Ottumwa tri-weekly courier., 1903-10-20

for the purpose of defeating conspir-1
acies in restraint of trade have been
passed by republicans but | am not
one to believe that the trusts will be
killed by congress. My convection Is
that no corporation essentially bad IN
character as most all of the great
trusts are can. long survive In mar
ket place like ours. Nobody ought
therefore be discouraged even If con-
gress does not effectually deal with
them if they are living in the world [
in which a thousand forces operate
under laws which man did not make
and cannot repeal for justice and
fair dealing among men. The ele1
mentary laws of consumption arei
such as to cefend the community
against the greed and eXtortion OIL
monopoly while the law of competition
has never been seriously disturbed ey-
en- by the greatest of trusts and isl
now undermining all of them and push
ing them steadily toward bankruptcy
Law of Maximum Consumption.
Il find one law that it a good one
| and one thai congress did not make,
or will not try to repeal. 1t is the law
| Of maximum consumption. Take the
monopoly of postage stamps. Now
/ why don't they charge 81 for postage
! stamps and make more money from
| their sale? Many. of You remember
when stamps sold for fifty
cents each What was the result?
\ There was great deficit in the postal
/ department and the price was made
Il twenty-five cents The result was that
the revenues of the department dou-
bled The decrease was then from TWEEN
4 ty-five to ten, from ten to five, from
4 five to three and then to two cents,
| and increased revenues have marked
every change. Why? Because the con-
sumption was proportionately greater.
4 venture to say that within five years
the price will go to one cent.
The Sugar Situation.
"Then there is the American Sugar
Co, which is probably the greatest
trust. controlling 95 per cent of the
, product. Why don't they raise the
price Of sugar to twenty-five cents d
pound instead of giving twenty pounds
for a dollar? Because the people wonld
| quit using sugar or would curtail the
usage to such an extent that the profit
would be lighter
Law of Alternate Consumption.
another law not made by congress
is the law of alternate consumption
If price of one article goes up use an
other similar article. As an illustra
!, ton, if the price of lumber goes ur
! buy brick. There are thousand such
! illustrations and they show what near
, ly every trust is un against.
3 Law of Deferred Consumption.
: Then there is the law of deferred
! consumption, or in other words, weal
!. the old one If the article you wish Il
! buy is too high priced, don't buy it to
y day, wait until the price goes down
{ They say there is hat trust and tina
Z the price is too high That is impossi
l. BILE, for every new hat in the land il
! in open competition with every oil
. one.
Il Law of Competition.
Then there is the law of com petition
which has been doing business sine
y the creation of man. This is the LAY
y by virtue of which if anyone has goo
" thing he had better keep it TO himself
. > So no one will be allowed to keep
70 good thing to himself very long becaus
- others will want in.
n. The Steel Trust.
If 'Take the United States steel CO.
10 poration For years before its orgal
n ization there were several steel, wil
and tin plate factories in operation
which were compelled to purchas
S. crude pig iron from Andrew Carnegie
s. The owners of the steel factories o'
I'd jected to the prices they had to pa
VS. for the crude material and they bougf
ay up the mines and put in machiner
+. for the purpose of supplying their ow
lg pig iron. Carnegie heard OF tn
ce and he set about to start the manufa
at ture of steel
SO The steel men got together and d
IL cided to get Carnegie out of the wa
y They went to Carnegie and were as
re ed an enormous price. They bougl
the plant, giving over 200,000,0O0
cash and gave bonds secured by MOI
iii cages on the plants for the balanc
at The result has been that they hay
yn been paying bonded Indebtedness, di
m idends and interest and their tinanci
I'M reports shows that the entire di,
If dends have gone toward the payne
he of the bonds. We once feared Il
he steel trust but now it has our syl
he pathy.
ng The Democrats and the Tariff.
get q do not want to leave until l ha
m again touched upon the industrial S
'ls uation. The tariff laws are not pt
feet. No human institution is D,
feet. But the tariff is better TIL
led it was in 1897. am one who beliey