The Lexington intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1901-1949, 1902-11-08

we can no longer produce enough food
stufTs to feed it, then the home price
on the products Of the farm can be
run up to any desired figure by means
of protective tariff, as. In Germany,
and then the %millionaires will be glad
to buy land.
Stone on Trusts.
No man in Missouri has spoken
more wisely or with fuller informa-
tion upon the whole subject OF trusts
than w. J. Stone. He has always
contended that they are evils which
threaten the business prosperity Of
the people and the political morality
Of the nation, He has always con-
tended that no amendment to the
national constitution is necessary to
provide for their proper restraint.
He has shown again and again that
the power lodged 10 congress has not
been used to effect this end, and that
even II it had no such power, the
the states could handle the matter in
such way as to cripple the trusts by
statutory enactments. And he has
shown, too, that even without
statutes the courts could, If they
would, restrain the trusts under the
common law relative to monopoly in
the necessaries Of life-the ~necessaries
Of modern life being more numerous
than formerly, tbs extension of the
principle would cover practically all
the products o! trusts.
But in his recent Sedalia speech, as
reported in the Sedalia Democrat, Mr..
Stone made an argument which con-
tained an essential fallacy-a fallacy
which deserves to be exposed just as
ruthlessly when employed by a friend
as when employed by an enemy.
Speaking of the tobacco trust, he
said:
under competition there we're five
tobacco concerns 10 St. Lou Is employ
Ing 5000 people. Under the trust in
that city the number Of employees
has been reduced to I, 5OO.n
1t is due to Mr.. Stone to say that
he did not press this matte. further
than the implied argument in the
above quotation. If the evil Of the
trust consisted in throwing men out
of employment, the argument might
be made with greater force and equal
fairness against every invention and
labor-saving device from the cotton
gin to the locomotive. The power
loom or the s%elfbinder or the hay rake
have thrown out Of employment more
than any trust in all the world.
Yet no nation has ever been impov.
erished by labor-saving devices. Italy
aud China have resisted the introduc
tion Of machinery on this very ground,
and they have done it to their indus
trial ruin. The fundamental fallacy
of this contention consists in regard
ing it as the primary object Of indus
tries TO furnish employment, while
the trle object is to furnish product,
and as cheaply as possible. In its last
analysis, the "home industry and
''home market" argument Of protec-
tionists is reducible to this same
principle.
The reduction Of operating expenses
instead Of being an argument against
the trusts is the only valid argument
in their favor-valid merely 10 theory,
for it is not true 10 fact. 1t is proba-
bly, true that the part Of operating
expenses which relates to wages and
salaries is lessened by the merging Of
competing companies into a trust,
but the total operating expenses are
increased, in proportion TO the output.
The steel trust, for instance, has
reduced its salary and wage list, but
1t pays vast rentals on mills which
leased merely to be closed down
gotten out Of the way. These
rentals are to be added to the expense
account. All the talk about the
Of trust being to reduce optr-
atlng expenses Is stuff and nonsense.
They are organized to regulate output
and to fix prices.
tho Dab 80 ELL