The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1908-05-01
A TRUST THAT PLAYS FAIR.


airy, 1908.
President Roosevelt in his message
of December 8 said: Modern indus
trial conditions are such that com
bination is not only necessary, but
inevitable Corporation and
labor union alike have come to stay.
Each, if properly managed is a source
of good, and not evil" II capital COM
binations can be good, there must be
some that are good. Would it not be
a proper service to the American peo-
pie to tell them of trust that, while
it had reaped the economical advan-
tages of combination, had yet played
fair with the public and with its COM
petitors? Hence this story OF the
great harvester combine. Before we
began to publish Mr. Casson's articles,
we followed up his Investigations with
a thorough inquiry of our own, and we
are bound to say that the business
methods of this institution seem TO
conform to the highest standards OF
fair play and square dealing. The In
ternational Harvester combine is not
a tariff trust. It's members surrender
ed dominance in their own business
OILY Wu0u Iu0 IlShu VI AlOoNAA 49,
dustrial conditions" and overstrenu-
Gus competition made combination
mot only necessary, but inevitable.
For fifty years the Harvester Kings
fought one another on the battle nelos
of competition. Their armies OF
agents, drIlled in the arts OF rivalry,
waged a war in which quarter was
neither given nor sought. 1t was
fight almost of determination. Out OF
two hundred companies that went to
battle with flags waving and drums
beating, only a dozen came home.
1t is a common opinion among mar
yester men that from first TO last
there has been more money put into
the business than has ever been tax
en- out-so enormously wasteful were
these wears of competition. BY l9Oz
the harvester business was nothing
other than a terrific and destructive
war. The agents were tearing the
whole industry to shreds and tatters.
So far as the Harvester Kings could
see they must choose between compl'
nation and ruin.
Not one of them was personally III
favor of combination. They were III
dividualists through and through. Inc
shirt of competition had been breo
in the bone. So, when several OF them
came together and agreed to combine
If was not of their own free-Wll. IL
was because they could do nothing
else They were hurled together by
social forces over which they had NO
control.
There were four of them-Cyrus H.
Mccormick, the Second, Charles Deer
ING. 7. J. Glessner, and w. II. Jones
all of them added to the strong pref
erence for competition dehnlte oppo'
sition to trusts, monOpolies, ana stoch
speculation. They were not the wan
Street type of millionaire. In ina.
time of booming optimism, they mlght
have made more money in one year
nv selling stock than they had maze
in thirty years by selling harvesters
Rut no one of them had tried II. Inc
fact is that they cared more lor Tue
good will of the farmers and the pres
tige of their machines than they olo
for large profits.
There were several harvester com
NAMES that remained Independent, pu.
prohablv not from choice. l do not
know of one that has not, at some
stage of it's career, tried to get into
a trust. .s Nv
1--WE are big enough now" said Cy'
rms H Mccormick. at is not safe Tor
one company to have a monopoly
what we want to do is to regulate
competition, not to destroy It,.
with its $4,000 employees and Az
900 agents, this one company is sup
porting as many families as there are
in Utah or Montana. A square mile
of land would be too small to contain
i+s factories. At it's hundred ware