obtained by representatives of the Anti-Trust League applying to manufacturers and dealers for information, and making daily reports. Nearly 500 establishments were visited. The list is sworn to. (See appendix.)

As I have been limited to a twenty minutes' discussion, I cannot run over the list, but have had it printed in sufficient quantity to supply one copy for each of the gentlemen of this conference. Will call attention to a few items: Ordinary shovels doubled in wholesale price, and snow shovels advanced 145 per cent; iron, 85 to 130 per cent; coal, 50 cents a ton wholesale; gasoline, 4 cents a gallon; shoes for the workingmen, 15 to 50 cents per pair, etc.

I submit the following letter:

"Lansing, Mich., July 8, 1899. "P. E. Dowe, Esq., President Commercial Travelers' National League, New York.

"Dear Sir: In reply to yours of the 5th, will say, that a detailed report of the investigation of hotels will not be published for some time.

"The facts are, however, that over 90 per cent of 100 hotels interviewed claim a falling off of traveling men of 10 to 50 per cent during the past year, which in most instances they attribute to the effects of trusts and combinations.

"The reports otherwise show their business to be on the increase, and satisfactory, only complaining of the falling off of commercial men, which in most instances is made up by an increase of tourists and the traveling public. "Yours most respectfully,

"(Signed.)

J. L. Cox,

"Commissioner of Labor."

The amount of the common and preferred stocks, of all the listed trusts and inclusive of their bonded indebtedness, is the vast total of $8,000,000,000 in round figures. This statement is made upon most reliable authorities.

Upon information furnished by a well-known newspaper statistician, have stated upon previous occasions that the intrinsic valuation in the aggregate of all the trusts is about $2,000,000,000, a four-to-one ratio for stock-jobbing manipulation; but, now think that this is an overestimate.

Previous to 1895 nearly 600 trusts were projected, and to include a great variety of commodities; several of these trade combinations failed to materialize, some disintegrated; but the processes for the centralization of capital and power continued,

combination and recombination going on until in March last there were between 350 and 360 combines, yet their capitalization was billions more than the capitalization of the 600 trusts of 1894 and before. To-day my list shows 425 trusts.

The number of business concerns absorbed by the gradual and systematic efforts to obtain control of the markets and highways; 5,565, say 5,600 in round numbers; exclusive of the grape growers, lake vessels and dredges, milk dealers, and farmers' milk combines; also insurance, telephone and telegraph, railroads and street railways, electric light, gas, ice, water and steamship trusts.

I have no means at my command of ascertaining with certainty the amount of capital of each concern absorbed in the processes of combination and recombination. Dun's and Bradstreet's Commercial Agencies could secure this information by setting investigating forces at work. I will assume, for argument, that the capital will average for each concern not more than $200,000, or for 5,565 concerns, $1,113,000,000, about an eightto-one ratio of valuation for speculative purposes.

The letter from Mr. Cox suggested the idea of similar lines of investigation in other states, and I communicated with several hundred hotels scattered over the country. The replies demonstrated a falling off of commercial trade, of an average of 18 per cent; and this did not tally with my figures; showing either an underestimate of the number of traveling salesmen affected by the trusts, or the accepted figures as to the total number of commercial travelers to be an over-approximation; I requested the Anti-Trust League to seek information from every hotel in the United States, to which they agreed.

I have received the statement of the printer that communications were addressed to 5,000 hotels last week; more will go out this week.

What if the trusts win? "The whole machinery of independence, as we have known it heretofore in this country, is entirely gone, and man, whatever his prospects might have been, is absolutely at the mercy of the trust. It must feed him, clothe him, shelter him, and educate him, as will serve its interests." The foregoing is quoted from a letter of an attorney-general.

I will now read a letter from a United States senator, one of the brilliant men of the day, and noted the world over for his sterling honesty and utter fearlessness:

"My Dear Mr. Dowe: The cause at stake-the restriction of trust combinations-I have very much at heart. We ought to urge it calmly and reasonably.

"Extreme demands and vituperate advocacy are what the monopolists desire to have us resort to. There is no need of this. We may freely admit the benefits from large capital and extensive plants engaged in productive industries; and we do not object to them up to a reasonable point.

"But we are sure that beyond such a point, when combinations become so large that competition ceases, low prices to the consumer also end; economies are no longer practiced; it is easier to pay huge salaries and raise the prices of the product than it is to adopt economies and reduce prices; and so up go the prices, and the people suffer. Individual enterprise is destroyed; energy and ambition on the part of the 'firms of small means,' as Mr. Depew describes them, die out; the struggling young men of small capital become merely the low-salaried employees of millionaires; and the nation becomes divided into two classes only, the few very rich and the many very poor. It will be a great misfortune to our free America if our present high rising prosperity is to be signalized by the inauguration of a system of great trusts in all production and the helpless subjugation of all the business men, the manufacturers and other producers, and the wage-earners, by the rich capitalists and speculators who organize and control the trusts.

"If the people are sufficiently determined, the march of trust organization can be arrested at a safe stage. By state and national legislation all evils can be prevented. I have not had time to examine the Texas anti-trust law as expounded in the North American Review by Governor Sayers, who is one of the ablest, most upright, and most courageous of our public men of to-day; but I am sure that suitable laws to be passed by the state legislatures and by Congress can be framed. Such laws are what we want, not mere resolutions of political conventions, to be abandoned and the cause destroyed by unfaithful legislators. Elect true men, and the work is done. Unfortunately, the selection and election of such men are difficult labors. The worst feature of the trust organizations is their interference with political government. Their managers care not for the declaratory resolutions if they can select the candidates for office. So they appear everywhere in politics. No young man can rise in his political party, become a local party leader, or aspire to public office until he has given the trusts to understand that he will not seriously exert himself to harm them.

"The resolutions of political conventions, therefore, should not be the whole subject of your efforts to limit trusts. The reso

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 necessities--of 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