The evening world., 1911-10-28
IMPROVING THE NATIONAL DIGESTION.

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" filing of the suit might clear the air, since business then
would know the worst. Suit has been brought against this giant
corporation, but il not the worst" also the best, as it is tabled to
be East Of Suezp Will not the effect be to rid industry of an incu-
bus, rather than deprive it of an incentive3
For half a century the perssting struggle Of American enter
prise has been against initiation, which may be called the national
mania. One section after another, one class after another, has at
tempted to get something for nothing or sell nothing for something.
When the imitation craze ragged around the greenback, business men
Of the West were behind it. When it ragged around the ffty-cent
silver dollar, farmers were behind it. Is not the era Of which "the
billion dollar trust" is the flower just another imitation craze, this
time with the bushes. interests of the industrial East behind iti
Are not all three "getHich-quick" phenomena manifestations of
the national delusion that one may lift himself over the stle by his
bootstrapsP
The Greenbackers wanted an irredeemable paper currency 90
that money could be had without the tedious process of saving it,
and debts could be scaled of by paying them in a debased medium
The advocates Of Sixteen-to-One wanted to halve the debtors burden
BY taking the gold guarantee from behind the silver dollar; they
wanted to give producers of silver a hundred per cent. bonus by put
ting the dollar mark on fifty cents worth Of ore. Has not Big
Business essayed Q like thing.
Herbert Knox Smith, Federal Commissioner of Corporations says
as much when he reports that the United States Steel Corporation is
capitalized at 81 ,46s, oo0, 900 but has a valuation Of $685., 900 900. Com
binations Of its type have not inflated the currency as those ~benightcd
populsts, Weaver and Pfeffer and Bryan, sought to do, but they
have inflated their securities and exchanged them for currency. Does
il make much difference whether the Government or the American
Bank Note Company "creates" a value by stamping a piece OF paper,
90 long as the value is not there?
Two great landmarks have been set mp in the fight against in
hation. One was Grants veto in 1874 Of a bill increasing the issue
Of greenbacks to $4O0, 900. John Sherman said then: "f now,
in this time Of temporary panic, we yield one single inch to the
desire for paper money in this country, we shall pass the Rubicon,
and there will be no power in Congress to check the ISSUE" Congress
did pass the Rubcon, but Grant turned it back, and the historian
Rhodes calls his veto the most praiseworthy act Of that admins
tration.
The American people set up the second landmark in 1896 when
they defeated Bryan on the free silver issue. The leadership in that
FIGHT to put a dollars worth Of value behind every dollar of currency
was taken by the business men OF the East. Then they proceeded
to do in the ea Of combination what they had decried when the
farmer, the Populst and the silver miner undertook it. They put
two and two together and called the sum eight instead Of four, and
issued and sold securities for the larger amount.
Is not the third landmark in the war against initiation the suit
Just begun against the biggest Of these corporations-the suit to
which the Supreme Court decisions in the Standard Oil and Tobacco
Trust cases have led upr
1t was good for the nation when Grant pierced the greenback
imitation bubble with a veto. 1t was good for the nation when the
voters shattered the silver initiation bubble with a hostile majority
II will be good for the nation that the Taft Administration has sub
jected the stock initiation bubble to the solvent processes Of the
courts.
In Grants Administration business carried the uneasy load of
undigested greenbacks. In Bryans heyday business val menaced
with q diet Of h~alf-digested silver. Ever since, business has been
oppressed by what Mr.. ]. Pierpont Morgan-who ought to know
has called "undigested securities"
The vain effort to digest them has made about all the economic
phenomena Of . dozen years-the alternate fever and chils OF Wall
street speculation; the emergence Of the pittsburgh millionaire :" the
periodic Aurries over the cost OF living; q difused if formless sense
OF grievance; a pervasive political unrest.
Stock imitation carried with It not only the purpose but the
necessity that all benefits possible to combinations should be appro.
priated by the combining companies, and that instead Of being shared
by the consumer they should be taken out Of his skin. The only
way to put value into the paper securities Of the big trusts was to
extract it from consumers pockets. That was done through higher
prices, and the process spelled naked oppression.
1t is absurd to call Government action against this imitation
miscellaneous purpose to arrest economic law. Economic law equally
abhors the attempts to make paper money, standard silver dollars
and marketable securities by fiat alone. 1t visits each oHense
with impartial penalties, and rewards in the general well every
refusal to accept shadow for substance, every return to sound
practice.