The Washington times., 1903-08-28
AT TACK ON TRUSTS
BY BAR ASSOCIATION
Three Ways of CURLING Big
Corporations.
CAN TAX THEM TO DEATH
Compel Better and Cheaper Service or
State May Enter Field as
Competitor.
CAN TAX THEM TO DEATH

HOT SPRINGS. Va. Aug. 2S.-At the
session of the American Bar Associa-
ton yesterday great sensation was
caused by the report of the committee
on commercial law.
The report is a sweeping condemna-
tion of trusts. 1t was signed by all the
members of the committee-Walter S.
Logan, Henry Budd, Gardiner Lathrop,
| George Whitelock, and John Morris, jr
The report proposed these remedies for
trusts:
"Tax Them to Death
"First-We can tax them to death:
or if that is too radical. we can tax
them until their growth and enlarge
ment is impeded. There is a franchise
! tax imposed by most of the States.
graded so as to tax the small corpora
tion at q higher rate than the large
one. The first million dollars pays a
higher rate than subsequent millions
The graduation should be continued, but
up instead of down.
I'VE would leave. perhaps. the first
hundred thousand free and the first mill
lion cheap and raise the rate with each
succeeding million. The United States
Steel Corporation now has a capitaliza-
ton of something over one thousand
millions. The graduation might be slow
and easy enough to please the most
conservative and yet result in a taxa
ton of 10 per cent on the last hundred
millions. How long would the United
States Steel Corporation continue under
that system of taxation?
compel Better Service"
"Second-We can compel them to rem
der better and cheaper service. II the
combination of the Northern Pacific
and the Great Northern railroads is a
great enough public disaster to have
warrented the attention which 1t has at
tracted it could have been prevented
much easier than by a hundred Sherman
anti-tru laws by a single United States |
statute that required any corporation
engaged in interstate commerce to re-
duce its rates so per cent to and from
every point where competition has been
prevented by a combination, merger, |
common control. or agreement.
Congress can enact that any corpora
ton that engages in interstate COM
MERGE must furnish its services or sup
ply its goods at lower rates wherever
by any combination competition is pre-
vented than where competition IS left
free.
Estate Can Enter Field"
'Third-If necessary, the State tself
can enter the Industrial field as a pro-
Queer. and restore the force of compe- |
tition to its former supremacy by be
coming itself competitor OF the great |
trusts.
NO one knows but that within the |
next ten years a greater person than J. |
Pierpont Morgan will arise, who will |
combine into one organization all the |
industries Of the land. so that the work |
man who works for wages can find but |
one possible employer and the purchaser |
Of wares but one possible seller.
More Than Half Taken.
1.-The steps toward the formation OF /
one universal industrial corporation, |
which shall crowd out all other corpora
tions and assume to itself all the in |
dustries of the land, have been already |
more than half taken. It is not so far |
to go from now to that end as we had TO |
go to reach present Industrial condi- |
tiOns.
"A monopoly is economically desir- |
able; that is. for the monopolist. The |
United States Steel Corporation can pro-
duce. no matter what it sells them for, |
its goods cheaper than the elements out |
of which the combination is composed |
ever produced them. The Standard OIL /
Company is economically holy, for 4 /
pays 40 per cent dividends. The Sugar
Trust is economically correct. for. where
as the individual sugar reiners lost |
money on small capitalization-the Sugar
Trust pays big dividends on a large cap
italization. The railroad combinations
are economically impregnable, for they
pay.
Failures Exceptional.
If Mr.. Morgan's shipping trust and
Mr. Schwab's shipbuilding trust are
failures, they are exceptions to the rule
We cannot. therefore, rely on natural
forces. on the laws of supply and de-
mand or on 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-
tions put upon them, they must put
those limitations on by the action of
their Legislators, their Congress. and
their courts
The American bar must act, and the
American Bar Association must take the
lead II the Northern Securities Cor
poration had been allowed TO go on, the
next thing 10 follow IL would naturally
have been a United States Securities
which would hold the ma
jority of the stock OF every railroad
where the American flag flies"