The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1914-03-07
TROUBLED
ABOUT TRUSTS
New Complications Discour-
age the Admins
tration
INTERLOCKING
DIRECTORATES
One of the Biggest Problems
Long a Common
: Practice

Washington, March THAT the Will
son administration is discouraged on
the proposition to enact bill unlocking
the interlocking directorates OF the big
corporations and is about to abandon
this part of its trust program is the
general feeling in Washington. The
highly complex nature of the problem
has baflled would-be trainers of work
able bill, while the truth of j. 7. Nor
gan's famous dictum about the impos-
sibility of unscrambling eggs is gradual
iy being forced upon those who have
been trying to find ways and means for
performing the process.
DIR. Frank r. Warne, a well-known
statistician of this city, yesterday pre-
scented as testimony before the inter
state commerce commission an elaborate
analysis of the interlocking direetorates
of the railways of eastern territory
concerned in the advance freight rate
case DIR. Warne's figures show that
these roads, exclusive Of terminal and
switching companies. are composed of
approximately s97 separate and distinct
railroad companies, but that sos Of
them, or 6s per cent, are controlled by
twelve great systems-the New York
Central, the Pennsylvania, the Reading
the Baltimore & Ohio, the New Haven,
the Erie, the Delaware, Lackawanna &
Western. the Grand Trunk, the Wabash
the Delaware g. Hudson, the Lehigh
Valley and the Western Maryland.
"This intercorporate relationship
among the railroads in the eastern ter
ritory," says DIR. Warne, in part, sis a
very important factor affecting nearly
all the issues involved in the relation of
these instruments of commerce to the
Federal and state governments and to
the public. 1t dominates and deter
mines nearly every important question
affecting interstate commerce and its
regulation. One of the results is that
although the requests for an increase in
rates have come to this commission from
many hundreds OF separate railway cor
porations, they are actually requests
from few great systems. Many rail.
way corporations that legally are 'inde-
pendent economically are dependent and
are mere parts of larger whole"
One Of the diagrams prepared by DIR.
Warne shows how the New York Cen
trail for example, is interlocked by stock
ownership and directors with us roads.
The Pennsylvania in the same way con-
trols liz roads; Reading so roads; Bal
timore g. Ohio IS roads; the New Haven
80, and so on. Another diagram exhibits
the interlocking of the directors of the
Michigan Central with other transporta-
tion, financial and industrial companies.
These thirteen men, Messrs. w. K. Van
derbilt, James Stillman, George F.
Baker, L. G. Ledyard, w. X. Vanderbilt,
ir., H. B. Dedyard, w. G. Brown. Marvin
Highitt, w. H. Newman, J. p. Morgan,
William Rockefeller, G. NJ Depew and
F. w. Vanderbilt. are soon to have no
less than "a connections with transpor-
tation lines, 81 with financial companies,
ll6 with industrials, these figures not
their ninety-seven connections
with the group known as the New York
Central lines. The names of these com.
panies are in themselves indications of
the nature of this interlocking Among
them may be mentioned United States
Steel, Amalgamated Copper, Interna-
tional Mercantile Marine, Adams Ex-
press, American Telephone, Etna Insur-
ince, National City Bank, Union Pacific,
Northern Pacific and the Union Trust of
Detroit.
In view of the complexity of unrav-
cling this fabric and because the ad-
is not certain that, if un.
ravelled, either the trusts or the public
would be any better off, the discourage
ment of the administration is easy to
In all probability the trade commits
sion bill, now the center of discussion
mere, will be substituted for the other
xix of the "seven brothers" which were
1t first advocated.