No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 207 



but when once the system of large establishments is established, 

 the change from large to larger systems is an unqualified benetit." 



The trust properly organized — that is, not over-capitalized — and 

 prevented as it may be by wise legislation, from obtaining discrimi- 

 nations in its own favor, and against its competitors, with its books 

 open to the proper authorities at all reasonable times, is a wise and 

 potent conibinatiou to increase the development of the country, and 

 enlarge its material prosperity by widening and extending its mar- 

 kets, and whatever makes for the general welfare, is pretty apt to 

 make for your welfare and for mine. 



I have spoken to you, thus far, of trusts, as aggregations of cap- 

 ital, and that is not only in strict accord with the definition of the 

 lexicographer, but it is the popular and generally accepted idea. 



I may say to you in passing that trusts are not confined to cap- 

 italists, and that the great labor organizations of the country, like 

 the Amalgamated Association and the United Mine Workers, are 

 to all intents and purposes, upon the same lines, and calculated to 

 bring labor the same beneficial results, that the associations of cap- 

 ital are supposed to bring to the allied corporations. They, too, 

 have their evils and abuses, which it is not my purpose to bring to 

 your attention, and they, too, are quite as susceptible to defense, 

 and indeed to commendation, as the trusts of their employers, when 

 managed honestly and for the purposes for which they were created. 

 They recognize the principle that competition in labor is not life to 

 the laborer, and by restricting competition, within reasonable 

 bounds, and protecting the laborer agaiirst unwarranted or unjust 

 attacks on the part of the employer; controlling apprenticeships, and 

 regulating the hours of employment, etc., they have helped to make 

 him, what we are all proud of, the most efficient, and the besit paid 

 workman in all the world. 



I bring these things to your attention to show you that the value 

 of trusts is recognized not by capital alone, but by labor also, and 

 that they are quite as efficient, offensively and defensively, for the 

 workingman, as they are for the millionaire 



It may be true that the existence of the one requires the existence 

 of the other, but be that as it may, the fact remains that in the last 

 thirty years, during which both have sprung up, the average of wages 

 in this country has risen sixty per cent., and the cost of living has 

 steadily decreased. 



According to the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department, 

 the iron and steel trusts will send abroad in this year of our Lord 

 1899, more than a hundred millions of dollars' worth of iron and 

 steel — 120,000,000 more than they sent last year, and this in the 

 face of advanced wages to their workmen, and increased cost of ma- 

 terial. 



