The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1903-09-01
Lawyers on Trusts.
Continued from First Page.

ducers are combining; transportation
companies are combining; tradesmen are
combining; workmen as Well as employ
ers are combining; everything seems to
be coming into some form OF combination
and everybody seems TO be a combIner.
The competition that still remains Il
fast disappearing. Workmen are retus-
ing to compete for jobs. Labor unions
are enlarglng the spheres OF Their acti-
witty and extending their operations.
Instead Of competing individually with
one another for the Job they both want,
they put themselves in the hands of their
unions, and the walking delegate repre-
sents them all. The union of the en-
ployers is still stronger and more far
reaching than the union Of the work
men. Even where they do not actually
combine as among themselves and sink
their differences into one organization
thew are wont to combine as against the
workman. so that wherever he turns he
finds the same wage scale offered him
and the same conditions of employment
He is lucky if he escapes being blacklist
ed 20 that he can find no work Tor his
hands to 10 anywhere.
We are now having combinations OF
Combinations The United States Steel
Corporation is q combination of q dozen
heretofore competing producers who were
themselves combinations Of still other
producers, and these IN turn often COM
blnations Of still others. To trace them
back to their beginnings IS like discover
ing all the multitude Of sources that go
to make up the volume Of the swollen
Mississippi. The property which, the
Amalgamated Copper Company now con-
trolls was once, perhaps, a thousand min
ing claims, each one very likely owned
in common by half a dozen miners. The
Department Store Trust has combined the
business of hundreds of merchants, some
portions of which they acquired by pur-
chase and others in some other way. It
is estimated that the Standard Oil Com
pany has taken, by contract or by force,
the business of ten thousand corporations
and merchants in all parts of the Union.
The few present great railroad lines OF
the country have been made up by the
combination of hundreds Of smaller lines,
some extensions OF one another and 9TH
er competing lines. The ambition Of the
Shipping Trust, perhaps the pet project
of the great American combine, has been
to control all the ships that sail the ocean.
A hundred years ago there were hardly
two ships owned by the same individual
corporation, and even fifty years ago
there was scarcely a ship owner, indiyidu-
al or corporation, that owned half q
dozen ships.
The process of this combination of COM
b;Lations IS still going on. No enc can
tell where the end Will be or when it
Will come. No one knows but that within
the next ten years a greater than j.
Pierpont Morgan Will arise who Will
combine into one organization Ell the in
IN ut tho and G n that tho work
man who works for wages can find but
ole possible employer and the purchaser
OF wares but one possible seller. The
steps toward the formation OF one uni
yersal industrial corporation which shall
crowd cut all other corporations and as
sumo to itself all the industries of the
land, have been already more than half
taken. 1t Is not so far to go from now
to that end as we had to 60 to reach
present industrial conditions.
The most astounding revelation is that
al! this proves to be economically righte,
Gus. Production is cheapened when car.
rIed on on a large scale. A business is
mere profitable when there is no compe-
tstion. a monopoly is economically desir-
able; that Is. for the monopoIlst. The
United States Steel Corporation can pro
duCe, no matter what it sells them for,
It's goods cheaper than the elements out
of which the combination is composed
ever produced them. The Standard Oil
Company IS economically holy, for it pays
forty per cent. dividends. The Sugar
Trust Is economically correct, for where
as the individual sugar refincrs lost
money on small capitalizations. the Sugar
Trust pays big dividends on a large CAPT
talization. The railroad combinations are
economically impregnable. for they pay.
Ii Mr.. Morgan's Shipping Trust and Mr..
Sckwab's Shipbuilding Trust are failures,
they are exceptions to the rule.
We cannot, therefore,, rely upon natural
forces-upon the laws Of supply and de-
mand or upon economic considerations
to limit the growth of modern combina-
tions. If they are undesirable, if the
people OF the American nation would be
better off without them or with limita-
tons put upon them, they must put those
limitations on by the action of their leg
islatures, their Congress and their courts.
The American bar must act and the
American Bar Association must take the
lead.
Ii the Northern Securities had been al
lowed to 60 on, the next thing to follow
1t would naturally nave been a United
States Securities Company, which would
hold the majority of the stock of every
railroad wherever the American flag flies.
The question involved in the Northern
Securities case is not, therefore, whether
the Northern Pacific and the Great
Northern should be allowed to pool their
issues In the way they have ATTEMPTED to
do, but whether all the railroads of the
nation, east and west and north and
south, should be allowed to yield to the
manipulation of the same master hand
that projected this combination and be
transformed into one giant transporta-
ton company on the perfection of whose
service the welfare of untold millions
here today and to come after us will de-
pend. Yet the Northern Securities Com
pany was economically righteous and the
United States Securities Company, which
Will be pretty sure to follow it if the
legislatures and the courts permit, Woc
also be economically righteous.
1t seems to us that the masses of the
community, outside of the comparatively
few who are exploiting it, are pretty
generally agreed that a limit should be
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