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monopolies can not be long-lived. Under free trade the homeopathic maxim that "like cures like," may be verified by killing off one combine with another combine, and by organizing syndicate against syndicate for intense competition, thus keeping prices and profits at a minimum.

Trusts which are over-capitalized are born of the machinations of shallow and impractical men. They will fail and no one be harmed except those whose credulity led them to invest in their securities.

There is much misapprehension as to incorporated capital in the United States. Oratorical vagarists have endeavored to make common people believe that incorporations are not subject to economic laws of competition and that the relation of supply to demand is not the sole regulator of values. The fact, however, remains that money invested in manufactories or in railroads belonging to incorporations is no stronger, no better and no more exempt from the operation of commercial laws than the money which is owned by individuals. There need be, in my judgment, no apprehension as to the trusts crushing out all competition. With the exception of the oil trust and the sugar trust, failure among trusts has been universal. The whisky trust, the tobacco trust and all the other trusts of any importance up to date, except those that have been formed very recently, have been complete failures. These failures have come, firstly, from over-capitalization; and, secondly, from mismanagement. Intelligent competition can enter the field against any trust on earth except one which has a natural monopoly (by this I mean one which, like the Standard Oil Company, owns the only oil-producing lands in the country), and successfully put its products upon the market with the sympathy of the consumer all on its side. By this I mean that outside of the trusts co-partnerships and stock companies may be formed with capital, energy and ability to successfully take the market against any and all trusts' products, except those which are the result of a natural monopoly.

Enactments will not cure the tendency toward combines. Economic laws will rectify their errors and protect the people. Whenever legislatures invade the domain of economic laws with statute laws, they merely show the power and majesty of the former and italicize the feebleness and littleness of the latter. Too much legislation begot all the real and all the possible evils which combinations of capital, even under a protective tariff, are capable of inflicting. "Let alone" trade, manufacture and distribution are good servants to all the people. Favored by special privileges they may become servants to the few and masters of

the many. The less legislation-after repealing the protective tariff-about restraining capital, the better.

Of course, it is fashionable, it is epidemic, to denounce all large aggregations of capital as "trusts." This mania will at last exhaust itself and the country will find that those who have been damaged by trusts were those who bought their securities for more than they were worth.

CYRUS G. LUCE.

Ex-Governor of Michigan.

As a lifelong farmer I crave a few moments of your valuable time to present the interests of that great portion of the American people that are engaged in agricultural pursuits.

Much attention has been given by this conference to schemes and methods that are intended to increase our exports. With all proper efforts in this direction we are in hearty sympathy. Our enormous exports of the last few years have been the wonder of the civilized world. We have surprised ourselves by their magnitude. We have forced a great balance of trade in our favor. We have loaded ships with gold coming from other nations to our shores. These conditions have contributed largely to the present prosperous condition of our own country. It is well to pause and reflect upon the sources from whence these exports come. Beginning with 1892, and coming down to the present hour, nearly eighty per cent of the products that have produced these vast sums have been wrung from the brown soil. In faith the American farmer has sown and planted. He has with industry cultivated and with rejoicing harvested the wheat, cotton and corn that has gone abroad to feed and clothe the people of other nations. He has reared, watched, cared for and fed the herds. and flocks that have, together with the grain and cotton, loaded the cars and the vessels that have brought profits to the owners of railroads and steamships. He, with the necessity of his products, stands as a breastwork against the dangers of foreign wars. In the consideration of questions that affect the welfare of the nation none are entitled to greater or more candid attention, and yet during all the discussions here he, with his great contribution to the general welfare, has occupied just twenty minutes of your time. His interests were championed and his views presented grandly and nobly by the master of the National Grange, and that was all. His interests have not been directly attacked, but by all others quietly ignored. I do not say this to complain,

but to intimate to you the modesty of those engaged in this giant pursuit. But with all this modesty we are not disinterested listeners to the discussions of the trust question, nor are we ignorant of the tendency of the times nor of the inclination to unite corporation with corporation until they have become a threatening menace to their interests. We are not unfriendly to the ordinary corporation where other corporations can exist as competitors in the production of goods, articles and implements in the same line. While human nature remains the same we do not and can not believe that it is safe to lodge in the hands of one man or set of men the power that would be given him by union of all the corporations under one management engaged in the production of any one line of goods. It is idle to claim, as some men do, that these men, clothed with such unlimited power, would suddenly become so good, just and humane that he would mete out even-handed justice to all. He would create a monopoly in his line; he would force down the price of articles that he must purchase and put up the price of products that he makes for sale. This prophecy is made with some knowledge of human nature and the policy pursued in this and other generations. But more than this, we have the evidence of practical demonstrations by every day's occurrence at the present time. The modern trust is comparatively new in its existence and operations, but in all cases where it is fairly on its feet it is doing and undertaking to do the very things that we have predicted it will do. Of the hundreds of articles that the trust has been able to control, prices have been advanced in nearly all cases; still it is claimed with great confidence that the advance in price grows out of the general tendency of events. But is it not a singular coincidence that the price so suddenly advances as soon as the trust secures control? It is freely and gladly admitted that labor is securing an advance in wages, but this is slight compared with the advance in the price of trust-made articles. Now, if it is true (and more than possibly it is) that these mammoth combinations produce and place on the market their goods, wares and implements at lower prices than the ordinary corporation can where competition exists, where do all the increased profits go? Who is getting them? They very likely save enough by their improved methods in making and selling to pay all the advances made to the laborers, and this would leave the enhanced prices secured for products to pay increased dividends to the stockholders. Among all who have made a defense or a quasi defense no one has given any other solution of this question, hence the conclusion reached is a safe one. All corporations have not yet formed themselves into

trusts, but it is safe to conclude that all who can, seeing the increased profits secured by those who have united their forces, will be inclined to do so, and others will be compelled to do so or die. And this justly causes great apprehension upon the part of the American farmers. I do not see how it is possible for them to unite in a counter trust these great producers of the world's wealth. I know that some with a more vivid imagination than I possess have conceived the project. I can readily see how labor can respond to the appeals made here and elsewhere to unite and join forces with the great productive combinations, but how the farmers can do so is beyond my imagination: But even if they can form one so comprehensive and so perfect in its operation that they shall be enabled to absolutely control production and prices, with my present ideas of human nature I am afraid that in too many cases the children of the poor would go supperless to bed. It is neither here nor there a safe power to place untrammeled in the hands of any one man or set of men. But if the trust reaches the height of its ambition, the great army engaged in agricultural pursuits will be driven to desperation. The tendency will inevitably be to force them through a trust or otherwise to reduce production, to cease in their efforts to load the cars and vessels as bounteously as before, they will cease to purchase as generously as in the past. In this many others will suffer as well as they. This is no fancy picture, and far be it from a threat, but it is believed to be the inevitable result of operating causes, and the conclusion is drawn from the fact that in all the relations of life and positions occupied men usually exercise all the power and authority lodged in their hands. This is just as true in America as in any other land. We do not clothe the President or the Governors of states, the Congress or state Legislatures, or even the courts, with unlimited power. We do not permit any of these to discharge duties at their own sweet wills, but they are hedged about by constitutional provisions and by legal enactments and somehow or in some way these mighty corporations known as trusts must be checked, trammeled, restrained. In all my acquaintance I know of no farmer who feels safe in the prosecution of his calling without placing restraint upon them. In the incorporation of corporations they make bold claims not for the public, perhaps, in relation to what they can and expect to do. No better or more dangerous illustration can be given than the one presented to the woollen manufacturers, and the same claim is made and presented as an inducement to the manufacturers of leather and of its products. They or their promoters claim that when they are properly organized and in working

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