The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-09-16

A Knapp. in an address before the
annual convention of the American
Association of Freight Traffic Officers
at the auditorium.
"Only one man. and he the presi-
dent of the United States" he contin-
ued, has dared to tell the people of
the nefarious character of this legis-
lation; to tell them that we have ad-
vanced beyond the point where unre-
strained competition is a blessing;
who has had the courage to point out
the blighting effects of this act and to
call attention to the commercial and
economic necessity for the restraint
of the savagery of competition"
1t was Mr. Knapp's new doctrine or
social economy-that combination,
and its resultant monopoly, in some
from followed the increase of trans
portation and distributing facilities in
geometrical ratio. Whether combina-
ton and so-called trusts would prove
a good thing for the world the speak
er was unable to say. but he felt that
the problem could be safely left in
the hands of the people. with the as
surance that the present was tran.
sition period to the certain coming OF
a world wide federation, CONNER
cial millennium in which strife would
give way to kindly assistance and ha-
treo to brotherly love.
He Grows Prophetic.
Mr.. Knapp grew sympathetically
prophetic at times.
When the speed of the railway
train shall have been doubled" he
said; when the great ocean grey
hounds, which now carry the entire
population of western city in their
palatial cabins and the products of
thousand farms and factories in their
holds, are made still larger. and when
the population of this country be-
comes as dense as is that of England,
how is it possible that industrial COM
petition shall survive?
The great industries of the world are
in the hands of the corporations, but
why? Because of rapid transportation,
which has made possible, even desirable
and necessary the concentration of ma
tionaI resources
Speaking a little later of corporations
and combinations Chairman Knapp
said:
Il do not know, nor do 1 pretend to
say whether these great corporations
are desirable, but 1 do know that we
are passing through one of the greatest
transition periods in history and that
Industrial peace and industrial eff
cheney underlie the movement. This is
an economic revolution in which we are
led to doubt many of the old and ac-
cepted precepts and to open anew old
and supposedly settled questions and
of our exfstence-an economic revolution
which is changing the basic function of
society"
Savagery of Competition.
In speaking of what he termed the
"savagery of competition" Chairman
Knapp exclaimed:
1T seems to me impossible that sell
hshness and greed are to remain the
main force and bottom fact of society.
Is society, the society of the future, to
be made up of a greedy pack of strug-
Cling brutes. fighting madly like dogs
for the highest places and for the larg-
est bones and with only a government
to referee and see to it that each dog
gets a show? 1 doubt not that many
mistakes will be made in solving this
great economic problem, which is upon
US, but 1 am also OF the firm belief that
the solution will make for the benefit
of all mankind and that the strife en-
gendered by competition will give way
to a commercial and industrial peace,
perhaps with a centralized control but
certainly for the good of ALL
Chairman Knapp insisted that the
new conditions had demanded new
methods and that coordination was
taking the place of discord, which
brought less efficiency than concord;
that Capitalization of effort was the
most potent factor of the times; that to
unite was to advance and that from
combination was coming the best re-
suits.
Union. association and combination
are here, and here to stay he exclaim-
ed. They came with the railroad and
with the steamship. Combination is the
greatest necessity of the times, made
so by the stress of competition, which
a law was passed to preserve
The speaker deplored the agitation"
against railways, which was manifest
ing itself in foolish and restrictive leg
islation, which in turn was throttling
railway building and development at a
time when it was most needed by the
country. He assured hearty sympathy
with their evident efforts to better con-
ditions and urged upon them the neces-
sity of giving the shippers a uniform
classification.