Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1912-09-13
REGI LATED OR LEG Allied
HuLtt'DIt

Na.le not a few people are end"aN-
a. H. to make the tram Tie supreme
l,Su, i'm this campaign, one must not
forget the more important problem,
hos 10 deal with our large industries.
For this reason The WASHINGToN
STANDARD reprints this week a recent
editorial in Golfers Weekly bearing
upon the question of monopolies, prob
ably the dearest and most searching
editorial on All important issue that
has been published uring the cam
laign:
Shall we have regulated competition
or regulated monopoly? That is the
most important question of tins cam
paign. not even excepting the tariff
New-party advocates of legaliZed mo-
nopoly state the trust problem as If we
must choose between destructive com
petition or regulated monopoly; where
as the alternative actually is between
regulated competition and regulated
monopoly.
Connection is an incident of indus
trial liberty; regulation is essential to
the preservation and best development
of competition. just as regulation is
necessary to the preservation and best
development of civil and political lib
erty. To preserve the civil and pollt-
ical liberty of the many, 1t was found
necessary to restrict, in some respects.
the liberty of the few. 1t was found
that unlicensed political liberty leads
TO oligarchy or despotism. Tile physi-
cally strong were long ago curbed in
order to protect those physically weak
err. More recently such protection has
been extended to the realm of business.
Recognizing actual differences in
strength between employer and en-
p,oye, we restricted theoretical free
dom of contract by factory laws pre-
scribing conditions and hours. The lib
erty of the financier, the merchant, and
the manufacturer to deceive his less as
tute customer, expressed in the phrase
caveat emptor. is yielding rapidly be-
fore pure food laws and postal-fraud
prosecutions to better conceptions of
business ethics. Similarly, competi-
ton must be limited in order to pre-
serve competition. The strongest be-
levers in competition are most jealous
that it be regulated. To prohibit that
destructive competition which leads to
monopoly-to prohibit that excess of
liberty Of contract which. through COM
bination, would destroy industrial lib
dustrial liberty-is not attempting by
law to make people compete" No one
seeks to compel people to compete.
The purpose of the Sherman law and of
the perfectng amendments proposed
by the Embellishments Stanley bill
Is merely to prevent the killing of COM
petition-to prevent competition being
rendered impossible.
Nor does the refusal to sanction in
dustrial monopoly interfere with the
natural law of business. There is no
natural monopoly today in the bust
ness world. The Oil trust, the tobacco
trust. the sugar trust, the steel trust
are all most unnatural monopolies. The
first three acquired their control of
the market by ruthless and uncon-
scionable conduct-conduct which was
not only a sin against society but in
volved fragrant violations of the ordi-
nary criminal law. Without the aid OF
railroad rebating, bribery. corruption
and espionage none Of those trusts
would have acquired the vast wealth
and power which enabled them to de-
stroy weaker competitors. The steel
trust. while apparently free from the
grosser forms of supressing cOmpeti-
ton, acquired control of the market
not. through greater efficiency but by
buying up existing successful plants
and ore supplies at fabulous prices
and levying tribute through control OF
transportation systems. 1t is not in
terfering with any natural law Of bus
mess to refuse to allow a few f1nan-
ciers to purchase huge concerns al
many times their intrinsic values and
then, through controlling the, market
cast the burden of such excuses upor
the innocent consumer. Not a single
industrial monopoly exists today which
is the result of natural growth. Ir
every case of monopoly, competition
was suppressed either through ruth.
less practices or by an improper use OF
inordinate wealth or power. If the law
prohibiting such practices is clearly
defined and enforced. as is the pur-
pose of the LaFollette-Lenrot, the
Stanley and the Oldfeld bills to ac-
complish, no similar trust will arise ir
the future. In attempting to dismem
Der existing illegal trusts, we are
therefore, not interfering with a nat