78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



concerns, mindful perhaps of 1879 and 1880, determined that prices 

 for manufactured products should not exceed a fixed scale, more being 

 ruinous — and they maintained that scale in spite of greatly increased 

 cost of pig metal. The result was almost uninterrupted prosperity 

 imtil 1907, when the whirlwind of senseless attacks on corporations, 

 as such, swept over the country. Even now the prostration is unlike 

 that following 1873 and 1893, The great organizations, during their 

 prosperity, laid aside a surplus for evil days. "When disaster came a 

 year ago, there was no wild rush to dispose of accumulated stocks; 

 there was no crash in prices; there was no wholesale reduction in 

 wages. While there has been want in the distributing centers, the 

 country at large has known no such wide-spread distress as that which 

 followed former business disasters. 



But the wisdom of our rulers has made consolidation or combina- 

 tion of competing interests unlawful. A New York judge recently 

 decided that consolidation, even though advantageous to the public, 

 is illegal in case it involve stoppage of competition. If two grocers 

 on opposite corners have waged war until both are threatened with 

 bankruptcy, their friends would advise them to reach an understand- 

 ing, might advise even union and the closing of one shop, that by 

 reducing expenses and selling at a fair profit they might gain an hon- 

 est living. Yet there is reason to believe that such a course might 

 be adjudged contrary to law, being a conspiracy to increase cost of 

 necessaries of life. Their customers would certainly express that 

 opinion. 



This is no exaggeration. Eesidents of New York City were well 

 satisfied some years ago to buy coal at $4.50 per ton, wholly indifferent 

 to the fact that the anthracite companies were engaged in reckless and 

 unjustifiable strife. When the contest had gone so far that bank- 

 ruptcy seemed inevitable for some of the companies, the officers awoke 

 to their responsibility to the helpless stockholders, whose interests they 

 were to guard. An agreement was made to mine no more coal than 

 the market demanded and to charge a price which would enable them 

 to pay fair wages, to meet their obligations and to earn interest on 

 their investments. At once the customers were filled with indigna- 

 tion, the papers denounced the oppressive " coal barons " and agitation 

 began which eventuated in legislation so drastic that, were it sustained 

 by the courts and fully enforced, the companies, deprived of rights 

 guaranteed them half a century ago, would be forced into bankruptcy 

 and millions of persons would be plunged into misery. There is a 

 strong popular feeling that live and let live is the only true policy; 

 but clearly the popular interpretation of this doctrine is wholly one- 

 Bided, the policy must favor the consumer alone — in forgetfulness of 



