The Roswell daily record. [volume] (Roswell, N.M.) 1903-current, 1908-08-25

sale at such price is as absurd and
socialistic a plank as was ever in
serted in a Democratic political plat
form"
And yet this sentence is found in
the same paragraph with the sent
ence above quoted in which he de-
clares that it is even now a violation
of the Sherman antitrust law for a
corporation to attempt to destroy a
competitor by selling at a low and I'M
profitable price where it has compe-
tition, and at an eXorbitant price
| where it has no competition. In what
respect is our plan more socialistic
than the plan which Mr.. Taft en-
d~orses? Merely in the fact that ours
can be enforced. According to Mr..
Taft's logic, a plan is not socialistic
which is not effective, but the same
would be socialistic if made effective.
Why should a corporation supplying
twenty millions of >people-for a cor
poration controlling twenty-five per
cent Of the total product supplies one
fourth, Or more, of our population
should such a corporation be permit
ted to sell at one price in Il part of
the country and at another price in
another part? What reason can a cor
poratfon ave for such discrimination?
Prices are not made as a matter OF
favor; when a big corporation sells
to the people of n section at one
price and the people of another sec
ton, at another price-the cost of
transportation being taken n con-
observation-disclosures is a reason for it,
and in almost every case the reason
is to be found in the effort to destroy
a competitor. One of the most famil-
lar methods of the trust is to under
sell a small competitor in the small
competitors territory the price be-
ing maintained elsewhere-until the
small competitor is driven to bank-
ruptcy n then the price is raised.
That has been done over and over
again. 1t is open and notorious and
yet, with the Republican party in
complete power at Washington, what
effort has een made to prevent this.
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 maxi
mum limit When a corporation con
trolls fifty per cent of the total pro-
duct, it supplies forty millions of peo-
pie with that product. Is that not
enough? Mr.. Taft's objection to this
limitation can hardly be character
lied as statesmanlike. He says:
"a corporation controlling forty
five OF fifty per e OF the product,
may by well known methods, fire.
quently effect a monopoly and stamp
out competition in a part of a country
completely as if it controlled sixty
or seventy per cent thereof"
Why, then, does he not a
lower limit? If the control of forty
per cent may constitute a mo-
nopoly, why does he not suggest that
as a maximum? 1t cannot be because
Of any Discrimination to amend his
platform, for he has already made a
patchwork quilt of the conventions
platform by promiscuous amendment.
And to what well known" meth
doe he refer? To the undersell
-ng of competitors in one section /
while the price is maintained else {
And yet this is the very thing
which we propose to remedy, but he
proceeds to denounce our remedy as =
lbsurd and socialistic. The trouble :
With Secretary Taft is that he spends :
20 much time trying to discover ex- r
uses for inactio1 IN trust matters =
hat he has non left for the consid-
.ration Of effective remedies. He
ponds more time uttering warnings
-gainst remedies proposed than he {
loes in pointing out the evils to BIZ .
emedied or in suggesting remedies.
lie says:
The combination of capital in n
plants to manufacture goods IL
18th the greatest economy is just as h
as the assembling of the n
arts of a machine to the economical II
nd more rapid manufacture of what
1 old times was made by hand"
And he adds that:
k@1TTa oounrnnnanf chov,J5 MT i1fo. -
ere with one any more than the 9TH IL
r, when such aggregations of CAPT s
Il are legitimate and are properly a.
ontre1led. for they are the natural ce
esults of modern enterprise and are 70
eneicia1 to the public" lhs
one proposes to interfere with al
on q large scale. No one of