THE MEANING OF CORPORATIONS AND TRUSTS. 297 



It has been remarked, with some show of facetiousness, that 

 from the trust that supplies the cradle wherein he is rocked in 

 infancy to the trust that furnishes the coffin wherein he is laid for 

 the tomb, man is housed, fed, clothed, transported, and entertained 

 by a trust of one description or another. And, notwithstanding 

 arraignment in public print and public speech, trusts thrive and 

 prosper. This alone might lead to the inference that they are 

 the product of natural forces. 



But trusts are not in possession of the entire industrial field. 

 Not in any one line of industry is the entire production effected 

 by the agency of any one combination. There are even corpora- 

 tions, firms, and individuals engaged in the production, refining, 

 and distribution of oil that owe no allegiance to the Standard Oil 

 Company. There are refiners independent of the sugar trust, and 

 iron manufacturers that are not in any pool. There are trusts in the 

 same line of industry working in direct competition with each other, 

 and also with firms and individuals engaged in like production. 

 For example, the New York Biscuit Company, the United States 

 Baking Company, and a similar company operating principally 

 west of the Mississippi River, are three different trusts engaged in 

 the manufacture of products of the bakery, operating principally 

 each in territory separate from the other ; but at points in the ter- 

 ritory of either it is in direct competition with the other, and each, 

 in its own territory, is in competition with firms and individuals 

 supplying bread, biscuits, crackers, and kindred articles of con- 

 sumption. There are towns and villages not reached by any of 

 these trusts that are supplied by local bakers, and there are thou- 

 sands of households throughout the land producing almost en- 

 tirely within their own kitchens all the products of grain con- 

 sumed by their members. A certain similarity to this condition 

 is presented in each other line of industry throughout the entire 

 field. Combination is most marked in industries requiring ex- 

 pensive plants and appliances and the services of a large number 

 of especially trained workers in preparing a product for which 

 there is great and constant demand, the railways and iron and 

 steel and the textile industries all affording conspicuous examples 

 of strong combination. In the more densely populated portions 

 of the country there is combination to a greater or less extent in 

 other industries that, in more recently settled portions of the 

 country, are administered by smaller organizations, the three 

 baking companies being notable examples. A variety of causes, 

 more or less general, more or less particular, have affected com- 

 bination in the different lines of industry at different places. The 

 general tendency, however, is toward the formation of separate 

 organizations for the manufacture of an increasing variety of 

 specialized products, and toward the combination of the com- 



