Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1909-02-17
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY II, 1909.
STATES NOT ENTIRELY HELP.
LESS.

1t has been the cry of the Roose-
Welt administration that the states
were unable to cope with the trust
and that the general gov
eminent must take full control of
the trust question. Yet when one
comes to sum up results, the gener-
al government seems to have made
a botch of it in almost every in
stance, either failing entirely or
getting the offending corporations
fined in such small amounts that it
meant nothing or in such large
amounts that it could not be COL
lected. Contrast this with this rec
ord of state prosecutions, taken
from the Duluth Tribune:
The Waters-Pierce company, q
subsidiary of Standard Oil, has paid
Texas a fine amounting with inter-
est to more than $1,000. 900. In
Kansas the Harvester trust has paid
a fine of 5000 and has agreed to
submit it's business to the control
of the state WITH THE RIGHT
TO FIX PRICES.
Standard Oil has thrown up its
hands and has surrendered to Mis-.
souri,. For the right to continue
to do business in that state it is
willing to submit to any sort Of
control and supervision that may
meet the demands of the state.
In New York the great gas mo-
nopoly has been compelled to accept
the eighty-cent rate, as has its sub
sidiary companies. They, more
over, will repay nearly $4,000, 00(
of overcharges collected during
tendency of the suit.
Another interesting decision is
that by which the wall paper trust
was denied the right to collect
from a customer $4,000 which he
proved was an overcharge above {
legitimate profit and imposed be-
cause of the trusts control of the
market. This and most of the 9th
er cases were fought through the
federal supreme court and so are
fixed precedents.
Their beneficial results will ex'
tend, moreover, outside the slater
Immediately concerned, as great
corporations which can control the
markets and fix prices in restraint
of trade will hesitate to do so with
these decisions staring them in the
face. They will also encourage 9th
er states to go and do likewise.
Moral: When the authorities
go at it with singleness of purpose
without thinking of the possible re-
suits on the next election, law
breakers will get their just deserts
Texas has been fighting monopolie:
since the days of populism, which
leavened the whole dough dowr
there. True, Texas has sent one OF
more trust servants to Washington
during this period, but it probably
figured that Bailey ct al would b@
more in their proper element II
Washington thah in Texas. Mis-
souri, took up the fight against al
sorts of corruption and lawbreak
ing under the leadership of Folk
who later was ably assisted by Had
ley, now governor Of the state
Folk is a democrat, Hadley a re-
publican; which proves that thu
movement is a general one and no
confined by party lines. Kansa
has been anti-corporation since tn,
populist era. and there also part!
lines cut little figure in this fight
both parties opposing corporation
control, tho as the state is nov
strongly republican the credit viii
mainly 60 to that party. This i
the state that has recently sent II
the United States senate man VIII
as assistant postmaster general wa
so successful in unearthing corrup
ton that the administration
canned" him. In New Yorl
Hughes is the leader at present il
the fight, but the credit for stir
ring up the feeling that has made
the victory possible really belongs
to the so-called yellow journals
the Hearst papers and the New
York World. They have been tire
less in uncovering rottenness ant
monopolies. They enlisted the ar
my that Hughes is leading.