The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-04-29
GOVERNMENTAL MERGER TO CURB
BUSINESS MERGERS

In his address at Pittsburg, Saturday
evening, Leslie M. Shaw, secretary of the
treasury, expressed two principal ideas.
One was that our expanding commercial
power will soon give us the worlds best
merchant marine and that the stars and
stripes are destined to drive the union
jack from the Pacific. This simple ex-
preston of confidence in the growth of
the American marine seems unnecessar-
lily to have offended the London Globe.
II we come to control the commerce of
the Pacific, as even Englishmen freely
predict that we will, it is inevitable that
the stars and stripes shall succeed the
union jack as the chief commercial flag
Of that ocean. The speech breathed no
hostility to England, unless the conf
dence that every American has that the
United States is to be the greatest COM
mercial nation is hostility to England.
Mr.. Shaw evidently thinks that this SUI
premacy is to come about through the
unparalleled strength and wealth of our
great manufacturing and financial cor
porations, which seem to be able to at
tain any purpose that appeals to them
as worth while. The great merger of the
Atlantic steamship lines is probably the
first step in rapid series that will soon
give American corporations control Of
ocean freights, even if the steamers carry
some other flag.
The other idea in Mr. Shaw's speech
was that the concentration of commercial
and industrial power is forcing the con-
centration OF political power. He aptly
cited as an illustration the suit against
the Northern Securities merger. Without
expressing an opinion as to probable re-
suits" he said lit is interesting to note
that the most pronounced disciples of
state sovereignty, complain not of this
action and utter no other criticism than
that it should have been commenced
earlier" He called attention to the de-
mand for national regulation of railways.
of express, telegraph and insurance COM
parties, and of trusts, and expressed the
belief that the trend of thought and the
trend of events seem to be still toward
a greater and more centralized govern
ment.
Americans, even the most pronounced
opponents of what was formerly known as
states rights, instinctively dread the con-
centration of great power in washington.
It is felt that the strength and peculiar
character of American government, are to
be found in the separation Of national and
local affairs, leaving to every Local
political subdivision wide field for local
legislation and self-government. The
superiority of the federal over other forms
of government lies, as Cecil Rhodes SO
clearly perceived, in the characterization
of distant regions and somewhat conflict
ing interests through the wide liberty to
make local laws to suit local conditions
and wishes Each subdivision does not
regard Itself as subject to the central
power, but a part of it, with the full right
to administer its own affairs as it pleases
within certain broad and salutary limita-
tions
But it happens that the most extreme
champions of state government are alst
the most extreme champions of the larg
est possible degree of personal liberty amt
Industrial tyranny as much as they feal
equality of opportunity. These men fea
political despotism- But. they find tina
the states, acting as legislative units, ar.
not able to cope with corporations Whcst
interests and powers are territorially a:
wide or even wider than those of thu
whole country Through the growth O
great business interests, dominated b,
powerful corporations, the common inter
ests of the states in uniform legislaticl
are far greater than they were fifty @
even ten years ago. the state RICH
champions were never afraid of nationa
legislation that was for the benefit of all