202 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Oft. Doc. 



about it, from the best sources available, calmly and dispassion- 

 ately, before the argument becomes clouded by party bias, and 

 pressed upon unduly and perhaps unfairly by party zeal. 



I do not wish to be understood to say that partisan sources of 

 information are more reliable than party sources. I would not ask 

 you to turn to the President of the Standard Oil Company for an 

 unbiased and unprejudiced expression involving the merits and de- 

 merits of the trust. Nor, on the other hand, would I expect you to 

 rely upon the opinion of the Governor of Texas, or the Hon. Mr. 

 Peiffer, as to certain dangers which they claim are bound to attend 

 upon every aggregation of capital. But there is a tendency, not 

 easy to overcome, when the battle is on, and the issue has been 

 drawn, for Republicans to believe what they consider to be Repub- 

 lican doctrine, and for Democrats to believe what they consider to 

 be Democratic doctrine, and when that time arrives, the goats sep- 

 arate themselves from the sheep and the time for calm, dispassion- 

 ate argument is past. 



It is m} idea, therefore, that before that time is reached, it is 

 our plain duty, just so far as we may, to inquire into the matter, 

 and to reach a fair conclusion as to its merits, its dangers to us and 

 to our fellows, if such are likely to exist, and to devise the best 

 methods of checking, counter-acting and overcoming those dangers. 



A trust is defined to be an organization or association of industrial 

 corporations, a majority (at least) of the stock in each of which is 

 transferred to a central committee or board of trustees, who, while 

 issuing to the stockholders certificates showing their interests and 

 rights to dividends, exercise the voting power of the stock, in elect- 

 ing boards of directors for the various associated corporations, and 

 in other ways, and thus direct their policy for the common object of 

 lessening competition, regulating production and lowering its cost, 

 and increasing profits. 



The trust is a creature of the "end of the century," and its advo- 

 cates claim that it is a necessitv of the times. When trade was 

 small and the market restricted because of the absence or ineffi- 

 ciency of transportation, individual capital and individual effort 

 sufficed to meet the demands of trade. 



When the facilities for transportation came to be developed, and 

 the ability to produce was multiplied; when the stage coach gave 

 way to the locomotive, and the hand cleaner to the cotton gin; in 

 other words, when the market was broadened and the manufacturer 

 and producer had the goods and the product ready for the market, 

 individual capital and individual effort was driven to the wall by 

 competition against larger individual capital and greater individual 

 effort, and in its struggle together and combining capital and effort 

 in the common cause. 



