Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 April 1891 — Wanted a Rubber Trust. [ARTICLE]

Wanted a Rubber Trust.

Efforts to form trusts are reported very frequently since the day of McKinleyism began. A scheme has been on foot for some time to unite all the rubber boot and shoe establishments of the country into a combination to control prices and regulate output. The Boston Boot and Shoe Recorder says that “the recent financial troubles put an end to all negotiations for a time,” Then it goes on to say: “Now it is stated that still another movement of the same kind is on foot, that a prominent banking housft 1h New York City is interested in making the deal, and that the bank expects to realize a good sum in commissions through floating the stock of the proposed new combination. This movement will probably follow the course of the previous efforts in the same line. Some companies when approached are found anxious to sell, others will sell at a fair price, while still others name figures that stagger the would-be buyers. ” From the latter remark It appears that the rubber boot and shoe business must be very profitable. The ever generous McKinley, however, was not satlstlsd with the old duty of 25 per cent. Nobody apparently came to ask for an increase of duty, but as McKinley had contracted the habit of raising the tariff wall, up went the duty on rubber boots and shoes to 30 per cent, This was done without any evidence that domestic manufacturers are suffering from foreign competition. If there are any Imports of rubber boots or shoes at all the Treasury reports do not give them. And now the effort to form a rubber trust! When ft comes let McKinley bless it as one of the “beneficences” of his tariff law that he said the people might expect. ’