Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1903-01-08
comes from the brain OF heart of the
people,"
Want of Competition.

comes from the brain or heart of the
people"
Want of Competition.
Dwelling especially on the want of
competition, he said: There is one
central power alone with which the
skilled workman must deal and one
dominant will to which he must sub
init. There may be a little help for
him by joining labor union, where
he gets the advantage of associated
strength on his side but the labor
union knows no difference between ex-
cellence and the reverse. The ineffi-
Gent man and the lazy man and the
dull man must stand on one dead level
with the brightest and keenest and
most ingenious of his comrades"
Counterbalancing Advantages.
Mr.. Hoar said that many as were the
evils in the great combinations of cap
ital some of them would be counter
balanced by corresponding advantages
and added:
81 confess I like to see Pierpont
Morgan buying up great lines of ocean
steamships. l like to hear of foreign
potentates and municipalities and pow
ers bowling down when he visits the
continent of Europe. We need great
strength. We need great individual
power if we are to rival foreign ma
tons in the great matters which they
also control by individual powers. We
must, if we can, look out in protect
ing ourselves, not to destroy them,
nor to cramp them. We can give them
law which will not impair their
strength and not check their natural
and rightful growth and that | hope
is all we mean to do. But it will be
a bad bargain if we buy the dominion
of the continent or the empire of the
sea at the cost of American local pub
| lie spirit
But great wealth should be con-
trolled as the servant of man of gov
eminent and should not be given the
reins of control We must keep con-
troll over agencies which can make
cities grow or wither."
Tariff Reform No Remedy.
Mr.. Hear said that he did not agree
with those who think they find an adj
equate remedy for the evils of the
trusts in the removal of the tariff
from all the trust made articles. He
considered the remedy suggested by
himself more likely to prove effective.
He announced his opposition to gov
eminent ownership of great labor en-
ploying industries, including coal
mines and railroads Socialism, he
said, furnishes no remedy but would
be quite as bad as the trusts them
selves. The dead level proposed by
socialism would be destructive of ev,
erything which makes life worth liv'
ing or manhood worth respecting. So
cialism may do for China or for Tur-
key, but it will never be Yankee rem
edy. We had no permanent danger to
fear from that source.
Entire Nation Only Equal to Task.
Speaking of corporations, Mr.. Hoal
said no power less than that of the en-,
/ tire nation is capable of dealing with
them. The question was the mos
| important that had come up for long
time, "for,'' said he, 1--WE are to deal
not only with foreign commerce, but
with that compared with which the
| foreign commerce of the world is bu1
a drop in the bucket-the domestic
commerce of the United States" This
commerce, he continued, is in the
hands Of the great corporations and i
is properly in their hands. Their worl
might be beneficent as well MS other
wise, and for this reason congress:
should go slowly and carefully in de
vising remedy for the ills lest il
should bring on others which nigh
be worse. Two important steps al
ready had been taken in the passage
of the interstate commerce law ant
the Sherman antitrust law, but Will,
both measures had proved efflcacious
they had fallen short Of the require
ments. The antitrust law had accom-
plished even more than it's friends hat
/ expected of it, but there had been, hi
I said, much disappointment over thu
failure of the supreme court adequate
ly to interpret the phrase "in restrain
of trade" as applied to combination
of business interests Discussing tn,
accomplishments under that law, MI
Hoar said that the attorney genera
had gone far already under it to breal
up a monopoly which affected tn,
whole freight and passenger traffic O
the northwest, another affecting tn,
cotton trade of the south and anothe
the price of beef, prime article O
food. He believed that congress hat
power to go further on the lines indi
1 \ n Try-