The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-01-07


bility for obligations
The senator said that Notwithstanding
the great corporations are IN good nan0S
but suppose some Napoleon OF finance
should come into the control Of thou
sand million dollars would not that pos
sibility be real public danger2 Sucn
a power can make wars or II can pre-
vent wars. It can threaten a community
with a coal famine. & wheat famine, and
II can execute its threats. We mad no
fear but that the American people could
meet such emergencies. hut it were bet
ter TO forestall them.
Mr. Hoar then took up the question
OF trusts as they now exist, pointing out
as follows:
l. Destruction of competition.
2 The management of local industries
caitaI.
3. Destruction of local public spirit.
3 Secrecy
g.. MANAGEMENT for the private benefit
of the officials.
Z. The power to corrupt elections, and
IN some cases to corrupt the courts.
8. The want Of personal responsibility
to public sentiment
g. The absence Of personal liability for
contracts or wrong doing
TO- The holding of vast properties in
mortmain in the deadhand If we may
use the ancient phrase of the English
language. But it has life enough for all
purposes of power to serve the will that
Yields It. It Is dead only to the influ-
ence OF any nerve which comes from the
brain or heart Of the people. Dwelling
especially on the want of competition,
he said; There Is one central power
alone with which the stalled skilled
workman must deal and one dominant
VIII with which he must submit There
may be little help for him by joining
a labor union whether he gets the adj
vantage OF associated strength on his
side but the labor union knows no diff
ference between excellence and the re-
verse The inefficient man and the lazy
man and the duh man must stand on
one dead level with the brightest and
keenest and most ingenious Of his COM
rades."
Mr.. Hoar said that many as were the
evils in the great combinations of cap
ftal some Of them would be counter ball
anced by corresponding advantages, ana
added:
Il confess like to see Pierpont Nor
gan buying up great lines of ocean
steamships I like to hear of foreign
potentates and principalities and powers
bowling down when he visits the CONT
nent of Europe. We need great strength
We need great individual power If We
are to rival foreign nations in the great
matters which they also control by in
dividual power. We must, if we can,
look out in protecting ourselves, not to
destroy them. nor to cramp them. We
can give them law which will not i'm
pair Jn6lT strength ana not Ckf8ck IlS1I
natural and rightfa1l growth and that I
hope is all we mean to do. But 1t will
be a bad bargain If we buy the domfn-
ion of the continent or the empire of the
sea at the cost Of American local public
spirit"
But, great wealth should be controlled
as the servant of man and of govern
ment and should not be given the reins
Of control. We must keep control over
agencies which can make cities grow
or Wither.
Mr.. Hoar said that he did not agree
with those who think they find an ade-
quate remedy for the evils of the trusts
In the removal of the tariff from all the
remedy suggested by himself more like
" to prove effective He announced his
opposition to government ownership of
great labor employing industries, IN
Guiding coal mines and railroads. So
cialism, he said furnishes no remedy,
j but would be quite as bad as the trusts
\ themselves. The dead level proposed by
socialism would be destructive of
everything which makes life worth liv-
/ ing or manhood worth respecting. So
ctalisTn may do for China or for Turkey
but it will never be q Yankee remedy.
/ We had no permanent danger to fear
from that source
Speaking of corporations, Mr.. Hoar
said no power less than that of the en-
! pire nation is capable of dealing with
them The question was the most i'm
! time, For said he I'VE are to deal
not only with foreign commerce, but
| with that compared with which the for
eign commerce of the world is but a
drop in the bucket-the domestic COM
merce of the United States" This com
merce, he continued, is in the hands OF
the great corporations and it is properly
in their hands Their work might be
benef1cent as we'll as otherwise, and for
this reason congress should go slowly
and carefully in devising a remedy for
the ills lest it should bring on others
which might be worse. Two important
! steps already had been taken in the
! passage of the interstate commerce law
and the Sherman antitrust law, but
| while both measures had proved effica-
ciOus they had fallen short Of the re-
i quirements.
The antitrust law had accomplished
even more than its friends had expected
of it, but there had been, he said, much
disappointment over the failure of the
supreme court adequately to interpret
the phrase in restraint of trade" as APP
piled to combinations of business inter
ests. Discussing the accomplishments
under that law Mr.. Hoar said that this
attorney general had gone far already
under it to break up a monopoly which
affected the whole freight and passen-
ger traffic of the northwest, another at
fecting the cotton trade of the south
and another the price of beef, prime
article of food. He believed that con-
gress had power to go further on tbs
lines indicated by Attorney Genera
Knox IN his Pittsburg speech and the
enactment of a law on the general line:
of his bill he thought would be only
another step in the direction Of the anti
trust law. His bill he considered tenta
tive and experimental But it was SAT
and could be modified. We should pro
coed safely step by step. The measure
he said is based entirely on the theor.
that congress can impose on a corpora
ton created by any state such obiisa
+ tions as it shall think fit and reasonab l
as a condition for its being permitted
to engage in commerce with foreign na
lions and among the several states.
He then presented the following out
. lire of the restrictions imposed By hi
bill on corpora tons:
First=PubIicity in the conduct o.
/ their bust ness and the constitution o
! their organization; second, the powe