Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 October 1900 — WHAT IS A TRUST? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHAT IS A TRUST?

Viator Beveridge Asks and Answers the Question. SOME FAMILIAR EXAMPLES Text of the Indiana Senator’s Notable Address In Nebraska. A Plain Talk In Which Familiar Illustrations of What tho Term “Trust” Implies Are Given In a Manner to Carry Conviction— Bryan’s False Position Clearly Exposed by the Indiana Senator’s Direct Presentation of the Issue—A Practical Talk to the Farmers of Bryan’s State. Hon. Albert J. Beveridge, United States senator from Indiana, addressed a large audience on the political issues of the day at Columbus, Meh., on the occasion of the Nebraska Republican state rally. Senator Beveridge confined his address to the subject of “Trusts.” He said: Ladies and Gentlemen: Mr. Bryan owns a farm. I know 1 this, because I have read it in the newspapers. I know it, because I have seen photographs of Mr. Bryan on hie farm. I am not a farmer now, but I was a. farmer once. And when I was a farmer I worked at the business. The difference between a farmer who works at the profession and the farmer who only works at the name, is just the difference between a man and his photograph. So I think I can

talk to the farmers with more author- 1 ity than Mr. Bryan. Ami as he talks to them about trusts, 1 also will talk ( .to them about trusts. What is a i JSHES, -.SS»' ■■ | trust? It is a great combination or capital, designed to simplify and unify ! business, or a great combination of la- 1 bor, designed to simplify , and unify industry. It is easy to see, therefore, , that there can be good trusts and bad j trusts, just as there can be good men ; and bad men. A trust is a good trust . i when it performs the work for which , it has been organized, and produces , ■“••••'CO ■» ’ ~ k. ■<*» •-■• ** | better goods at cheaper prices end de- . livers them to the consumer more conveniently than a dozen different concerns could do. The consumer is the sovereign factor in civilization. The [ well-being of the masses is the result I of every Industrial development that epdures. A trust Is a bad trust when j it raises prices dishonestly and with- | out other reason than to satisfy the | greed of its managers. A man is a ; bad man when lie steals; and. when he doesj that he ought to be put in jail. A trust is a bad trust when it dishonestly raises prices; and when it does that it ought to be restrained or put out of existence. But because one man steals is no reason why all men should be put in jail; and because one trust is dishonest is no reason why all trusts should be destroyed. Mr. Bryan is in favor of destroying all combinations of capital. We are in favor of destroying only such combinations of capital as oppress the people, just as you are in favor of putting in jail only such men as commit larceny or murder dr arsonT A Trust Operated by feverjf Farmer. sne give the {..fifieCß a perfect illustration "6f a trust tfifit every, farmer In this country -operates himself. That trust is the %clf-binding harvester. I gst the job of driving the first Belf-bjnding harvester that was sent to4entral Illinois by the McCormicks. 'lt was nn old wire-binder. It was a trusts It was the only, trust I have ever had anything to do with. It did what several different machines and Implements were required to do before. It ■enabled the fariner himself to harvest and market his grain at a much less cost than he was able to do before. The first season the selfbinding harvester appeared in central Illinois the same arguments were advanced against It that are now advanced against trusts. It was said

that it threw labor out of employment. It was said it would result in each farmer becoming a sort of independent lauded gentry like the great landlords of England, and that he would not need any help from the day laborers whom he had theretofore hired to do his harvesting. There were even talks of mobs to burn up the self-binders. But men who thought they were thrown out of employment by it, found that they were not; but that there were other employments, easier employment and better paid employments in other directions than all the hard work that harvesting by hand afforded them; that the new conditions created by this very self-binder furnished them other and better employment. Every labor-sav-ing machine Is a mechanical trust, and yet more laboring men are employed today, and at higher wages and with tfiiorter hours than ever be fore 'in human his lory. The self-binder enabled the farmer to market his grain cheaper than lie was able to do before. So the trust enables the producers to produce cheaper than they did before. The

self-binder therefore increases the j farmer's profits because it enables him to market iris grain cheaper; and that Is right. The trust enables its managers to produce eireapjer than they did before; and increase in profits coming from that its legitimate, although they have no right to all such increase of profits. Better products at cheaper prices to the consumer is the only justification for trusts. If the farmers were able to force up the. price of grain dishonestly and still increase their profits, that would be wrong, and it ought to be prevented. Just so when a trust is able to dishonestly force up the price of its products, that is wrong and it ought to be prevented. And that is what the Republican party proposes to do. But because the self-binding harvester increases the farmer’s profit by enabling him to 'produce cheaper grain, is no reason why the self-binder ought to be burned. And just so, the fact that trusts cause cheaper production of products is no reason why they should be destroyed. The Republican idea is regulation ami punishment. The Bryan idea is simply destruction. If Mr. Bryan will work more on his farm at driving his self-binder, he will better understand the first principles of the trust question. Practical Remedy For Trust Evils.

There is only one possible way of regulating trusts. That way is by the congress of the republic controlling corporations. This Ip one country now. We have outgrown state rights. There is no reason why a/corporation organized in New Jeysey should have greater privileges than one organized in Nebraska. A trust, to succeed, must do business all over iTie count??/ Therefore, it ought to be controlled, not. byft state government, but by the nation’s' government. It is the old struggle between the nation ami state rights. The constitution does not permit that at present. The Republican party proposes tojungnd the constitution so that the national government may control trusts. The Democratic party voted solidly against that proposition. Why? Because the Democratic party was more in favor of trusts than dje Republican party? No! TlotTi parties are equally against the evils of truste But the Democrats opposed that measure, which alone can cure the evils of trusts’! because it is a Republican measure, and they would not permit it to pass as a Republican measure without protest. The point is that the Republican party have proposed the onlv possible remedy, and are pledged to Tts execution. A Trust No "One Will See Destroyed.

Is Mr. Bryan in favor of destroying a department store? Is there a woman in the United States who will refuse to trade with the department stores? If not, why not? Because before the department store came she had to buy one thing in one little shop and another thing in another little shop, and all of poorer quality and higher price; whereas now she buys everything under one roof, at a cheaper price find of better quality and has it quickly delivered. Under the old system, statls* tics show that more than 80 per cent of the small stores failed. And all of them had to sell poorer goods at* a higher pries in order to make their profits, and even then they failed; whereas the department store sells al a lower price better goods in mote convenient form/ and the Small dealer who.before was waging a dally strustwith bankruptcy'and falling in the €hd, lg now the Wellpaid find prosperous head of a department of that great center of distribution for the masses, called the department store. And yet that department store has not destroy* ed the small dealer who succeeded before. That small dealer still exists and flourishes more than ever. The shop devoted to specialties and Where high Individual skill is required fire more prosperous now than The department store rAHjr furnishes the specialist his opportunity. It also affords the neighborhood store Its opportunity. And so we find specialists shops and neighborhood stores morfe plentiful and prosperous today than ever before. They do the smatt and Immediate business just as small change <loes the small and Immediate business required of money. Because we have ten. twenty, and fifty- dollar bills is. no reason why we should dispense with the dollar, the quarter, the dime and the nickel. Each have their spheres of usefulness. And just so the trust and the small dealer, the department store, the specialist and the

neighborhood store have their respect--1 Ive spheres of usefulness. And the del partment store takes the place only of i the stordf which failed before and were constantly upsetting business. If Mr. Bryan Is logical, he Is in favor of destroying the department store:, because the department store is a trust tn its simplest and. most familiar form. Bryan Favors Trusts. I Mr Bryan is in favor of trusts as I much as any man in the United States, iHe admits it himself. For he says i that he is a great champiomof labor 1 organization. So am I. The laboring ' organizations of my state supported me for the senate; and when they did it, they knew just where I stood on every question then before the people. I am, and have been since I was a boy, in favor of labor organization. It is the only way labor has of asserting its equal rights with the organizations of capital, and in so doing Is a public benefit, for the well-being of labor is of vital concern to the well-being of the entire nation. It benefits labor in numberless ways. Over and over again Mr. Bryan has said that these organizations are a great blessing. And yet labor organization is merely a form of trust. It is a labor trust, and is a good thing. But even labor trust sometimes does wrong. When it does, it loses the sympathy of the great mass of our people; and it ought to be resisted. Just so, the trusts of capital often do wrong. When they do, they vught to be punished. But because labor trusts /ire sometimes in the wrong ' is no reason why they should be destroyed. What both need when they do wrong is restraint and correction. But what Mr. Bryan proposes is destruction; and if he is logical, he must destroy the trust of labor as well as the trust of capital.

A Simpler Example. Let me give yoteanother and simpler example of the trust. There is in this country a great railway system called the “Big Four railroad.” A great deal of it is in the state of Indiana, and most of it is in that state and in the state of Ohio. I remember the time when the railroads that formed what is now the Big Four railroad system were little, short, separate lines. The service ou each of these lines was poor. The cars were bad. The tracks and road-bed were far from safe. The passenger who wanted to travel any considerable distance had to get off the cars at one end of a line and get op other ears of another line, and the longer he traveled the more he had to do this. He had to pay higher fare and to buy many separate tickets. The employes of those various lines were less in number than they now are and were paid smaller wages. Frequently the lines went into the hands of a receivers and the workingmen had trouble in getting their wages at all. A great manager cohibined those lines into a system. What was the result? More trains, faster time, cars, cheaper rates ancTtlirougTi trains. You can get on one of that system’s trains and. wkliout change, go to distant points which before required two or three tickets. The system employs more men than the Separate lines employed before the consolidation. ■ The service is greatly improved. The convenience to the passenger is not a comparison, but a contrast . with what it used to be. Therefore, there is more traveling, mote business. You are carried cheaper in palace ears; your grain is hauled at lower rates of freight, more safely and.more speedily. And so it is that a great miracle is_wroughtj better serVlce atid efwifper rates to the public on one hand, UlicT more employment and higher wages to the other hand; at the same time more profit to the stockholders who own the road. Dare Mr. Bryan say that he would have that system broken up into the little companies from which it was formed? If he dares not, he has abandoned his position on the trust. Trusts and I'qtiiig Men.

Mr. Bryan declares that trusts prevent young men from rising in the ' business world. On the contrary, the active headg of most of these corpora- ' tions ate young men who have risen without iniftience or any other aid than their own ability to their high position. The of the, Steel cpmpany is still a yduhg man, and rose •to his position from a boy in the works. What the trust is looking for— what any combination of capital is looking for—ls fresh nnd vigorous ability, Unless they £et that, they cannot /succeed. 1 will venture this assertion thaj more than 95 per cent of the active management t>f the great combinations of capital of this country, and the active management of each one of the departments of these great combinations of capital, is in the hands of young men without wealth, influence of position, but whose worth and merit hfive been recognized by the directors ot these gfCfii concerns. trust does not have such ability fit its command

constantly, it will break down, just as trusts ofteu and foV exactly this reason, are breaking do’W’ft. Keen, bold, daring minds will Wee that the trust Is not managed with ability, and they will organise ahother trust which is managed with ability. A trust can only exist When each 'and every department of io the 'smallest detail of Its matical and machine-like 'Sccmacy. I And the chief demand Hi thia Country ' today is for talented, Wustflous, honest, and brave young men to aid the mighty work •’’which this industrial development *ot our 'civilization requires. .As no woman who listens to me would have the depaftanent store dissolve into the Ijfttle, inconvenient, highpriced shops, 'selling poorer goods in a more luciArvenlent wayjgas xiot a man in tlils»-republic Would have any of our great/railroad lines, which were

formed out of a dozen smjll, poorlyoperated, high-priced, miserably-equip-ped, inconvenient lines, broken up into those little roads again, just so not a man in this country is against the industrial development of a trust, when it is honestly and righteously conducted. Wtiat we are all against Is the dishonest operation of these trusts, just as we are all against the dishonest conduct of any man. But the sensible thing is not to destroy them; the sensible thing is to remedy them. The right road is onward (toward government control, koine think, and many developments are suggested; the right solution will certainly be found), and not backward toward the day when the farmer reaped his grain with a scythe, instead of with the selfbjnding harvester; not backward to the day when he threshed it with a flail, instead of with a vibrating thresher; not backward to the day when the stage coach did the business of passenger transportation, instead of the travel of the country being carried at a fraction of the price the stage coach charged, and in palace ears, witli all the comforts and luxuries of this wonderful civilization, fhe' road to the true solution is onward, and not backward, and the elements that are required in our statesmen in dealing with this tremendous problem of human society, this natural industrial development; is earnest thpugbt, thorough study, fearless justice and moderation, instead of violent and ignorant assertion, inflamed prejudice and mad resolutions, not to remedy, but to destroy.

Common Sense and Justice. My friends, what we need is not so much sweeping declaration one way or the other against the trusts of labor or the trusts of capital. What we need is common sense and justice. Common sense, s in order that we may see what is just: and the spirit of justice, in order to do what is just. On his dying bed Richelieu, who created Franc’e. was asked what was the secret of his power. He. answered: “Some say it is cunning—that I am a fox. Some say it is courage—that I am a lion. It is neither. The secret of ray power is told in one word—justice—for I have been just.” And this is what we need in our public men who deal with the profound problem of combinations of labor and combinations of capital and the whole tremendous social evolution of which these are a part.

ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE.