lutions you will easily secure. It is the members of the legislature and the Congressional nominees you need to look after. "(Signed.) Wm. E. Chandler."

The remedy for the plague of trusts, now epidemic, I have not discussed, excepting as contained in the suggestions of Senator Chandler; the purpose of my paper being to demonstrate that trusts are considered as an abominable curse by the people. I speak for the commercial travelers especially, but for the people generally in opposition to trade combines; for the commercial men have felt the pulse of the people, as could no other class.

Remedy for the evil is expected by the people from national and state lawmakers; discussion as to the best medicine, so to speak, is left to others, better qualified from professional training, to prescribe.

As plain, every-day business men, the commercial travelers submit the facts as they find them; and that class specifically I have the honor to serve as a spokesman here.

Mr. F. B. Thurber addressed the conference on the subject of "The Right to Combine":

F. B. THURBER.

President United States Export Association.

If this conference does nothing else than what it has done in giving wide publicity to the brief utterances of two representative men, in their letters acknowledging the invitation to this conference, it has justified its being held.

The Rev. Lyman Abbott, of New York, said: "I think what we most need on the subject of industrial, commercial labor and transportation combinations is just what your letter indicates this meeting will endeavor to secure-light, not heat. What we need to understand, and what only experience can teach us, is the relation between competition and combination-the one the centrifugal, the other the centripetal force of society. He who believes only in combination will logically be led to socialism; he who believes only in competition will logically be led to nihilism. Neither of these results can possibly furnish the solution of the problems which now confront us. We must learn how to secure the advantages of combination without destroying the individual; to maintain brotherhood in practical forms without sinking, obscuring or belittling personality."

Henry White, of the United Garment Workers of America,

said: "Your conference is called at an opportune time. The reorganization of industry, which is so rapidly taking place in many of the important industrial pursuits, presents a problem which cannot be given too much attention by the friends of industrial reform. It is of more consequence just now to understand the nature of this development than to declaim against it. That is the reason why I sympathize so strongly with the calling of this conference."

The right to combine has been recognized from time immemorial, subject to a due regard to the rights of others. The progress of the world has for centuries been largely promoted by combinations of labor, skill and capital, but it remained for the nineteenth century under the influence of steam, electricity and machinery to become, par excellence, the era of combinations. These forces could only be utilized to their fullest extent through combining the capital of individuals, and the advantages of such combinations are so numerous that they have revolutionized the industrial, commercial and political worlds. Bovee said: "In former times, war was a business, but in modern times business is war." It is certain that these forces enormously enhanced the force or war of competition, and this in turn has led to attempts through further combinations to regulate and control competition. The editor of U. S. Consular Reports for August, 1897, in discussing industrial centralization in Europe, said:

"Our period is distinguished by its tendency to centralization, not only in the state, but likewise in industry and commerce. Large firms are competing with small shops to such an extent that the latter are disappearing one after another. The factory has displaced the workshops. Everything is being done on a large scale; everything is becoming colossal.

"That is not all. We see now even the great factories, not finding themselves sufficiently strong alone, and fearing their reciprocal competition, renouncing their own autonomy and combining among themselves; and this tendency is everywhere manifest. The French charge d'affaires at Berlin calls attention to this centralization in Germany; the French consul at Glasgow mentions the same phenomenon at Glasgow.

"These facts are significant. They certainly indicate one of the tendencies-perhaps, it might be said, one of the necessitiesof our epoch. It is certain that production is passing through a serious crisis. Competition has occasioned a considerable decline in prices, and in order to retain markets, certain industries have been obliged to work under unprofitable conditions. To avoid final ruin, they have agreed either to limit the production to

maintain prices, or to conclude complete consolidation. Hence the cartels, the syndicates for production, the associations.

"We reither approve nor blame this new procedure; we simply record it, remarking that sometimes certain laws are developed, whatever may be their consequences."

The economic results have been so sudden and startling that it has occasioned alarm in the public mind, and this has been seized upon by sensational journals and political parties competing for public favor, to unduly exaggerate the evils attending the evolution, while the good has been overlooked. The best horse will shy at an umbrella if it is opened in his face too suddenly, but if allowed to smell of it and see that it is not dangerous, his alarm subsides; and I prophesy that when all sides of this question have been carefully studied, popular alarm at the organization of industry, commonly known under the misnomer of "trusts" will subside, but in a country with universal suffrage the only way to put down error is to argue it down. Sensational misrepresentations must be met with facts or grave injuries to our industries and institutions will result.

The state of alarm in the public mind is indicated by the following resolutions recently adopted by the Wholesale Grocers' Association of New Orleans regarding "Trusts":

"Whereas, it is the sense of this association that trusts and combinations controlling the output and prices on commodities are a menace to our national safety and existence. We assert as a fact that it is the intention and purpose of such combinations and aggregations of capital under the name of trusts, by capital and concentration to control and manipulate alike the values of raw material and manufactured products, thereby enabling themselves to dictate to the producer, the wholesale and retail dealers as well as the consumer, the prices they shall pay for all manufactured commodities. We further assert that the unopposed continuance and enlargement of trusts in our midst means, as certainly as any mathematical fact, the absolute destruction of our commercial existence. Be it therefore

"Resolved, By the Wholesale Grocers' Association of New Orleans, that viewed from a political standpoint, we believe it is to the best interests of all true American citizens to use every endeavor to cause the most extreme legislation against the operation of trusts that can be had consistent with our state and national constitutions."

And further illustrations are found in the action of our national and state legislatures in enacting special statutes to limit this supposed evil. Congress prohibited pooling agreements between

railroads, and passed the Sherman anti-trust law, which declares every contract in restraint of trade illegal, and under this act the Supreme Court of the United States in the Trans-Missouri Freight Association case took the extreme view (by the narrow majority of five to four judges, however) that even a necessary agreement between carriers for establishing and maintaining reasonable and uniform rates of freight was a contract in restraint of trade. The legislature of the great commercial state of New York in 1896 enacted a law which provides:

"No stock corporation shall combine with any other corporation or person for the creation of a monopoly or the unlawful restraint of trade or the prevention of competition in any necessary of life. No foreign stock corporation formed by the consolidation of two or more corporations or by the combination of the business of two or more persons, firms or corporations for the purpose of restricting or preventing competition in the supply or price of any article or commodity of common use, or for the purpose of establishing, regulating, or controlling the supply or price thereof shall be authorized to do business in this state."

This law was the outcome of an investigation by the judiciary committee of the New York senate, which was remarkable for the bias shown against incorporated capital and the disregard of economic facts developed by the evidence. The report, among other things, denied the right of a manufacturing corporation to choose agents for the sale of its goods and fix the prices and terms upon which they should be sold.

From time immemorial it has been a common custom in trade for manufacturers to select agents to sell their goods and to fix the price and terms on which they shall be sold; also for agents to agree that in consideration of these and a certain commission or rebate they will only sell the goods of one manufacturer.

The legislature of the state of Texas at its last session enacted an anti-trust law which prohibits any person, partnership, firm, or incorporated body from entering into any agreement to regulate or fix the price of any article or thing whatsoever, or the premium to be paid for insuring property, or to fix or limit the amount or quality of any commodity. The act pronounces the refusal or failure to put on the market for sale by any corporation, firm or individual the product of any party a conspiracy to defraud, so as the refusal of any corporation, copartnership, firm, individual or association which may gather items of news or press dispatches for sale to newspapers to sell the same to more than one newspaper within a certain radius of territory. This act prohibits any person from selling at less than the cost of

manufacture, or giving away manufactured products for the purpose of driving out competition. The act provides that if two or more persons or corporations who are engaged in buying or selling any article of commerce, manufacture, merchandise, mechanism, commodity, or any article or thing whatever shall enter into any pool, trust, agreement, combination, confederation, association or understanding to control or limit trade in any such article or thing or to limit competition in such trade by refusing to buy from or sell to any other person or corporation any such article or thing for the reason that such other person or corporation is not a member of or a party to such pool, trust, agreement, combination, confederation, association or understanding, or shall boycott or threaten any person or corporation for buying from or selling to any other person or corporation who is not a member of or party to such agreement shall be deemed guilty of committing a violation of the act and of a conspiracy to defraud, the penalty for which is a forfeiture by the offender of not less than $200 or more than $5,000 for every offense, and each day of such violation is made a separate offense.

The governor of Texas, Hon. Jos. D. Sayers, in commenting upon this law recently said:

"It has been asserted by some, who claim themselves qualified to speak upon the subject, that trusts, as operated in the United States, are not harmful, and that they are but the outgrowth of an evolution in industrial life that is natural, healthful and necessary. On the other hand it is insisted, and I think rightfully, that they are, in a great measure, if not entirely, due to vicious legislation, to the policy of the Federal Government in the matter of currency and taxation, and to that of the states in the creation of corporations. A high protective tariff, which excludes foreign competition, and a single gold standard which limits the volume of currency and enhances the value of that in circulation, supplemented by the easy formation of corporations under state authority, are the potent instrumentalities upon which the trust depends for its existence. If, under the trust-reign, the industries of the country be passing into the hands of the few, if the products of other lands be so heavily taxed as to be, in a great measure, denied entrance into our ports, and our people be thereby compelled to buy and use only those manufactured at home, if the cost of production and distribution is being reduced to the minimum, if the output is being so regulated as not to exceed a given quantity, and its selling price determined by the trust exclusively, if the small dealers are being put under duress as to those from whom and as to what they may buy, and as to how