COMMERCIALISM 77 



created it has the rights conferred on it and in all legislation those 

 rights must not be forgotten. Unfortunately, most of the legislation 

 against combinations is the offspring of men unfamiliar with the inter- 

 lacing of business interests, so that while it may correct or destroy one 

 wrong it creates a dozen others. Too often the statutes make criminal 

 that which is ethically just. Such statutes, it is true, are the law of 

 the land and every good citizen should obey them as far as in him lies. 

 But the law requires him to obey the letter, not the spirit, for no 

 created being can fathom the depth of the spirit or divine what was 

 in the mind of those who conceived them. If the laws prove to be 

 ineffective, the fault is not in the citizen, but in the ignorance of the 

 lawmaker. Our country owes a debt of gratitude to those lawyers 

 who, ascertaining the exact letter, have guided our great corporations 

 through the labyrinth of statutes and enabled them to avoid pitfalls. 

 Had not a merciful providence provided those lawyers, the country 

 would have been the loser — and the statute-makers, most of all, should 

 be grateful, for the evils of their work have not recoiled upon their 

 heads. Controlled in most instances by men of great sagacity, com- 

 binations have lessened the cost and increased the output of manu- 

 factures while bettering the wage-earners' reward. 



Assertion that the existence of vast combinations of capital is the 

 surest foundation of national prosperity is, for many, evidence of 

 insanity or of dishonesty or of both. Yet no generalization could be 

 more nearly true. A single illustration suffices. 



When the business depression following 1873 ended abruptly in 

 1879, the iron and steel industry was wholly unprepared for the new 

 conditions. A great part of the furnaces were out of blast and the 

 metal required at once by railroads and other interests could not be 

 supplied. Great combinations were unknown, there were many con- 

 cerns — there was that unrestricted competition which some regard as 

 Utopian. All had suffered severely during the depression and the few 

 concerns still in operation set themselves at once to make good their 

 losses. A veritable scramble for profits ensued on the part of both 

 employers and employed. The price of pig iron increased so rapidly 

 as to pass the point where the moderate tariff became unimportant and 

 foreign makers unloaded their stocks of metal on us, glutting the mar- 

 ket and prostrating the pig-iron industry. Meanwhile the cost of 

 manufactured products had gone beyond what the " traffic could bear " 

 and prosperity came quickly to an end. 



The conditions of 1879 were repeated in 1899, but the outcome was 

 wholly different, for the iron and steel interests were concentrated and 

 the business was controlled by a few vast combinations. No one of 

 them could increase the price without consent of all, but any one could 

 hold the price down against opposition by all its rivals. The leading 



