The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1911-11-17

ternational industrial organization which
has not offended otherwise than by its
size, into a number of small concerns
without any attempt to regulate the
way in which those concerns as a whole
shall do business. Nothing is gained
by depriving the American nation of
good weapons wherewith to fight in the
great field OF international industrial
competition.
ITO sum up, then. II Is practically
impossible, and, if possible, it would be
mischieyous and undesirable, to try to
break up all combinations, merely be-
cause they are large and successful, and
to put the business of the country back
into the middle Of the eighteenth CEN
fury conditions of intense and unregu-
lated competition between small and
weak business concerns. Such an effort
represents not progressives but an I'M
intelligent though doubtless entirely
well-meaning toryism.
Moreover, the effort to administer a
law merely by lawsuits and court de-
cisions is bound to end in signal fall
ure, and meanwhile to be attended with
delays and uncertainties, and to put a
premium upon legal practice. Such an
effort does not adequately punish the
guilty, and yet works great harm TO the
innocent. Moreover, it entirely fails to
give the publicity which is one of the
best by-produets of the system of con-
troll by administrative officials; public
ity, which is not only good in itself, but
furnishes the data for whatever fur
Their action may be necessary.
1--WE need to formulate Immediately
and definitely a policy which, in dealing
with big corporations that behave them
selves and which contain no menace save
what is necessarily potential in any cor
poration which is Of great size and very
well managed, shall aim not at their
destruction but at their regulation and
supervision, so that the government
shall control them in such fashion as
amply to safeguard the interests of the
whole public, including producers, con-
sumers, and wage-earners. This control
should, if necessary, be pushed in ex-
treme cases to the point of exercising
control over monopoly prices, as rates
on railways are now controlled; al
though this is not power that should
be used when it is possible to avoid it.
The law should be clear, unambiguous,
certain, so that honest men may not find
that unwittingly they have violated it.
TN short, our aim should be, not to
destroy, but effectively and in thorough
going fashion to regulate and control,
in the public interest, the great instru-
of modern business. which it
is destructive of the general welfare
Of the community to destroy, and which
nevertheless it Is vitality necessary to
that general welfare to regulate and
control Competition will remain as a
very important factor when once we
have destroyed the unfair business meth
DDS. the criminal interferences with the
rights of others, which alone enabled
certain swollen combinations to crush
out their competitors and, incidentally,
the conservatives will do well to re-
member that these unfair and iniquit-
Gus methods by great masters of cor
porate capital have done more to cause
popular discomfort with the propertied
classes than all the orations Of all the
Socialist orators in the country put to-
gether."