The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1904-09-30
HON. KNUTE NELSON.
United States Senator From Minnesota.

force and momentum for maintaining the
open door and preventing the dismember-
ment of China. The rapid and continued
growth and increase of our various pro-
ductive industries require and demand for
our welfare at home-the welfare of both
capital and labor--that the advantages of
this opening in the Orient should be Sc
cured and maintained in the fullest meas
ure. To fritter them away by casting the
philippine islands adrift, as the Democ-
racy would have us do, would be short
sighted and negligent in the extreme.
1t would be step backward which We
and future generations would always re-
greet. But the American people will never
concur in such a baleful purpose. We
have never made a territorial expansion
but what at the time many good people
questioned the wisdom of it. But there
has long since ceased to be a doubt or
question as to any of it except the Philip-
pine islands And as the years roll by
we shall all no doubt reach the same con-
clusion as to these islands that we have
long ago reached in respect to our other
territorial acquisitions. The Democratic
party will in time be reconciled to this as
1T now appears to be reconciled to our
financial policy.
Our Candidate.
Our candidate, President Roosevelt, is
said by the Democracy not to be a safe
man. Let us look for a moment at their
basis for this charge. In the midst of the
great prosperity which came to the coun-
try under Republican rule since the days
of Cleveland was mania in certain
quarters, largely confined to Wall street
at the foot of Manhattan island, to effect
extensive combinations in manufacturing,
in trade, and in transportation. The OBJ
ject openly avowed to the public was to
reduce the cost Of production, the cost of
distribution and sale, or the cost of trans
portation as the case might be, with an
implied inference to the public that the
ultimate price to the consumer would
thereby be lessened These combinations
were effected through corporations Gre
ated under state laws, and by absorbing
a greater or less number of minor and
competing concerns. These new corpora
tions, through promoters and otherwise
put upon the market, dOated and sold
enormous quantities of excessively in
fiated stock. far beyond the value of their
properties, including franchise and good
will. In most cases the dividend require
ments of the inflated stock would more
than absorb all the possible gain arising
from reduced cost of production, so that
the consumer could not count on reduced
cost in consequence of the combination
But in many cases even this margin was
largely exceeded. Large quantities of
enormously inflated stock were put upon
the market and palmed off, at par or
more, on a confding public, which the
incorporators and promoters knew could
not in the nature of the case be expected
to legitimately pay dividends, and which
did not as a matter of fact, represent
but little If any actual value. Sometimes
the purpose was to combine number of
plants and concerns that were getting a
little antiQuated and stood sorely in need
of renewal or extensive repairs, with a
view of unloading them on the public
through the sale of inflated stock. in
some cases the object was to float as
much inflated stock as the public could
be made to absorb for the mere profit
there was in it to the promoters. and still
retain the control through mortgage
bonds and preferred stock, or through The
repurchase, at nominal figure, of stock
palmed OF In the first instance at par or