
course, no protectionist would object to |
a modification OF the tariff sufficient to |
remedy the evil.
But in very few cases does the So
called trust really monopolize the mar
set- Take any very big corporation
which controls say something over half
he products, OF a given industry Surely /
in rearranging the schedules affecting
% consider the interests of its smaller
competitors, which control the remain
ng part. and which. being weaker would T.