CONTROL THE TRUSTS BY CONGRESS 205 



conditions of trade with new methods, nor upon ignorance of 

 the fact that combination of capital and effort to accomplish 

 great things is necessary when the world's progress is demand- 

 ing that great things be done. It is bottomed upon sincere 

 conviction that combination and concentration, while not to be 

 prohibited, is to be controlled, and in my judgment this con- 

 viction is right. 



These great combinations, now numbering thousands, 

 are the instrumentalities of modern commercial activity. 

 Their number and size alone appall no healthy American. 

 We are accustomed to large things and to do them in a large 

 way. We are accustomed to speak with a justifiable pride of 

 our great institutions and what we have fairly accomplished 

 through them. No right thinking man desires to impair the 

 efficiency of the great corporations as instrumentalities of 

 national commercial development. Because they are great 

 and prosperous is no sufficient reason for their destruction. 

 If that greatness and prosperity are not the result of the 

 defiance of the natural rights or recorded will of the people, 

 there is no just cause of complaint. 



That there are evils and abuses in trust promotions, pur- 

 poses, organizations, methods, management, and effects none 

 questions except those who have profited by those evils. That 

 all or any of these abuses are to be found in every large or- 

 ganization called a trust no one would assert who valued his 

 reputation for sane judgment. 



The conspicuous noxious features of trusts existent and 

 possible are these: Overcapitalization, lack of publicity of 

 operation, discrimination in prices to destroy competition, 

 insufficient personal responsibility of officers and directors for 

 corporate management, tendency to monopoly and lack of 

 appreciation in the management of their relations to the 

 people, for whose benefit they are permitted to exist. Over- 

 capitalization is the chief of these and the source from which 

 the minor ones flow. It is the possibility of overcapitaliza- 

 tion that furnishes the opportunities for most of the others. 

 Overcapitalization does not mean large capitalization or 

 capitalization adequate for the greatest undertakings. It is 

 the imposition upon an undertaking of a liability without a 



