The Washington herald., 1911-10-29
Lucid, as George F. Hoar Phrased 1t, But Prophecy
Twenty Years Ago That 1t Would Always
Be in Controversy Is Fulfilled.

, President Benjamin Harrison on July 2,
1890. On that day, it can be said, began
the struggle between the government
and what has since been called big
business to maintain, on the one hand,
and to break down, on the other hand,
the ancient law of supply and demand
of competition, in short, as practiced,
until recently, since the American col
onies became an Independent nation.
There is a large and important group
of manufacturers, railway owners, and
financiers who say that competition is
the death of trade and not its life, and
that it has ceased to be operative, al
though it is still veneratcd as a theory in
some learned and respectable quarters.
Judge Elbert H. Gary, the chief officer of
the billion dollar steel corporation, is the
/ head professor in the new school of
political economy and industrial science.
We shall have periods of manufactur-
ing and commercial depression" he once
told me, but, in my judgment, no more
years of absolute paralysis such as be-
gan, for instance, in 1893 Business Is
much better organized and controlled
! than it was when weak establishments
| unsettled the situation by ruinous re-
ductions in prices and inevitable fail
ures.
Before the creation of the United
States Steel Corpora tion," he continued,
small concerns went into bankruptcy
every time business slaCkened. The old
way-in the days of Competition-was to
rush into a vanishing and falling market
| with slaughter sales Of steel rails, pig
iron, and everything else. Even the Car
neSie company, large as it was, used to
slash prices right and left Now there
are hardly any small establishment to
fail
Thus men lost their employment under
the rule of competition, towns became
stagnant, merchants suffered. landlords
could not collect their rents. When the
little furnaces and rolling mills were
bought or closed, however. and the iron
and steel business was concentrated into
strong hands, price-cutting ceased, fail
ures stopped. men continued in their en-
ployment-part of the time. at all events
and the surplus stocks of iron and steel
were sent to Europe.
Gary's Defense of Monopoly.
The year 1904" Judge Gary declared,
would have been full of danger under
foHUECr conditions. 1 call it up merely
as an Illustration. 1t was then that we
sold large quantities of steel in foreign
countries; when we dumped it, some of
our critics said. upon strange markets at
a lower price than we charged at home.
We did cut the price to Europe. 1t was
either cut or lose the chance of sale.
Demand fell away in this country. We
had TO go abroad or close many of our
mills and furnaces. SO we kept our men
at work by a temporary concession to
foreign buyers
The opinions of those who believe that
competition is destructive alike to labor
and "a Dital were never stated in more
Candor or with mora persuaSiveneSs than
by Judge Gary. Doubtless he voiced the
thoughts of J. Pierpont Morgan, Henry
c. Frick and his associates Mr.. Rookie
feller boasts that his wOrkmen never
strike, and that his company is bringing
In money from the four corners of the
earth with which to enrich the United
States. Still competition is a living
principle. a very necessary condition, in