facilities for conducting the commerce with seven hundred millions, or more, of people on the other side of the Pacific ocean? Seward's dream that the Pacific side of our country was likely to become the most important, may prove to be a reality.

The trusts will prove to be the great reliance of our country in successfully conducting the great industries that are to supply the greatly enhanced foreign commerce, that the opportunities of the near future are opening to us.

Have no fear that the trusts will seriously impose upon the people in the prices that will have to be paid for their products. The germs of death are in them and their only method to prevent an early demise, is to avoid extortion.

It may be a debatable question as to whether the Standard Oil Company has been, and is a blessing to the country or not. Certain it is, however, that it has developed an industry in something more than thirty years, from practically nothing, to an annual volume of perhaps more than $150,000,000, of which it retains about $25,000,000 and gives $125,000,000 to the people of the country. It has greatly lessened the cost of light; it is paying more than a hundred millions of dollars annually for oil and labor, and pays labor more than any other employees receive.

It has added more than one thousand millions to the wealth of the country, and contributes sixty millions a year to our credit in its exports.

But there are reasons for the control of trusts by law. capitalization must be guarded against.

Over

While I have always been, and am yet, a thorough believer in the protective policy, I regard the appropriation of the tariff to enhance the price of any product of the country, as a misuse of the purpose intended. When any trust shall avail itself of a tax upon imports to enhance the price of the product, then the tax should be modified or wholly removed.

A bureau of government, or a board, similar to the interstate commerce commission, should be established, to whom all trusts shall apply for license, after being incorporated, and to whom reports as exhaustive as is required of the national banks, should be made. The terms of the license should not be illiberal, but it certainly should provide against overcapitalization.

All profits beyond 6 per cent should be taxed for the benefit of the government.

As probably the power does not exist in Congress to make the requirements suggested, it seems then, that it is the plain duty of this conference to request Congress to submit amendments to the Constitution, giving it necessary power, not only to control

the trusts, but as the suggestion is made to tax their profits, also to provide for an income tax.

It is evident now, that the country hereafter must rely upon internal taxation for revenue to support the government. An income tax is the most equitable form of taxation and can be paid with less hardship than any other. It is objected to on the ground that it exposes the secrets of business, and because it is generally evaded. If the return is honorably made, I apprehend there will be little ground for this objection.

It may be that our powers do not give us jurisdiction over the latter subject.

If this view should be taken, then let us appeal to the wealthy people of the country to take it up and move for its adoption. It is certain they could not render themselves a better service.

It seems to me that as both those who oppose, and those who favor trusts are in accord in favoring the assertion of a power strong enough to either destroy or regulate them, that we ought to be able to get together on the proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States.

I apprehend but for the inherent support of the doctrine of state rights by our Southern friends the proposition would be readily agreed to. It is evident that the states acting independently cannot successfully deal with this great question.

As the country expands the weakness of state control of great questions becomes more apparent, and the need of the use of federal power becomes greater.

The law of this country has been one of expansion and growth, and I may appropriately say, that when we cease to grow our decline will begin.

I believe the great mission designed by Providence for this country has only begun; that it will go on evangelizing and civilizing the world until all lands and all peoples will be in the full enjoyment of free institutions.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

Attorney-General of Arkansas.

Following Mr. Foster, Attorney-General Jefferson Davis of Arkansas spoke extemporaneously on "Arkansas Anti-Trust Law," saying:

Coming as I do from a land that lies to the South, it is with great gratification that I accepted your invitation and have come here from the Southland to give you my ideas, crude as they are,

on the subject before this convention, one that is threatening to sap the very life blood of our American institutions.

It is with a feeling of trepidation that I enter upon this discussion, and I was very glad indeed when I received notice from your secretary that this meeting should not be political. Had it been otherwise, I should not have attended, because beyond and above all things else I hold and pride my democracy. If in this discussion I should unwittingly say anything that would be improper, or transcend the proprieties of this occasion, I ask that you attribute it to my zeal, and not to a willful desire to infringe on the proprieties of this convention.

The subject, ladies and gentlemen, that has been assigned to me is "The Arkansas Law as Applied to Trusts."

Before entering upon that discussion, ladies and gentlemen, permit me to say that I am surprised at some of the sentiments expressed here to-night by the last gentleman who has taken his seat upon the platform. He tells us that trusts have come to stay. That may be true-I doubt it sincerely. But if it be true, ladies and gentlemen, that trusts have come to stay, and if the withering blight of trusts is to overshadow our fair land, then away with American liberty, American patriotism, the God of the American people. Mr. Chairman, we all know-at least the legal fraternity who face me in this convention-know that any conspiracy to control prices-and that is but an epitome of trusts is a crime at the common law, and that wherever the common law prevails in this broad land of ours, under that, without federal interference and without any legislation, under the common law alone, the crime of conspiracy to control prices may be punished criminally. We know, ladies and gentlemen, that the trust is but a conspiracy to control prices. What is the trust? You have had it differently defined during the sitting of this convention. I say to you, ladies and gentlemen, a trust is but the ripened fruit of misused tariff legislation, as the robbery of the people upon the silver question was. We know, ladies and gentlemen-and while I do not intend to invade the province of politics, and while I never in my life prepared a speech for any convention, perhaps you have observed that ere this-I say to you that a trust is but the ripened fruit. We know, ladies and gentlemen, that money is the blood of commerce; we know, like the blood that flows from the heart to the extremities and helps the circulation, money should flow from the centers to the extremities and back again, to help the circulating commercial life. But we know that by a system of tariff taxation, by representations, that the money has flowed from the extremities to

the centers, and has not returned again, but it has been congealed and it is only in the center. Not only that, but the money of the constitution, the money of the people, the money of our fathers, the money that we all love so well, not by law but by precedent, has been taken from the people, and it, too, has congealed in the east and in the north, and with this great mass of wealth, fellow-citizens, you know full well that men are attempting to-day, with this great mass of wealth they are attempting to control the price of products, and the trust is but the outgrowth, but the ripened fruit, as it were, the outgrowth of these two gigantic evils-and this distinguished gentleman tells us it has come to stay! It means that its father and mother came to stay, and it is but their offspring, ladies and gentlemen.

Now to the discussion that has been assigned to me. Applause is always permissible at any part of this discussion, ladies and gentlemen, and in the few brief moments for the discussion of one of the best laws, I think, upon the statute books of any state in the Union, I find in the few moments I will be unable to go over the field as I would like, and point out to you, as I see it, one of the best remedies on earth to destroy the thing which this gentleman has told us came to stay. I say to you, ladies and gentlemen, that we cannot destroy it successfully without federal interference and state legislation in harmonious action. We do not need so much legislation. It is not the legislative branch of our government that in my brief experience as attorney of one of the best states in the galaxy of states that I have the honor to represent here it is true we raise more corn and cotton and pretty women in Arkansas than any place on earth-it is not of the legislation department of my state or this beautiful Southland of which I would complain, but it is with another function of government-it is with the judicial department of this great commonwealth of ours that I would complain to you to-night. What! they say. You should not criticise the judiciary! There isn't a man, fellow-citizens, in all this broad land of ours that would pay greater tribute to the honorable, to the just, the upright and conscientious judge, than I. But do you remember, ladies and gentlemen, that Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest patriots this country has ever produced, in the Dred Scott decision he criticises more severely than it is possible for me to do a decision of the Supreme Court of this land of ours, and do you remember, ladies and gentlemen, just a short time ago, in the income-tax decision to which my distinguished friend referred so learnedly, that Justice Harlan criticises more severely than it is possible for me to do the most infamous decision that has ever

been handed down by a court of last resort in any country or time?

I have not lost my faith in God and man. The saddest fate that can befall a human soul is when it loses its faith in God and man, and had I lost that gem, though the thrones of this world stood empty in my path, I would go wandering back to my childhood in tears till I found it. It is not of the legislative department that I would complain, but of the judicial department. I hold in my hand a copy of one of the best laws, in my judgment, that was ever enacted in a state upon the subject of trusts. This law provides in a few words, "Any corporation organized under the laws of this or any other state or country and transacting or conducting any kind of business in this state, which shall create, enter into, or become a member of or a party to any pool or trust or agreement to regulate or fix the price of any article of mechanics or merchandise or any article or thing whatsoever, shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of a felony, and subject to the penalties of this act." I come from a people that is in no humor to temporize with one of the most monstrous evils that has ever "come to stay." Gentlemen-excuse me, but I have been talking politics-ladies and gentlemen, do you remember in the 158 United States Supreme Court, the case of Hall against Virginia, where the United States Supreme Court says that a corporation is but a creature of the law, and that the creature cannot control the creator? This law provides that a corporation so created cannot migrate to another sovereignty unless by the consent of that sovereignty; and it goes further, and says that that sovereignty may prescribe any condition upon which. it may enter its borders and transact its business. Now, taking that as a basis, if a corporation is considered by the ultimate authority, the government, but a creature of the law, then it remains for you to say whether the creature shall control the creator, or whether the creator shall control the creature.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, the Federal Court of this land has said that these creatures can only exist in the land of their creation, and they can migrate to another sovereignty only upon the will of that sovereignty, no matter how cautious that will may be. Now, fellow-citizens, we know that a trust is but a combination of wealth formed for the purpose of controlling prices; we know, fellow-citizens, that it is a corporation; we know that it is a creature of the law, and I am here to say to-night that the only remedy, in my judgment, for its extermination-because exterminate it we must-the only remedy for its extermination is to bring upon it the strong hand of the law, and I am surprised to