The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-11-13
LAWS WILL NOT
ABOLISH TRUSTS
Sherman Act Proves Ineffective
TRUSTS are Diffusers of
Wealth.

| binations or so-called trusts" are ar
/ effective agency to WELD the energie:
Of man beyond any other form yet
discovered. and are here to stay. was
declared by Judge Peter S. GrosscuT
| of the United States Circuit Court
Chicago, in an address delivered be-
fore the members of the Columbia
Club, a local Republican organization,
tonight. on the question, will the Re-
publican Party Live Up to It's Early
Ideas?''
Judge Grosscup devoted a consider
able portion of his speech to the Sher-
man antitrust act. He maintained
that If the enactment of this law was
intended to exterminate so-called
trusts or big corporations, or to af-
feet wages or prices. the purpose of
the act had failed.
eve are now well into the eight
zenith year since the passage of the
Sherman antitrust act,'' said Judge
Grosscup, and well into the seventh
year since Mr.. Roosevelts adminfstra-
ton began actively to enforce it.
Were 1 to call the roll of the So
called trusts or big corporations or
ganized since the Sherman law went
into effect, I would be naming the
largest ones in America today. If it be
said that this is because the Sherman
act, until the past six years, was
treated as a dead statute, / ask, how
many of the so-called trusts or big
corporations have been exterminated,
or even diminished-what increase has
there been in wages, or decrease in
the cost of Iiving-by what is adj
mitted on all hands to have been a
sincere and vigorous attempt TO en-
force the law during the administra-
ton of President Roosevelt?
ORGANIZATION GOES ON.
'Injunctions have been issued
against the several packing houses
that make up the meat industry; and
here in Indiana against certain con-
Germs in the drug business; and against
certain other so-called trusts through
out the country; but in no case have
these so-called trusts or big corpora
lions been exterminated; in no case
have wages or price been affected; in
no case, except in minor detail, has
been done that could not
have been done as effectual1y under
the common law that was in existence
before the Sherman act went into eff
fect-that could not be done against
as we'll as against corpor
and though, i'll this respect,
the case of the Northern Sc
cprities Company is an exception, even
in that case, the several railroads that
made up the Securities Company are
now almost precisely as they |
were before, the order of dissolution
was entered.
THE organization of industry into |
form does not cease. Neither |
wages nor prices arbitrarily change. /
That much, at least, has been proven.
And the reason is that as an effective
Industrial agency to WELD the energies
Of mankind, the corporate form. be-
yond any other form, is the most eff
Fective yet discovered.
What government is to mankind,
organized, the corporation is
o modern industry organized. 1t is on
hat account that the corporation is
lere at ALL it is on that account that
t is here to stay. And not until men,
n their general relations to each
,ther, can safely dispense with govern
nent, will come time when men, in
heir Industrial relations, can safely
dispense with industrial organization.
UNNro
What then is the wrong that lies at
he bottom of the popular disquiet, and
What is the work yet to be done? I
an answer that question in the state
nent of three facts.
The first of these is, that not only
5 the corporation to modern industry
rganized what government is to man
ind politically organized, but that it is
through the corporation alone that the
of the industries of the
ountry can ever be widely diffused
mong the people; for outside the field
f agricultural properties, property is
lot now held each individual piece by
ONE individual man; between the man
Fho seeks TO own and the thing to be
wned there is, throughout the indus
rial field, the state created interme-
larry called the corporation.
The second fact is, that though the
Industrial property of the country is
ot widely diffused among the people,
he people have the financial means to
ring about such diffusion-that il is
n their individual wealth, poured
through the financial streams into Wall
treet, that all the great corporations
Ow chiefly rest
And the third fact, is that the peo-
les lack of ownership in the incor-
GRATED property of the country is not
ecause the men and women who have
aved something have no wish to set
hese savings at work for something
more, nor that the workmen and en-
loye have no wish to have some pro-
rletary part in the enterprise to |
7hich they are attached, but chiefly
ecause. as the corporation is now or
anized and managed, there is no rea-
onably secure way TO set such saw
1gs at work, or to acquire such part.
AT every turn of the year, we see
ONE part Of this region of incorporat-
d property ravaged; during the past ,
ew months we have seen it deeply
avaged; but we stand still, never