Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1905-07-29
A RAILWAY AS TRUST BUSTER.


Washington heat in the GOODNESS iofa Canadas
Esof se sssasand writes of whatshe saw and
| heard to the Boston Transcript. Rather inter
esting to us of this region of lumber combines,
BIG and little, is his story of how the Canadian
Pacific "bu=ted" like combination of lumbe
makers and dealers, copied arter our own says
the ST. Paul Dispatch Between the Rockies
and the Red lie the great treeless prairies, over
which the "Canadian Pacific" runs and from
which it gets it's traffic and which it rests
expectations of more when all the prairies are
settled by industrious farmers. So it's keen in
terest is to get the idle under plows of
men who make homes on the pra1r1es. For the
more men cultivate more acres, the more of
merchandise in and produce out the railway
will carry. And up in that vast region mil
lions of acres want hands," and in the older
world millions of hand want acres"
Back among the Rockies grew the trees
for the lumber that was indispensable for the
men who would break the sod and make the
soil bring forth it's crops, and there were the
men with their mills to make lumber from the
trees And out on the prairies were the lesser
fellows who made it their business to buy the
IL
the men of the acres. Very much as it is here.
And there as here, the men who made and the
men who sold looked upon the of the acres
their prey, and they got together and made
the same agreements with which we are rather
unpleasantly familiar here, The men who
made lumber agreed with the men who sold
it that they weuld sell to but them, and
+ La ubo 10 hI1v IF h11t
those who made. And then they made their
little schedules of prices, wholesale and relail,
just they do here, and the men on the acres
groaned and built less and worked harder and
gave of their produce to their masters of
the combine and less to the railway.
"The Canadian Pacific saw the game being
played to it's own detriment, for the more the
men on the acres had to pay for the indispens-
able lumber, the less could they buy of the
stores and the less merchandise would the road
carry in And, on the other hand settlement
was checked, because settlers bring none too
much money with them, and need it all, and
stop coming when they find that lumber costs
so much that they will have too little left for
soil development The lumber combine was
cutting into the railways present and future
revenues. So the Canadian Pacific took hand
n the game. It still owned large acres OF land
along it's K ootenai branch that covered
With pine. 1t notified the who made
lumber that if they would not sell at fair
price to any who would buy, it would set up
Mills on it's pine lands and cut the lumber and
el1 it at cost. And it notified the dealers that
f they didn't "get their feet out of the trough
t would be put in yards and retail lumber at
ost When the men of the mills and of the
ards became convinced that the Canadian
Pacific was not bluffing, they dissolved their
mug little combine competition was set free,
nd lumber prices slumped.
"By the way, this has local interest. When
tIcCleary was standing pat last year and de-
ending the lumber tariff he printed some |
etters from the Northwest territory the pur |
,ort of which was that lumber cost more up
here than here, and he jauntily asked his
armer hearers how the repeal of the tax would
lelp them. He, perhaps, didn't know what
made lumber SO high up there, and, we re sure,
wouldn't have told it had he known"
Brethren everything that an alert, agrees
We and we'll organized democracy can o tot
oster dissension and factional quarrels in the