The Calhoun chronicle. [volume] (Grantsville, W. Va.) 1883-1984, 1911-08-01
MEAN TO END ABUSE
PIRATICAL COMBINATIONS HAVE
TIRED PATIENCE OF PEOPLE.
Paper and Lumber Trusts Have Lone
Been Conspicuous for Their Grasp
ing ProclivitIes-Report Of Com
missioner Of Corporations.

There is a relationship between the
paper trust and the lumber trust The
lumber trust is the most conspicuous
of the selfish interests fighting the
Canadian reciprocity treaty. The
American people believe in the protec-
tive tariff. but not in the abuses of
the protective tariff-the excrescences
and abnormalities, which are not pro-
tective in the sense of safeguarding
the general interest, but which on
the contrary permit swollen combina-
lions of capital to gouge the people
by contriving artificial conditions
which create monopoly and enable
INSCRIPTIONS manipulators TO exact
extortioIate prices.
1t is not the protective tariff, but
an abuse of the protective tariff. which
is responsible for the lumber combine
and that spoiled child OF the lumber
combine, the paper trust. Here are
conclusions presented In a report by
the commissioner of corporations.
Herbert Knox Smith
In the last forty years combination
has so proceeded that 1876 holders,
many inter-related now have prac-
tically one-half of the privately owned
timber in the investigation area
(Which contains 80 per cent. of the
whole). This formidable process of
concentration in timber and land GER
tainly involves grave future POSSIBLE
tiles of impregnable monopolistic con-
ditions. whose far-reaching conse-
quences to society It is now difficult
to anticipate freely, or even to esti-
mate"
The report of the commissioner of
corporations reviews the recent his
tory of combinations in the lumber
industry and remarks:
Such concentration in standing
timber. If permitted to combine and
increase, makes proable final cen
trail control of the whole lumber in
dustry few strong interests ulti-
mately holding the bulk of the timber
can set the price of timber and it's
products. The manager OF the Ma
tional Lumber Manufacturers associa-
ton recently said to lumber1nen on
the Pacific coast: The day of cheap
gone. but the men who make the
money will be those who own timber
and can hold 1t until the supply in
other parts of the country is gone
Then they can ask and get their own
price"
Is this a contamination which the
American people will permit? VIII
thev 1OoL Kindly upor Tho ,no{n4or
ance of artificial conditions TO prevent
competition and wiring from them ex-
tortionate prices for a commodity
whose preparation for the market
needs no skilled labor? The Taft ad-
ministration is proceeding in two
ways to beat this game. II has instl-
tuted suits under tn Sherman law
to call the consolidated lumber inter
ests to account 70. organizing com
binations in restraint of trade. and II
is pushing the Canadian reciprocity
agreement. In the forests OF Canada
there are unmeasured billions of feet
of lumber, stores sufficient to supply
the world for generations TO come
Why should not the people OF the
United States who are purchasers of
lumber have the benefit Of free access
to the Canadian supply? The recipro-
col trade agreement with Canada for
which President Taft is contending
would cut of the $3.50 tariff which
now confers an inequltable advantage
upon the lumber trust Of the United
states. and would go far to check the
denudation OF American forests