Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1904-05-27
The Remedy for Trusts.

The Remedy for Trusts.
Gov. Cummins in speech before
the Minneapolis Chamber of Com
merce some two years ago said:
"Competition we must have; at
home, if possible; of the foreigner, If
necessary"
October, Is, 1889, Senator John
Sherman, of Ohio, said:
Whenever this free competition is
evaded, or avoided, by combination of
individuals or corporations, the duty
should be reduced and foreign compe-
tition promptly invited"
We behold, to-day, competition
strangled in nearly every manufacture
of the country, and in the transporta-
tion OF many Of the necessaries of life
SO restricted or controlled by favorit-
ism that single individual or corpor-
alton controls the commodity and
fixes its price to the consumer.
It's not surprising then that the
people of the United States have been
startled and alarmed at the sudden
accumulation OF wealth this has
enabled the favored few to accumulate
through this concentration of power,
and hence the demand for the control
OF the trust is that their power for evil
may be restrained.
The extraordinary success of few
trusts like the STANDARD Oil Trust,
the Sugar Trust, the Steel Trust, have
awakened the people like an earth
quake shock, to sudden and extreme
sense of danger. This concentration
Of power IS certainly an evil which
cannot be wisely neglected or spoken
Of slightingly. The Standard Oh
Company owes its prosperity largely
to unfair terms made with the rail-
roads and denied to its rivals, while
the Steel and Sugar Trusts have been
safeguarded by the tariff. The people
protected the latter in their infancy
and nourished them in their strength,
till they can bid defiance to the govern.
ment and shape legislation to their
wishes. When plate armor is called
for, extortlonate prices are only forced
down by the threat of competition in
their manufacture by the government.
What comment upon protection,
The destruction of foreign COMPETE
tion. and then an effort to escape the
results by government competition.
The possibility of com petition means
The preservation of liberty. Excluded
from taking part in one or another
form OF production, man in SO far
loses a central portion of his rights.
The triplet in the Declaration of
independence, Life, Liberty and
the Pursuit of Happiness, an essential
part, is liberty, liberty in all the pro-
dactive opportunities Of life. Life
and the pursuit ot happiness is
rendered negat DRY when liberty is
destroyed. Unrestrained competition
stands for unres trained powers, and
the prosperity that goes with them
Inc immediate purpose Of protective
duties Is to restrain competition, and
build wall around protected inter
ests. We start by excluding the COM
petition OF the foreigner. Then the
trusts by combination restraints the
compe tition of our own citizens and
thereby establish monopoly. First
we raise prices by law, then the trusts
1urther raise prices by combination.
In community where competition
has been restricted first by law, then
by combination, till the liberty OF
production has been lost, it should
retrace it's step, remove the duties
and give to competition all the free
dom possible.
Give US all the competition there is
10 the commercial world. Let our
commerce feel every wind that blows.
Letus free ourselves from the artificial
shackles we have laid upon production
and levy no tariff tax except what Is
required for public revenue.
No taxation of one class for the
exclusive benefit Of another class is
the doctrine Of the fathers and should
be acceptable in fairness and justice
to everybody.