family in comfort. Now this opportunity is closed. The field is monopolized by combinations of wealth. The clerk must remain a clerk, without hope in the future, except such increase in his pitiful wages as his master may in his magnanimity see fit to dole out to him. His opportunity is further limited by his being forced into competition with helpless women, driven by necessity to accept any wage in order to exist.

To sum up the whole, this policy of the trusts is an aggressive invasion organized against the best interests of society and destructive to our free institutions and popular government. It is too often the instigator of fraud, corruption, bribery, and treaIt is the ally of despotism, tvranny, mercenary selfishness, and slavery, and is an enemy to the elevation of the race and the equality of man.

JOHN B. CONNER.

Chief Indiana Bureau of Statistics.

It is said that the germ of the corporation idea had its origin in Rome in the ecclesiastical organizations and combinations, and that the English law in respect to corporations was fashioned by these ancient impressions, when taking civil instead of ecclesiastical form. Then followed the organization of guilds in trade and commerce, and universities. To a great extent in these times of combinations and trust organization, the corporation has taken on the idea wholly of corporate personality, instead of that of public utility. More than a century ago Blackstone said: "When it is for the advantage of the public to have any particular rights kept on foot and continued, to construct artificial persons, who may maintain a perpetual succession and enjoy a kind of legal immortality," the law authorizing corporations seems necessary and proper. Note that he predicated the need of this form of organization "for the advantage of the public." In the early history, and indeed till recent years in this country, the idea and principle of advantage to the public were both the purposes of law authorizing corporations and their limitations. The decisions of many high courts go to confirm this view.

But in recent years legislative bodies have on one account and another extended the rule under which corporations have been organized, till the persons participating in their organization, and not "public benefit" are the only conceptions of their being. Maintaining this view, recently the well-known head of one of the great trusts said: "It is not material to the public how business

is transacted, whether by a corporation or by a trust, as the object is the personal interests alone of those who participate and invest for profit."

And so practically many states in their legislation seem to have drifted away from the purpose of the early law creating corporations, and herein lies the uprising against trusts which have taken advantage of this condition. No class of the people can say to any other class that "You did this." The stream never rises higher than its source. Year after year the people of all parties have been electing and re-electing to legislative bodies of the states those who, under misapprehension, or otherwise, enacted the laws perverting the true idea of public advantage in corporate bodies. The real remedy lies in a complete revision of these laws, and in a return to functions held to be for the "public advantage." It is not hard to discriminate or to determine what is included in such organizations. Great railway lines could not be constructed by single individuals for want of necessary capital, but in the development and growth of the country natural waterways and canals became totally inadequate in transportation, and it was and is greatly to the public benefit that railways be constructed, and associated capital and privileges of bonding and stocking became imperative under the conception of the corporation. And the same is true of other transportation, commercial, and the numerous manufacturing enterprises requiring great capital to meet the requirements and demands of the public. None of these obstruct free competition, for both in the matter of great transportation lines and manufacturing, the country has witnessed how public demand has called one after another into being, and competition has been left free along these lines of enterprise.

But state legislation in behalf of corporations in the past thirty years, in some of the states, losing sight utterly of the principle of public benefit, and looking only to private or personal advantage, have paved the way to combinations and trusts having in view the restraint of trade and destruction of competition, and it is this that has now precipitated the movement toward a remedy.

The old form of trust, in which one corporation held stock in another, was stamped out some years ago by the courts, but a new form of combination has appeared lately in which a corporation. under a new name absorbs industrial organizations in given lines by purchase, and issues of stock, evidently having for its object such abridgement of the law of competition and limitations on production as threaten public interests. It is this new order of

combination to which state legislatures must address themselves in the way of such revision of corporation legislation as will meet and defeat personal ends having no conception of public good.

It is held by some that the economic policy of this country promotes the organization of trusts. This is best answered by the facts, that Great Britain maintains a totally different policy, and yet that country is where trusts originated and where they yet abound. Great Britain has corporate and trust combinations capitalized up into the billions of dollars. There, as here, the fundamental provisions of law, originally intended to extend corporate privileges only in consideration of public benefit, have been perverted to recognize personal and private advantage largely. And so, eager always to avail themselves of such personal advantages, this condition has been seized upon by many, and thus far acquiesced in by all classes and parties, and only in the past few years have the people begun to realize that there was a wrong somewhere underlying the possibilities for such a condition. The note of warning sounded by the Sherman act passed by Congress in 1890 touching this question in its interstate relations should be made available in state revision of corporation law, and legislation that would stamp out trusts under state jurisdiction and authority.

It is readily seen that by such revision of the laws respecting corporations as would embrace the conception of advantages to the public, would of itself make impossible the organization of corporate trusts having the tendency toward restraint of trade, which is contrary to the interests of the public. At least such combinations would have no lawful status. The possibility of such combinations operating under the laws of states not so revising their codes, might readily be met and prevented by like proper requirements. There could be no breach of the amity between states under the recognition of such just provisions as put both home and foreign corporations on the same footing. It may readily be supposed that the action of a few state legislative bodies in this direction would soon influence all the others to a return to the original conception of corporate authority and privileges.

It has been said that revolutions never go backward. That is true of revolutions in the right direction, and when they tend toward higher and better conditions, but not applicable in fact or observation to industrial, commercial and social conditions of a state or nation possessing the power of imparting higher and better aspirations to all whom they touch. The fears and impressions of fatalism for the most part have their origin simply in misapprehension of the facts and want of ability to discriminate.

Take an illustration at point in the matter of commercial organization: When the numerous lines of railway from the central west to the seaboard began to consolidate, many believed that it was the beginning of capitalization of such power as would eventually bring ruin to great interests and great industries. That such consolidations have resulted in shortening transit threequarters in time, and very greatly reducing expenses of travel and freights, these fears are now seen to have been without foundation. If it was then believed that such powerful capitalization would eventuate in combinations that would overthrow the law of competition and result in restraint of trade, the Supreme Court decisions of 1897, under the law of 1890, already referred to, show how strong the country is at the first appearance of possible danger. If the revolution in railway consolidations set its face for strides beyond the limit of public good, we had in the court decisions of 1897 a very marked illustration of the fact that such revolutions do go backward, and of the power of the nation to put limitations on corporate greed.

The philosophy of Mr. Jefferson, that the possibility of error might be tolerated where truth was left free to combat it, is applicable in business and commercial affairs under free competition and natural laws of trade. The law of the nation and the courts have shown how they stand for truth, so far as interstate commerce is concerned. The states may exemplify the power of truth over error in state relations in the same way.

J. G. SCHONFARBER.

Executive Committee Order Knights of Labor.

Thirty years ago the great organization known as the Knights of Labor issued its first public declaration of principle and intents, and the writers of that declaration must have been profoundly prophetic in the scope of their thought. The first paragraph in that declaration predicted exactly the conditions which have made it necessary as a patriotic duty for the Civic Federation of Chicago to call together these men present to confer as to the public welfare. The Knights of Labor is not a combination of private individuals bound together for the purpose of furthering their personal individual interests, regardless of any other individuals, or the common welfare of society. It is a popular combination, formed for the purpose of maintaining and defending the best interests of society as a whole, and guarding and advancing the general welfare. It has chosen as its slogan

in this great social contest, "the greatest good to the greatest number," as follows:

"The alarming development and aggressiveness of the power of money and corporations under the present industrial and political systems will inevitably lead to the hopeless degradation of the people. It is imperative, if we desire to enjoy the full blessings of life, that a check be placed upon unjust accumulation and the power for evil of aggregated wealth. The much desired object can only be accomplished by the united efforts of those who obey the divine injunction, In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread,' therefore, we have formed the order of Knights of Labor for the purpose of organizing, educating, and directing the power of the industrial masses."

Calling upon all who believe in securing the greatest good to the greatest number to aid and assist us, we declare that our aims are:

1. To make industrial and moral worth, not wealth, the true standard of individual and national greatness. 2. To secure to the workers the full enjoyment of the wealth they create; sufficient leisure in which to develop their intellectual, moral and social faculties; in a word, to enable them to share in the gains and honors of advancing civilization.

This is the general purpose of the organization, and the declaration goes on setting in detail twenty-four measures by which it is hoped the declared objects may be attained; all of these depend upon legislation directed by the popular voice, as our Constitution provides, and all are consistent and in harmony with the spirit of our free institutions and methods of our government.

It will thus be seen that the object of the Knights of Labor is moral as well as economic, fostering independence, pride of character, dignity and manhood, and endeavoring by precept and action to elevate mankind to that plane upon which it can share in the gains and honors of enlightened advancing civilization. Having thus called your attention to the character of at least one great reform labor organization and the basis of its work, I shall only briefly attempt to discuss its relation to trusts and combinations, our reasons for opposing the same, and a suggestion of remedy not so radical as to cause revolution.

We have long looked for and expected the conditions that now confront the people, but I trust we are not so blind as to confound all combinations of capital looking to economy of production and distribution with those especially detrimental to the interests of society. Trusts should be divided into two classes