The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1906-07-28
Mr.. BRYAN'S MISTAKE
AS TO THE TRUSTS
A. Surprising Editorial In q Big
Daily Paper-Correct View
of Trust Growth.
Not Necessary for Men to Get
Monopoly to Make Goods Of
Inferior Quality.

We like Mr.. Bryan for no other rea-
son SO much as because Of the fact
that he is still growing.
He is all the while a student, and
| new ideas are cropping out from time
to time.
And this is indeed a great virtue In
| world where mems brains begin to
| encyst at 40 and sometimes earlier.
We are therefor enabled to con-
slider with more composure than we
otherwise might, some foolish remarks
that Mr.. Bryan made in Berlin recent
| ly-remarks that. Mr.. Bryan will not
| repeat five years hence If he retain
| his present speed Of mental progress
A reporter had said something to
| him about the beef trust scandal in
the United States, whereat Mr.. Bryan
remarked:
! ''The beef trust is not different in
character and methods from other
trusts. The inevitable tendency Of a
private monopoly is to increase the
price of product and to lower its
quality. Why should any one expect
anything else from a trust, than the
lowering of quality when monopoly
Is established?"
Observe, I have used the words
private monopoly not public. In a
private monopoly a private interest is
set up against those of the whole
people. Quite a different principle
comes into operation when the In
terest Of all is alone In view"
Now this one OF those statements
that needs to be complete to be true
and Mr.. Bryan did not complete it,
| and hence, the statement as it stands,
gives a wrong inference, we believe.
Mr.. Bryan, as we all know, and as
he said in the interview Of which the
foregoing is a part. believes in main
! tanning the competitive principle in
industry, and his remedy for the trusts
Is either to bust them or to "regu-
late" them, which we are already try
Ing to do, with no success.
| And therefore his statement that
| "the Inevitable tendency OF a. private
| monopoly is to increase the price Of
a product and to lower 1ts quality"
while true in itself, gives a false In
I ference.
/ Mr. Bryan speaks as II the tendency
to Tower quality" as the beef trusts
and other trusts have done. n . char
acteristic peculiar to the trusts. when
| the fact Is that it Is a characteristic
of all business that is conducted for
private profit, whether monopolized or
not.
Does Mr. Bryan not know that there
| is not an article that we eat, drink,
wear or otherwise use, in which some
manufacturers do not cheat us by
adulterating or cheapening their pro-
| ducts in some way?.
Maple syrup is not made by trust
! 1T is made by humble farmers work.
ing themselves-yet, does Mr.. Bryan
not know that Of 80 different samples
examined by the chemists of the fed
eral agricultural department, not one
was found that was pures
Does he not know that 1t Is prac-
| tically impossible to buy pure olive
oil, and that federal chemists have
examined many samples that con-
tained no olive oil-nothing but adul-
terants?
Does he not know that the isolated
milkman will water and otherwise
adulterate his milk with as much
up leathery scraps from the floor and
grind them up into ''potted hamT',
Does he not know that there Is not
an article Of food that is not adulter-
ated by somebody, and that some
body not always a trust?
Does he not know that the philan-
thropic Mr.. Carnegie sold armor-plate
with blow-holes in 1t to the United
States government as cheerfully when
he was a competitive producer as the
steel trust now does when It has prac-
tically abolished competition?
And does he not know that the 80
odd life insurance companies in this
country, all of which are in competi-
tion with each other, are now known
to have buncoed US fully as artistically
as If they had been in a trust7
II Mr.. Bryan knows these things
and he certainly knows-he ought not
| to say that "the inevitable tendency of
a private monopoly Is to fim-flam the
public.
What he should have said, If he,
cared to strike the truth through the
heart. Is that the inevitable tendency
OF all business conducted for private
profit, whether monopolized or not, is
to make the poorest article that can
be sold, and get it the greatest price
that can be got.
Only day before yesterday 2S4
pound hobo was pulled out of a load
Of hay that was being weighed on
the city scales, and the farmer con-
fessed that he had asked the hobo to
jump on so as to make the hay weigh
more. -" s.
And while all farmers do not weigh
hobos with their hay, we do not be-
lieve hay trust could have found q
heavier HOBO to put on the load.
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We think this can be set down as
q: fact: ~ W -
Create q sufficient incentive for
wrong-doing and some persons will
always be found to do wrong. s
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