The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-25
.DEBS CALLS TRUSTS NORMAL OUTGROWTH OF MODERN SOCIETY Folly to Talk About Return ing to the Days of
 Competition "SOCIALIZE". THEM
 IS HIS SOLUTION Says Ownership By the People Is Coming Sooner of Later as
 Part of Logical
 Evolution
ar ErGENE Y. DEBs

| By EUGENE V. DEBs | It is generally conceded that the trust
 Is the logical result of industrial evo- lution This was the socialist contention from the beginning. but it met with stren- uous denial until the acceptance of that view was finally compelled by the stern logic of events.
 | No student of economies and no intelli- | gent observer of events believes the trust can be forced back into its constituent and competing elements to satisfy the cry of defeated and doomed middle class Only the academic charlatan and political demagogue. seeking to promote their own
 selfish ends. yield to the elamor of the small interests that the trust be
 "smasheds and that we return to the good old days of competition 1 This is but repetition of the cry Of the | weavers and spinners of England against the introduction of the machinery which | threatened to. displace them. It is the | protest of the stage coach against the locomotive and of the pony express against the railroad and telegraph. Trusts Material Fact What is trust? Not combination of capitalists, as so many seem to in1- agine, for the capitalists are only incl dental to the trust, as the owner of mill is incidental to the mill. If all the capitalists who own the trusts were to l disappear from the face of the earth the trusts. in all their inherent power and po- l tentiality. would still be here. 1 The railroads, for illustration, and not l the individuals who happen to own them constitute the railroad trust. The steel mills and their accessories and equip ments of machinery for the production of l steel, and not the stockholders, consti- l tute all that is vital and essential to the steel trust. l The owners of the railroad trust, be it
 noted, have nothing to do with making
 oy maintaining icr operating the rail-
 roads. any more thah the owners of the
 steel trust have to do with the building
 of mills. or the making of machinery, or
 the production of steel.
 Magnates Driven Into Trusts l The trust, therefore. does not consist of a combination of capitalists, but of great industries, growing greater and | greater in spite of legislative enaetments and judicial decrees. in obedience 10 the inexorable logic of industrial evolution 1 The owners of the trusts, in many ln- 1 stances former competitors and bitter rivals, and not infrequently personal ene- ;! mics. are now in partnership with each other, cooperating with each other in- stead of competing against each other, not because their competitive relationship ft1 -od tJar1 to Hxr ir,tn opIln nth arms, but because they were driven to do so as the only alternative to bankruptcy and ruin.
 1 Time was when competition in industry was constructive in it's effect upon those engaged in It. now 1t is destructive, and ! every wise capitalist knows 1t and seeks l escape from competition in the shelter and security of combination and co-opera- tion.
 Industrial Combination Certain Industrial competition is as certain to 1 culminate in industrial combination as that the millions of tributaries in the Mis- sissippi valley are certain :. to unite in the Mississippi river.
 To deal intelligently with the trust we must know, first of all. that the trust is simply the twentieth century tool of pro- duction, distribution and exchange, and from the socialist point of view there is but one question in reference to the trust that confronts the people, and that Is, shall the trust be privately owned by a relative few and operated for their fabu- lous enrichment, or shall it be owned by the people in their collective, organized and enlightened capacity and operated for the benefit of all?
 And this is the choice between industrial despotism and industrial democracy. that is to say, between capitalism and social ism.
 Half Way Stand Impossible And 1t will finally have to be all one or all the other. for there can be no halt way as despotism and democracy.
 Lincolns immortal ''house divided against ground between two such antag- onistie forces itself speech of half a century ago would, with slight modnca- ton. apply perfectly to the present indus-i trial and political situation.
 It Is urged, of course by many that WIG already have democracy and that we arc already a free and self governing peo- pie. What sarcasm this is to intelligent workingmen who realize that the jobs upon which their families, their personal freedom, aye. their lives depend upon and are controlled by others and that they are absolutely subject to the will, whins and caprices of those others, who in fact constitute their economic masters. and as logical sequence their political rulers.
 Quotes Talk By Roosevelt
 From the socialist viewpoint therefore, the prosecution of the trusts Is pure po- litical buncombe. and this fact, SO flag rantly in evidence to the thinking mind and discerning eye. would be apparent to all If so many of the people were not still in their mental childhood.
 But the truth Is slowly dawning upon the public, forced upon them by the logio of the conditions which surround them and which are becoming more and moro intolerable as the trusts increase In power and tighten their strangle hold upon the people.
 And as the people awaken so do their leaders begin to see that light Success ful leaders are wise enough to follow the people. For instance. the following par agraph is to the point:
 ultimately I believe that this control of corporations should undoubtedly, di- rectly or indirectly. extend to dealing with all questions connected with their treat ment of their employees. including the wages, the hours of labor. and the like''
 And what socialist made himself ridic-