THE GREAT CONSOLIDATIONS CALLED 

 "TRUSTS." 



BY PETER S. GROSSCUP. 



[Peter S. Grosscup, judge United States Circuit court of appeals; born Ashland, O., 

 Feb. 15, 1852; graduated Wittenberg college, 1872, and Boston Law school, 1874; 

 city solicitor Ashland, O., 1876-82; practiced law in Chicago, 1882, until appointed 

 United States judge for the Northern district of Illinois, in 1892; appointed to the 

 Circuit court of appeals, 1899; president of the John Crerar library of Chicago.] 



It is the fashion, nowadays, to point to our place as a 

 people, industrially and politically, among the nations of the 

 earth; to take a just pride in the leadership acquired; and to 

 exploit the belief that it is not only secure now, but will remain 

 secure for a long time to come. We are told that our manu- 

 factures go to every land; that our harvesters are to be seen 

 in the grain fields of Asia Minor; our locomotives drawing 

 trains in Russia; our machinery bringing out gold from the 

 mines of South Africa; our bridges spanning the rivers at 

 Khartoum; and the sultan of Turkey preparing to defend his 

 sovereignty by battleships built in American shipyards. All 

 this, it is said, is still on the rising tide, so that when the flood 

 is reached, the United States will have become the richest and 

 most powerful people on the face of the earth. Her political 

 power and influence, we are told, have kept equal pace. She 

 is present, physically and politically, not only throughout 

 North America, but at the outposts of the western hemisphere 

 in the Caribbean sea and at the outposts of the far east in the 

 islands of the Pacific. Her views are consulted by the cabinets 

 of Europe and her armies aid in keeping the peace of the 

 world. 



Gratifying as this outward spectacle is, it should by that 

 very token lead us to inquire, how goes the life within? Dur- 

 ing these same years, one third or more of the industries of the 

 United States have passed from the ownership of individuals 

 or local corporations into the great bodies of property known 

 as the trusts. Should the process go on until all our industries 



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