The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-12-23
DANGERS IN TRUSTS.
It Is in What They May Be tomorrow,
Says Mr.. Wiltshire.

About four hundred people listened
to Gaylord wiltshire at the Audi
forum on Friday night speak on THE
Significance Of the Trust"
Mr.. Wiltshire is the editor of viii
shire's Magazine, of New York city.
He is one of the most. noted opponents
of socialism. of. the present day. He
is different than Walter Mills, the
famous economic scholar heard in
Topeka recently. Wiltshire reminds
one of a college professor speaking to
his students from behind a textbook.
Primarily he is logician-sharp.
keen, and intellectual. He drives
home a point with sheer force of facts
and argument Mills IS as noted a
scholar as Wiltshire. but he is a I'm
ished stump speaker, which Will
shire is not. Mills is full of oratory;
his invective is of the bitter, caustic
kind that carries an audience away
with it.
THE real danger of the trust" said
Mr.. Wiltshire last night, exists not in
what it is today, but in what it prom
ises for tomorrow. Most speakers on
trusts have confined themselves too
much to expatiatings upon its most
palpable features. Anyone can see
the menace to our institutions involved
ed on a competitive democratic sys-
tenn to a monOpolistic autocratic sys-
tenn. Anyone can see the menace to
labor if there is but one employer in
stead of a hundred Anyone can see
that when the production of a COM
modify is controlled by a trust that
prices may be put up to exorbitant
figures. All these points. are so OBJ
v1ous that it is a waste of time call
ing attention to them.
1.-THE ff-11Cf
of the manufacturers to protect them
selves from Reproduction and the
consequent and suicidal struggle to
dispose of their surplus stock.
THE trust is not only a protection
against undue competition, but it is a
labor saving device Of the highest
possible efficacy. The trust Dursues
its end in a perfectly sane and scien-
tlf1c manner No longer do the old
painless methods of connection pre-
vail The trust being the only pro-
ducer in the field produces exactly
what the market needs. It will not
De long before capital will in vain
seek profitable investment.
Let US by all means, say, have
municlpal ownership, just as I say let
US nave any other good reform, but
90 not let US forget the main evil to
be abolished is the competitive sys-
tenn, and that until we do abolish that
system we cannot abolish poverty, no
ship we may inaugurate
Let US declare for public owner
ship because it is the means to the
establishment of the entire co-oper-
alive system, because we know that
nothing but that system can ever
abolish poverty. No small and
eramped ideal can nerve humanity for
any great upward step.
The socialist sees in the co-opera-
tive commonwealth not only the abo-
huon of poverty, for he sees a future
earth peopled by men who have be-
come a race of gods free, healthy.
beautiful, happy; a society where men
love each other, love the world. love
life, for life then will be at last really
worth the living.
- Life VIII be worth living because
all that today makes it hideoug
moeking viii have disappeared. There
VIII be no fear of starvation staring
one in the face because he cannot get
work. He will then be his own en-
At the. close of his lecture Mr.. VIII
shire asked for questions from The
audlence, and great many were
presented touching upon live social
istie problems of the day