208 ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



Just how trusts will affect the farmer, I say to you frankly, is 

 not entirely clear to me. No less eminent authority than Mr. Have- 

 meyer, in his testimony before the Industrial Commission, seems to 

 be of the opinion that it will cheapen the raw material. Now, while 

 I can understand that Mr. Havemeyer, one of the so-called sugar 

 kings, might be of opinion that sugar as a raw material would be 

 cheapened by the sugar trust — because it is a product directly af- 

 fected by that trust — I am at a loss to understand how anything 

 which you, as general farmers, might grow, could, except indirectly, 

 be affected by combinations of capital in no way dealing with your 

 products. 



I assume, now, that there can be no farmers' trust — no combina- 

 tion to restrict the production and control the prices of farm pro- 

 ducts. The interests are too numerous and diversified, the markets 

 too broad, the opportunity for easy competition too great. If, then, 

 the price of your products is not cheapened by the trusts, and your 

 production is not restricted, and your markets are not narrowed, 

 I cannot see how you can be harmed in these respects. 



On the other hand, if the outcome of the trusts is to cheapen the 

 things you buy — your oil, your sugar, the machinery with which you 

 till the soil, the clothes which you wear, the books which you read, 

 and the things with which you adorn and beautify your homes — in 

 these respects, at least, the trusts are a benefit to you. No matter 

 what may be your fears as to the result of this problem, I beg of 

 you to examine the matter carefully, and without apprehension. Do 

 noit permit your minds to become biased with the idea that the 

 trust is a great octopus, with its arms stretched out to throttle in- 

 dustry. 



Such a state of affairs could never exist in this country; and if, 

 in the development of industries, it should ever transpire that the 

 fears of the alarmist were realized and the trusts should really be- 

 come the blood-thirsty monsters which they are depicted, the free 

 people of this "government for the people and by the people" would 

 rise in its wrath and wipe them off the face of the earth. 



I have no more fear that this will ever happen than I have that the 

 alarmist will be able to turn backward the hands of time, and put 

 us once more in the age of the stage-coach, and the sailing vessel. 



Trusts are the natural result of industrial evolution, and, prop- 

 erly controlled, and fairly protected in their legal rights, along the 

 lines of our experience, prosperous as we have been, and prosperous 

 as we are, they will carry us forward to still greater prosperity. 



