gress of the United States, clearly defining what practices on the part of any corporation would be injurious to public policy, and cripple or injure individual enterprise, thrift, and the acquirement and use of the property of any citizen of the republic; and to supplement this law by equally well-considered anti-trust laws by each of the several state legislatures to reach and apply to such phases of the matter as could not be reached by the act of Congress of the United States. These laws should have such provisions for their enforcement and provide penalties for violations by fines or imprisonment or both as will insure the compliance and observance of the laws by all corporations and combinations. To make these laws effective, it is absolutely necessary to know what these trusts and combinations are doing; and as these trusts have assumed so far as appearances go, to be honest, legitimate corporations, it is difficult to ascertain which ones are operating in a way detrimental to public policy. It would therefore seem that these laws should provide for government and state inspection of their business, of their books, agreements, receipts and expenditures, and that the state may have full knowledge, the right to examine all vouchers and records of the meetings of directors and managers; in short, full and complete knowledge of all the business of affairs of the corporation. The individuals in seeking a corporation franchise have asked the state to help them to a privilege or advantage they did not possess as individuals, or they would not seek to be incorporated as a corporation; and on account of that advantage granted and to protect the public, this inspection should be rigid and full. The people must know what the specific acts are that are against public policy before the laws can be enforced as against them, and the rights of the public protected. Corporations may object to this inspection on the ground that it would expose what they claim as their private business. In answer to this it might be said that the rights of the citizens of the state who grant the articles of incorporation or allow them to do business in the state, special privileges, have a right to know that the privilege has not been used against public policy; besides, there is no law now, never has been, never can be any law compelling any one to form a corporation and invest his money in any corporation enterprise. Those who invest in corporation stock, do so voluntarily.

If the corporations are conducting legitimate business, no injury will be done them by inspection. If they are using the powers granted to them by the state, to crush out other enterprises and deprive other citizens of the use and value of their property in order to avoid competition; if they are using their

power and influence in restraint of trade; if they are using large sums of money to illegitimately control political parties or to control legislation, as was testified before the Congressional investigation that the "Sugar trust made it a rule to make political contributions to the Republican party in Republican states and to the Democratic party in Democratic states." Mr. Havemeyer testified that, "We get a good deal of protection for our contributions," and when asked if his company had not endeavored to control legislation of Congress with a view of making money out of such legislation, he answered: "Undoubtedy. That is what I have been down here for," and many other cases might be cited. If they have agreements with railroad companies for rebates of freights, as has been shown to be the case in the Standard Oil trust and many others, these practices are most reprehensible and should be punished by such penalties as will effectually stop them. The agreements and conspiracies to depress the prices of raw material and staple products are equally against public policy.

In speaking for the agricultural interests of our country, that great basic industry that produces 70 per cent of the wealth of the country, and furnishes 60 per cent of the freight on all railroads, lake, river, and coastwise trade, and 69 per cent of all exports, and that make it possible for the other industrial interests of our country to prosper, I desire to say, these practices and conditions most seriously and injuriously affect it, and they demand of the legislatures of the several states and of the national Congress, well considered and effective legislation that will prevent the injurious practices of trusts and combinations.

I believe it to be the settled purpose of a majority of the people, to hold our representatives in Congress and in the several legislatures personally responsible for the enactment of such laws as will restrain and prevent the continuance of acts of trusts. that are against public policy. I do not believe that the people hold any one party, as responsible for the present conditions, but I do believe that each individual member holding official position. will be, and is, held for his voice and vote and action in the enactment of demanded remedial and protective legislation.

Our country is so vast, its interests so extended, and the constantly increasing wealth in its multiplied forms of the people need carefully considered laws governing the rights and uses of property, that corporations or individuals by agreements, may not be able to oppress or destroy any of the great industries of the nation. The demand of the times is for sound, sensible, good business men, with broad common sense, to frame the laws of our country, state and nation.

JOHN M. STAHL.

Secretary Farmers' National Congress.

Trusts are the latest device for doing things in a large way. They are the latest advance in a steady, persistent movement that has dominated the industrial development of the past one hundred years; that has gathered the isolated workers with tools, working alone, into shops; and then has brought a score of shops into a factory; and has then combined factories; that while thus developing the factory system until the result has been well termed an industrial revolution, has none the less worked a similar revolution in merchandising, in transportation, and in yet other lines of human activity, always resistlessly absorbing and combining to put more men and greater means under the control and direction of the masterful brain that has reached the place it occupies by a civil service indisputably based on merit, truly a "natural selection" in industry, always having for its object doing things in a larger way, because it is constantly proved that this is doing things in a more economical way (whether, all things considered, it is the best way, I cannot discuss here). Hence the trust is a logical phenomenon in this industrial development. Being such, it may be destroyed in form, but I do not believe that it can be destroyed in essence. It will doubtless be modified, in time it will be superceded, and certainly while it exists it may and ought to be directed, controlled, and made an instrument, not for private gain alone, but for the public good. I believe that it will be wiser for us, not to seek to destroy it, but to make it our servant. We have the machine; it is for us not to try to smash it, but to discover how best to use it.

I believe that anything that increases the productivity of mankind is a good thing and should work good; that if it does not work good, it is not the fault of that thing per se; that whatever increases the productivity of human labor gives man more to enjoy and more time for recreation; that it is a good, though to reach the ultimate benefit of the many, it may for a time hurt the few, as when a new labor-saving machine for a time throws men. out of employment, and therefore the trust ought to be a good thing. If so far it has wrought ten times as much harm as good to the people, as it seems to have done, that is not the fault of the trust, which certainly can exist without being a monopoly, but. because it has been misused. I doubt if any discussion of the effect of industrial combination on the individual, for example, will show otherwise.

But some men are greedy and hard, and have little regard for others. It has been found necessary to control many instruments of industry that man's brain has devised-machinery, factories, stores, banks, transportation facilities, corporations, insurancein fact, very few, if any, means of industrial or commercial activity are not more or less controlled by law. To control trusts by law will not introduce any new principle. The Emperor Zeno found it necessary to decree that all monopolies and combinations to keep up the price of merchandise, provisions, or workmanship, should be prohibited, upon pain of forfeiture of goods and perpetual banishment. Blackstone tells us that "combinations also among victuallers or artificers, to raise the price of provisions or any commodities, or the rate of labor, are in many cases severely punished by particular statutes; and in general by statutes II and III of Edward VI." While the principle was early established that government had the right to take cognizance of the instruments of industry, increasing experience and wisdom showed that efforts should be to direct rather than suppress, and probably it has no more perfect flower than the law that grew out of "the Granger cases" of a quarter of a century ago, which demonstrated that the strongest corporations are the servants of the state and subject to its control. The same application must be made to the trust, which seemed to be a plant, not to be rooted out or to be allowed to grow as a weed, but to be cultivated and cared for and trained, to increase the food and clothing of mankind.

Certainly we should lose no time in taking control of the trust, which up to this time has been a great curse to the American people.

Using terms in their popular meaning, the price of an article, which roughly indicates the difficulty of enjoying it by the people, may be lowered in two ways: By lessening the cost of production, or by lessening the profit of the manufacturer.

Competition keeps down the profit of the manufacturer; and by stimulating the discovery of methods and the invention of means that economize in production, lessens the cost of production.

The trust, which is opposed to competition, lessens the cost - of production apparently even more than competition does; but its avowed object has been to hold up the profit of the manufacturer. If, however, it brings the price down to the figure made by competition, it would appear to be the better, since generally it is better to lower the price by lessening the amount of energy required in production than by lessening the profit of the

manufacturer below a certain point. If less labor is required to make certain things, then men, working as before, will have more things to enjoy, or, having the same to enjoy, will have more time for culture and recreation; while if the manufacturer has a fair profit he can pay fair wages and will have increased capital to be taxed and to be used for the employment of labor.

But if this profit be excessive the result must be evil, for so much capital will accumulate in the hands of the few that it can, and probably will, be used to oppress the people, corrupt public officials, and destroy good government. Certainly when trusts, instead of lowering prices, advance them, those trusts yield excessive profits while directly hurting the people. Nearly all trusts have advanced the prices of the things the production of which they control. This makes it imperative and urgent that they be regulated by law.

The nature of much of this law to regulate trusts must be decided upon after the beginning has been made. Results will indicate further actions. I will, however, take the liberty of suggesting that when a trust is favored by artificial conditions created by law, as, for example, a protective tariff (and I am and always have been a protectionist), those conditions should be removed. The very existence of a trust controlling our market as to anything removes all grounds for a protective tariff on that article.

Many trust properties are capitalized at much more than their worth. This is unjust and dangerous. It is unjust because in order that a fair return may be made on all the capitalization of the trust, the people are made to pay too much for a trust article. It is dangerous because, first, selling large plants for twice what they are worth puts into the hands of a few a dangerous amount of capital; and, secondly, because the public is led to invest in .properties at an exaggerated value and collapse and panic and hardship will ensue. Hence a trust should not be allowed to put its bonds and stocks on the market until its properties have been carefully investigated by public officials, whose minute statement is open to the public, and it is found that every dollar of bonds and stocks offered to the public for investment is backed by a dollar of real value.

I will confess that I tried hard to reach conclusions not so. favorable to trusts per se, as those stated. But I am constrained to write the truth, as it is given to me to see it, knowing that anything in any wise favorable to trusts is very unpopular, especially among farmers. And trusts have been so outrageously diverted from their proper use and have been so used to rob the people,