INVESTIGATING THE TRUST PROBLEM. 



BY MAURICE H. ROBINSON. 



t Maurice H. Robinson, economist; born in New Hampshire in 1865; his special 

 branch of economics has been industrial conditions and he has been employed as an 

 expert in that connection, by the United States government. He is professor of 

 industry and transportation in the University of Illinois and is the author of History 

 of Taxation in New Hampshire and many magazine articles on ihe subjects in which 

 he is an authority.] 



During the last decade there has been much danger 

 that the trust problem would become a political issue; that 

 the parties would become either champions or defenders ; that 

 legislation relating to the trusts would be political rather than 

 economic ; that partisan prejudice rather than judgment would 

 be used in the solution of the problem that the growth of the 

 trusts has raised. It is not too much to say that the report of 

 the industrial commission has been the largest single influence 

 in snatching the trust problem from the political arena and 

 laying the basis for a permanent solution upon economic and 

 social grounds. This result was partly due to the importance 

 of the issue, partly to the organization of the industrial com- 

 mission itself. All interests have felt that a question of such 

 vital importance must be settled, not upon political, but upon 

 economic principles. The organization of the commission, 

 made up of representatives of both the great political parties, 

 together with representatives of the leading industries and 

 organizations of the country, made it almost impossible to use 

 the report of the commission for partisan purposes. Still, not- 

 withstanding these conditions, there may be discerned at in- 

 tervals a slight tendency to justify by the course of events the 

 policies of the respective political parties. This tendency, 

 most observable in the discussion of the effect of the protec- 

 tive tariff upon the formation and operation of the trusts, is, 

 however, so vague that it may be almost entirely disregarded 

 in judging the value of the work. 



The importance of the subject for which the commission 

 was created, to ''collate information and to consider and 



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