The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-28
BRY4N AND BEYl RIDGE.

been carried on by William J. Bryan and United States Senator Beveridge of Indiana is assuming heat which ought to warm the intelligence of some people They are both ardent young men, well trained in the arts of con troversy. If they should travel about the country together they would be sure to draw crowded houses, and if they should not become too much at tached to each other would surely re- tire with full purses.
 The last installment is the hottest yet, and for an onlooker we should say that the gentleman from Nebraska has the better of this particular bout In his last broadside Senator Bever- Idge selected the United States Steel corporation as a beneficent example of trust organization, which is controlled by the public interest it takes in its thousands of stockholders. It is at this enthusiastic presentment that Mir. Bryan throws his spear. Senator Beveridge,' he says tartly. has much to say of its usefulness and nothing to say of it's abuse of power. The Steel trust is selling abroad cheaper than at home, and we have seen its stock so manipulated by a coterie of insiders that the small stockholders lost many millions in the fluctuations of the stock" Mir. Bryan reminds his an- tagonist that the net earnings last year were about twenty-three per cent. of the gross sales, or nearly five times the percentage that the boot and shoe industry of Massachusetts realizes. Tt will be noticed" says NIT. Bryan, that the net earnings of the Steel company exceed the entire amount paid in wages, that is each employe earns on the average, not only his own wages, but more than one hundred per cent profit on his wages for his employer This is an extraordinary profit and 1 only possible under monopoly"
 Senator Beveridge's reply to this furious onslaught of Mir Bryan Is a bit weak. It recalls the attitude oi some of the Connecticut legislators who while they admit wrong arc not sure the remedy should be applied in any immediate case; that condi' tions are what they are and from that point all new progress may be under taken. He asks Mir. Bryan if he would dissolve the Steel corporation and, | so, how? He asks him if 1t is his idea that the consolidated corporations should be broken up into a number o small independent corporations, etc. etc, all of which Is aside from thu point The question Is often asked, f in view of the adverse possibilities O monopoly it would be well to break Ill the New York, New Haven and Hart ford Railroad company into the com panies which before were independ Ient? Of course a negative reply i lexpected and must be given, but tha
 has nothing to do with the state o Connecticut offering the public ever, conceivable protection as against cor
 porate greed and inefficiency shoul
 such condition arise, This sort o
 tn quoque argument is cunning but 1
 is not substantial, and is muc
 worthier a school debate than a digni
 fled controversy between two men wh
 assume a knowledge of the subjec
 which concerns them.
 The point at issue so far as tn
 Steel corporation is concerned is tha l it should be taken out from under tn
 patronizing wing of the federal gov
 ernment and made to stand alone. N
 more evidence is needed to show 1t
 actual independence of the protectiv
 principle than the fact that railroad
 being developed in part by New Ha
 ven capital, joined at the Mexica border American rails of the sam manufacture at difference in cost C over ten dollars q ton. It is probabl
 too late to consider the disorganiza
 tion, as it were, of the steel truss, eve if it were advisable. but it Is not to
 late to consider divorcing 1t from fec
 eral mollycoddling, and that is whe i've take to be MT. Bryan's rghteou