The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-07-08
w. $. Logan,s Address.


upon competing producers. To get the best
of service the State has relied upon compe-
tition among those who serve IT. 1t has
been onlv where competition was impossible
that great scandals or great failures have
resulted. Our whole civilization is based
upon competition. But competition Is COM
ing to an end. The cornerstone is crumbling
and the structure is in danger. Combina-
ton as an economic force is fast coming to
take the place of competition.
THE steps toward the formation of one
universal industrial corporation which shall
crowd out all other corporations and as
sumo to itself all the industries CT the land
have been already more than half taken.
1t Is not so far TO so from now to that end
as we had to so to reach present industrial
conditions.
all this proves to be economically righteous.
Production is cheapened when carried on
on a large scale. A business is more profit
able when there Is no rs
forces, upon the laws of supply and de-
mand, or upon economic considerations to
limit the growth of modern combinations.
TWO PARAMOUNT QUESTIONS.
There are two questions. then, of para
mount importance before the American peo-
pie to-day.
81. Is it for the interest of the people
that economic considerations should be
eliminated and economic forces limited in
the manner OF the extension of modern in
/ dustrial combinations?
| '2. If the first question Is answered In
| the affirmative. how can We DO it?
II think the masses Of the community.
! outside of the comparatively few who are
exploiting II, are pretty generally agreed
| that a limit should be put. and must be put.
upon modern combinations for the follow
| ing reasons:
81. Economic considerations. while i'm
portant. should not be controlling. The
/ first cost OF q loaf of bread is not so i'm
portant to the community outside of the
bakers, as is it's selling price that the COM
"2 The question of the selling price Of
a loaf of bread that the purchaser has to
pay for 1t is less important than the ques-
! ton OF whether he has the money with
| which to make the purchase. Two-cent
bread Will do man no good unless he
can raise the cents. If the bread trust
| became. by another combination, part
/ OF the General Industrial Company OF
| the land, which controlled all the indus
tries of the land and was the only employer
| of labor. Ii is questionable what wages this
| General Industrial Company without
| any competitor In the labor market, would
choose to pay to laborers who had no other
/ place where they could get employment.
| Even If the bread department of the Gen
| eral Industrial Company saw tit, from
| economic or eleemosynary considerations.
sold before. the benefit that the community
would get from this reduction in price
might be neutralized by general reduc-
| would have less money with which to buy
bread than they ever had before.
| MONEY AND MANHOOD.
"3 Money is not always the most i'm
| portant thing. Perhaps 1t or what 1t rep
resents is the most important thing at an
early stage Of civilization. There is nothing
| so important to a child it's first year as
food.
Manhood is more important than money.
| A nation of freemen must have for its
citizens men who have higher aspirations
than to fill their stomachs or to attain
simply to a condition of bodily comfort.
Better. far better. were it that the cost
of a loaf of bread were doubled. Better
| even that the citizen had scant allow
| ance of ii than that he should lower his
self-respect. lose his power to take the
initiative and become simply machine
to work out the will of a master whom he
| cannot even choose.
"a. Edward Bellamy was a man descend
ed from long line of strong New England
ers. and he possessed facile pen lie un-
dertook TO write a novel-purely work of
| fiction. He called it Looking Backward.
| and the substance of the story was a pic
| ture drawn of an ideal socialistic state, and
drawn in such way as to be most allqrlng
| started in to write the book he was no more
| of a Socialist than his Puritan ancestors,
but he convinced himself in writing 1t, and
|
| cialist party.
IF our Nation should ever come to the
point where combination has gone to the
! extreme limit, and there is but one en-
! ployer of labor. one exploiter of industry in
| all the United States, we should be very
near TO the condition of socialism described
| by Edward Bellamy, except that the en-
ployer would be private corporation within
the state instead of the state itself-a dis
| tinction which would be entirely in favor
| of the Edward Bellamy ideal.
| ha a industrial dpSDOt
ii be the state itself instead of the state s
| creature. Combination and the resulting
monopoly lead straight to socialism If the
| time ever comes when there is only one or
| a dozen or hundred corporations control
ling the industries of this great land. and
having their directors and managers elected
| by the stockholders, ii will be but a very
easy step to legslate that those directors
| and managers shall be elected by the people
instead of by the stockholders.
WHAT ARE THE REMEDIES?
1--WE come now TO the question which is
purely and solely question for lawyers
to determine: What are the legal or legis-
lative remedies for the threatened evils OF
the trusts?
Whatever remedies we adopt must be
such as fit the disease. We have found
| competition to be necessary to the welfare
of the Nation and the best good of the peo-
pie. The destruction OF competition is
therefore, the disease. Its restoration is
the cure The question is: What can the
! law do to effect that cure?
There are some things Ii cannot do. II
cannot make men do uneconomic things. II
| must make the things which il does not
wish done uneconomic. Ii cannot compel
men 10 sell their wares or TO adopt unbusi-
nesslike methods. If IL could and did il
would destroy the basis OF competition and
do harm rather than good If Ii could make
trade Improbable or less profitable it would
destroy or curtail trade-the basis of ouI
whole industrial system.
THE men who combine when combina-
! tion is profitable are not criminals, they
are simply astute men who doing busi-
ness on business MISUNDERSTANDING out
the logic of our civilization
THE remedy Is not 10 punish prosperity
or try to make things criminal that are not
so. The remedy should be found in making
| IL Improbable to do that which the COM
munity determines should not be done.
| Laws now on the statute book like the
Sherman antitrust law and the legislation
OF the last Congress which attempted TO re-
| enforce il are, in my judgment. of little
| avail. They viii work once. but IL Is doubt
full IL they will ever work again.
| NOT ALL VALUELESS.
81 would by no means say that the pres
ent trust laws are valueless. l say only
that far as their effectiveness TO prevent
combinations is concerned their value is. In
my Judgment. less than is generally sup
posed, and their scope and effect must OF
necessity be exceedingly limited. They are
| certainly not sufficient as obstacles M r,re-