The weekly herald. [volume] (Amarillo, Tex.) 1906-19??, 1908-09-03

trust is to undersell a small COM
petitor in the small competitors ter
rltory--the price being maintained
elsewhere-until the small competi-
tor Is driven to bankruptcy and then
the price Is raised. That has been
done over and over again. II Is open
and notorious; and yet with the Re-
publican party in complete power al
Washington, what effort has been
made TO preventthis, This remedy
although vehemently denounced by
Mr.. Taft, will appeal to the average
man as not only very salutary, but
very necessary.
Fifty per cent is fixed as the max
imum limit. When corporation
controls so per cent OF the total pro-
duct, It supplies 4O,O0O,OOO OF peo.
pie with that product. Is that not
enough? Mr.. Taft's objection to this
limitation can hardly be character
lied as statesmanllke. He says:
"A corporation controlling As or
so per cent OF the product, may by
we'll known methods, frequently eff
feet a monopoly and stamp out COM
petition in a part of country as
completely as II It controlled 60 or
20 per cent thereof"
Why, then, does he not proposa a
lower limit? II the conrol OF 45 per
cent may constitute a monopoly, why
does he not suggest that as a maxi
mum? II can not be because OF any
disinclination to amend his platform
for he has already made a patchwork
quilt OF the conventions platform by
promiscuous amendments.
And to what well known" meth
DDS does he refer? TO the undersell'
ing of competitors in one section
while the price is maintained else
where? And yet this is the very
thing which we proposed to remedy
but he proceeds to denounce our
remedy as absurd and socialistic,
The trouble with Secretary Taft is
that he spends so much time trying
to discover excuses for inacton in
trust matters that he has none left
for consideration OF effective rene.
dies. He spends more time utterlng
warnings against remedies proposed
than he does in pointing out the evils
to be remedied or in suggesting rem
edies He says:
The combination OF capital In
large plants to manufacture goods
with the greatest economy is just as
necessary as the assembling of the
parts of a machine to the economi-
cal and more rapid manufacture oil
what in old times was made by
hand"
And he adds that:
1.-The government should not IN
terfere with one any more than the
other, when such aggregations OF
capital are legitimate and are prop
erly controlled, for they are the nat
ural results Of modern enterprise and
are beneficial to the public"
No one proposes TO interfere with
production on large scale. No one
objects to production on scale suf'
ficiently large to enable the producer
to utilize by-products and take ad-
vantage of all the economies that
large production makes possible. 1t
is Just here that the trust magnates
attempt to confuse the public mind
and Mr.. Taft has unconsciously
adopted their language.
Let the issue be made plain; LEI
the distinction be accurately drawn;
let the respective positions Of the
parties be fully understood, The
Democratic party does not oppose
all corporations; on the contrary, II
recognizes that the corporation car
render an important service to the
public. The Democratic party wants
to employ every fundamentally that
can be employed for the Advancement
OF the common good; but the Demo
cratic party draws the line at the pri
vate monopoly, and declares that a
private monopoly can not be ilistf
fled on either economic or politica
grounds.
From an economic standpoint, a
monopoly is Objectionable. The mo-
ment a corporation secures a practi
cal monopoly in the production oil
sale of any article, certain evils ap
pear which outweigh any good tina
can come from large production OF
control. Wherever private monopo
lies exist, certain irresistible ten
denotes manifest themselves. First
it raises prices--this is the first thlnl
thought OF for the increasing OF pro
fits. Then, in proportion as 1t be
comes the only purchaser OF the raw