The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1912-07-18


factories of particular sort, to put
his money where he pleased, where.
ever it seemed to him that the tarlH
or something else would give him the
greatest advantage. He was free to
start out with little groups OF men
who would pool their money with
him; and while that domestic COM
petition was going on, while every
body that manufactured anything
knew that domestic competitors
might come into the field tomorrow,
American industry wore an aspect
which it does not wear now. You
had to keep up with the times; you
had to see that every agent you had
was alert; that every piece OF ma
chinery you had was such as cOuld
not be made Anticipated by somebody
else building better. The conditions
of energy and initiative were every
where present.
Well, then, is that true at present?
Is that the present situation? You
know that it is not. You know that
after while came a time when the
men in particular industries united
and began to make arrangements
which practically excluded competl-
ton. There are some industries
which might be mentioned into which
it would be extremely difficult for
you to 60 unless you could collect
millions of money and wait to realize
on these millions for number or
years until you could establish your
agencies and get into position to
compete. Now you cannot collect
these millions without going to the
very men who dominate these partic-
ular undertakings, and who don't in
tend to let you in. Isn't that so!
Isn't it so that these men are able to
set prices, and to set them upon a
new basis? For example, if it is
manufacturing undertaking and the
combination sweeps within it's organ
ization, let us say, twenty factories,
you know what always takes place
under these circumstances. Those
factories are bought for, or rather
capitalized in the combination gen.
seldom at their real value. They are
of all grades of efticiency-those
twenty factories. One of the first
things that the combine does is to
shut up the factories that are the
least efficient; but it has got to run
the other factories in such way as
to pay dividends on what it put into
it's capital as representing the fac
tories that were shut up; and the
price to be paid by the people of the
United States has to be price which
pays for the factories that are shut
up as we'll as for those that are OPP
Grating; and then, if you don't
watch them, after they have done
that they will water the stock four
or five times and make new and
higher basis upon which dividends
have to be paid, and by which prices
have to be regulated.
That, to my mind, is one of the
most serious consequences of COM
bination-that it is making the
United States pay for the inefficient
undertakings by combining the inef-
fcient with the efficient. Instead of
being the survival of the most eftic-
lent factories, it is keeping alive OF
all the factories, efficient or inef-
ficient, SO far as the capital stock is
concerned and the prices that have to
be charged to the public.
Now is that satisfactory basis for
business? Can you get into that
combination? Can you break into
the prices that are charged? Don't
you know that if you start single
factory anywhere they will under
sell you in that region until they kill
you, if you haven't got big enough
area to make you counterbalance
with increased charges elsewhere in
order to meet their local competition?
And don't you know that the only
thing you can accomplish by hanging
on by your teeth is that they will
buy you in at a certain
and therefore increase
their capital stock, and therefore in
crease the price to the public, if they
are going to pay dividends on their
stock? and that every time you
start an Intellectual enterprise you
are simply putting up game on the
people of the United States?
There is nothing very handsome or
exhilarating about that view of bus
mess to me. Are you satisfied with
it? Do you like the looks of it? Do
you think that there is nothing to be
done with business?
Now in the meantime what is
happening? We have stimulated
business so in this country by the
tariff and other means, largely by the
genius of the men who have effected
these large combinations, that we
are manufacturing great deal more
than the United States can buy The
result is that we are beginning to
burst the limitations, to burst the
bands that are binding the under
takings of our domestic field The
United States in the next two decades
must have great foreign export
trade or else the reaction on the
financial situation in the United
States will be fatal. You have either
got to curtail your industry or you
have got to break through the bar
riers at your ports and have a great
er international trade.
And in the meantime what has
We lived so snug and
and so like little pro-
vincial family, inside that tariff wall
for all these years that we didn't take
any pains to study foreign markets.
Relatively to the other great COM
mercial markets of the world the
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