Mower County transcript., 1902-10-01
THE PRESIDENTS VIEWS >.=
ON QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.
Believes in Existing Tariff with Notifications to Meet
Demands of Changing Condtions-His At
titude Toward the Trusts.

AdOAAy uSeu ny Cne duVOcaCeS u Cuc
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
those large corporations.
"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 prosperous. It would be
| neither just nor expedient to punish
the big corporations as big corpora
| tions. What we wish to do is to pro-
tect the people from any evil that
may grow out of their existence or
administration. Some of those
corporations do we'll and others do
i'll. If in any case the tariff is found
to foster monopoly which does i'll,
why, of course, no protectionist
would object to modification of the
tariff sufficient to remedy the evil.
But in few cases does the so-called
trust really monopolize the market.
''Take any big corporation which
controls, say, something over half the
products of given industry. Surely
in rearranging the schedules affect
ing such big corporation it would
be necessary to consider the interests
Of it's smaller competitors, which con-
troll 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 nee
essarily employs many thousands of
workmen, and the minute we proceed
from denunciation to action it would
be necessary to consider the interests
of these workmen. Furthermore, the
products of many trusts are unpro-
tected and would be entirely unaf-
fected by any change in the tariff,
or at most slightly so.
'The Standard Oil company offers
case in point, and the corporations
which control the anthracite coal out
put offer another-for there is no
duty whatever on anthracite coal.
II am not discussing the question
of the tariff as such, whether from
the standpoint of the fundamental
difference between those who believe
in protective tariff and those who
believe in free trade; or from the
standpoint of those who, while they
believe in a protective tariff, feel that
there could be Encouragement of
our schedules, either by direct legis-
lation or by reciprocity treaties
which would result in charging our
markets; nor yet from the stand
point cf those who feel that liability
of economic policy is at the moment
our prime economic need, and that
the benefits to be derived from any
change in schedules would not COM
pensate for the damage to business
caused by the widespread agitation
which would follow any attempted
general revision to the tariff at this
moment.
"Without regard to the wisdom oil
any one of those three positions, ii
remains true that the real evils con-
nected with the trusts cannot be rem
edied by any change in the tariff laws
The trusts can be damaged by depriv-
ing them of the benefits of a protective
tariff only on condition of damaging
all their smaller competitors and the
wage workers employed in the in
dustry.
Publicity the First Move.
"The necessary supervision and con-
troll, in which I firmly believe as the
only method of eliminating the real
evils of the trust, must come through
wisely and cautiously framed legisla-
tion which shall aim, in the first place,
to give definite control to some SOW
ereign power over the great corpora
tions, and which shall be followed,
when once this power has been con-
fered, by system giving to the gov-\
ernment the full knowledge which is
the essential for satisfactory action.
"Then when this knowledge-one of
the essential features of which is
proper publicity-has been gained,
what further steps Of any kind are
necessary can be taken with the con-
fidence born Of the possession of power
to deal with the subject and of thor
ough knowledgefof what ought and
can be done in the matter
eve need additional power, and we
need knowledge. Our constitution was
formed when the economic conditions
were so different that each state could
wisely be left to handle the corpora
tions within its limits as it saw fit.
Nowadays all the numerous corpora
tions which am considering do what
is really an interstate business, and as
the states have proceeded on different
lines in regulating them they are often
organized in state in which they do
little or no; business and do an enor-
nous business in other states, to the
spirit Of whose laws they may be open
ly antagonistic. 49,: Il. !: J. IF ...@5
ut might be better IL all the states
could agree to work along the same
lines in dealing with these corpora
tions, but see not the slightest pros
pect Of such agreement. Therefore
personally feel that ultimately the ma