COMPETITION AND THE TRUSTS. 629 



equal resources, might enter the lists against it ; and that, even if 

 adequate competition with it were to arise, the delay incident 

 thereto would be sufficient for intolerable oppression of the peoj)le. 

 The case is to be carried to the Court of Appeals, and its fate 

 there will be of national interest. In the courts of Ohio, Illinois, 

 Louisiana, and other States, it has been decided that all combina- 

 tions to suppress competition, raise prices, or restrain trade, are 

 illegal, and it has been proposed to attack the " trusts " along the 

 line indicated by these decisions. 



Should the illegality of " trusts" in general, as now constituted, 

 be maintained in courts of final appeal, the question emerges. How 

 can the benefits of business organization, which the " trust " in- 

 cludes and has introduced, be secured with at the same time 

 avoidance of abuse by a control practically amounting to mo- 

 nopoly ? It is highly probable that, if corporations are denied 

 the exercise of the economic and beneficial features of " trusts," 

 firms attracted by the resulting advantages will establish organi- 

 zations substantially similar. Indeed, individual accumulations of 

 wealth have long since passed the point where they confer power 

 to control single important industries of the United States. 

 Clearly, then, a question of no little difficulty is before the Ameri- 

 can people. Ordinary competitive business has in many depart- 

 ments become so complex, unwieldy, and wasteful, as imperatively 

 to demand some such simplification as " trust " organization 

 offers. If that organization be denied to groups of capitalists, 

 the powers sought by such organization will in all likelihood, 

 with some delay, be exercised by individuals who will have all 

 the temptation to abuse their strength into which corporations 

 have been led in the past. Law must in the nature of things lag 

 behind exigency, and in this new transition of business, from com- 

 petition to combination, it evidently has to confront a problem 

 of supreme importance. In the development of the Copper Trust 

 we have seen how an international combination may become a 

 conspiracy to rob the world : a singular piece of testimony to the 

 obliteration of national boundaries by modern methods of loco- 

 motion and communication ! 



For " trusts " limiting their operations to the United States a 

 line of treatment has been suggested which has doubtless had 

 its origin in legal consideration of the railroad question. Since 

 its settlement is stoutly maintained by expert authority to consist 

 in frank acceptance of the " pool " and its legalization, why not, 

 it is asked, also legalize the " trust," surrounding its control with 

 all the safeguards necessary and feasible ? The State already 

 exercises a degree of supervision over certain gi/asi-public busi- 

 nesses — banking, insurance, and railroading. Its supervision may 

 be justly extended to the " trusts," while at the same time the 



