Arizona republican., 1904-01-06
The Decline of the Trusts.

Not much has been heard lateIy from the octopus hunters who were eN- ceedingly active few years ago. said about the trusts. but it was said mostly for political purposes, but even for that purpose the trusts ceased to be useful and that party which is without an issue and is strenuously hunting for one Is looking elsewhere than in the direction of the octopusses, which appear, after all, to be harmful only to themselves.
 According to Henry Clews in his an nual review, the trust has passed into history and those who assisted in the development of it have learned les son they will not forget The trusts would have been all right within req sonable limits but the mania resulted in the making of them too big.
 A horse is a very useful animal but 9 horse 116 hands high and of core spending size in all his parts would be of little use and of nore at all in con-
  The passing of the trusts has only in convenienced the general public. Just as the carcass of q whale thrown upon the shore inconveniences adjacent 1es- idents when decomposition sets in. Of the downfall of the trusts Mir. Clews says:
 Nineteen hundred and three passes into history with few pleasant memor- ies To a great many individuals it has been a year of disappointment and loss To the very few 1t has been a year of golden experiences demonstrating anew that real sucr aAA only eofnss from T. E. i'd adharsnue to sound pdsiness pti1ci- paes and abstention from iiiesitiInA.e specuiatlori. Those who remained steaHfast to well established methods of finance and business have weatherei the storms of the year just closed with little injury: while those who defied economic laws and ventured on the un- tried highways to success. are chiefly engaged in repairing battered fortunes and gathering together their scattered senses.
 Nineteen hundred and three was chiefly conspiCuous as marking the cul- imitation and collapse of the great trust movement which began five or six years ago. The country had fairly gone combination mad; both capital and la bor emulatlng each other in the furious race towards combination and monop- oily. All consequences were blindly dis regarded; only the advantages Of combina ton receiving any serious at tention, and no regard whatever was paid to the workings of these huge combinations. Whoever pointed out their inherent defects, their defiance of natural economic laws. their socialis- tic tendencies, their opposition to indi- viduality. their inability to suppres mpetition-whoever was bold enough to oppose these tendencies on such grounds. was swept aside with con tempt and indifference. This phase of the movement. however was by no means the end of the trust mania. It received an enormous stimulus from Wall street. where the clever promoter quickly discovered in the increased pio- fits and power of these combines something new to capitalize These forced profits. together with the prem iums paid to the original owners for control of the good will and for promot- ers' com milestone yvare tba Inc siS for |, n enormous ve--capitalization: the new concerns frequently being capita .ized at several times their real value Not less than sG.OO0 COG. GOO of these new ere atlons were made within q few short years, forming the basis of a colossal speculation. backed by unequaled fin- snCial power. and launched uco1 an unprecsd dentsd industrial boom IT is Uc; ,he purpose ot this ofief review to cite instances or failure Fortunately the losses resulting from inability to unload on the public fell chiefly upon those best able to bear them. the panic being strictly financial and fortunate ly not commercial or industrial Fog the original shareholders in these com binations who failed to sell, the losses were chiefly nn paper; but they were sufficiently heavy to seriously cripple many rich men whose fortunes had been locked up in these enormously in- Hated new creations. Syndicate after syndicate was formed to finance these organizations: some made fabulous profits, but others were closed out st heavy losses, bringing the country tC the verge of the greatest panic In his tory Fortunately the countrys gen eral prosperity was only slightly im-