The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-09-13
SUNDAY, SEPT. 10, 1903.
CHANGES IN COMPETITION.

One of the most interesting addresses
of Labor Day was that delivered by
Samuel Gompers, president of the
American Federation Of Labor. That
Mr.. Gompers is absolutely sincere
every one believes; but his view of
conditions is an extreme one. And it
is just the opposite of what is sup
posed to be the common attitude of
labor. He says: "The old idea, even
among the business men, that compe-
tition is the life of industry, is no long
er held as an economical tenet. 1t is
no longer believed and declared by men
who know the trend of events in the
development Of industry. They realize
that competition is today the death Of
the trader"
Such a belief, so expressed, is the
natural product of a thoroughgoing
faith in organization. Mr.. Gompers be-
lieves that organization is the only
safeguard and salvation Of labor. He
is too broad minded to deny the same
right to capital or fail to predict for 1t
the same future. Therefore he fore
sees the total disappearance of COM
petition, just as he anticipates the
vanishing of the worker who is not
connected with union. The future of
industry to his eye rests in a play OF
interest between monopolized capital
on one side and monopolized industry
on the other, working together upon
such living terms as they can reach
through trials of strength and through
arbitration.
This is not at all an unworthy view,
and it is not from that side that we
find it open to criticism. But we be-
lieve it to be a wholly Incorrect one
and that it's superficiality will in
stantly appear when we look at all the
phenomena of the Industrial world, in
stead of at few of them. For one
thing, while the union workingman is
making great progress and finds salts
faction in his lot, the same is true of
his non-union fellow. It is not true
that there is no place in American In
dustry for the individual workman, or
that individuality must perish from
the earth. 1t is, on the contrary, pretty
nearly the strongest force in human
nature; and 1t will find scope and play
centuries after the problems that vex
us now have been solved and forgotten.
On the other hand it is not true that
competition as a trade factor is doomed
to disappear. 1t has been vastly over
rated. 1t is not the great, beneficent.
all-powerful force that it was supposed
to be. Unlimited competition has been
found to be quite as much a curse as a
blessing. To it we owe largely the
tenement, the slum, the middleman, the
impoverished wage Garner. Every fac
tory act, tenement house regulation,
law against child labor, and hundreds
of others is a direct limitation and de-
struction of competition by act of the
people. So are combinations of capital.
as well as Of labor.
But these developments do rot elm
mate competition, they merely regulate
1t and change its character. It is just
as truly as ever one of the controlling
forces, of industrial life. The modern
department store has wrought great
changes in the retail trade, but it has
not wiped the small shop out of ex-
istence. There is still that competition.
as well as the competition of the de-
partment stores with one another. The
United States Steel company, the most
gigantic illustration of combination.
has not destroyed competition in the
@eel trade. nor could it do SO if it