200 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Of these three alternatives, the last is by all odds the most 

 likely to prevail. It is the best of all three, and the most 

 practical. The trust is a good thing for those in the ring; 

 the remedy for the incidental evils is not to smash the trust, 

 but to extend the circumference of the ring farther and far- 

 ther, until it takes in all the stockholders as well as the 

 favored few, all the producers whose labor creates the wealth, 

 all the customers whose money makes the business successful 

 and whose patronage it is desired to monopolize, the whole 

 community, to whose growth the unearned increment of land 

 values and franchises is due, of the State, the silent partner, 

 whose co-operation is the source of untold profits. 



It is very clear that the State must control the trust, or 

 else the trust will control the State. If the trust control the 

 State, we have plutocracy, the worst of all forms of govern- 

 ment. If the State cannot control the trust, then it will de- 

 stroy the trust and itself become the landlord and capitalist, 

 and we shall have socialism with all of its doubtful blessings 

 and assured evils. The American people are not j^et ready 

 for socialism. Surely they will have no plutocracy. Only 

 one thing, therefore, remains for the State, — it must con- 

 trol the trust. How shall it control the trust? If it be 

 necessary, it will not hesitate to follow the examples of Euro- 

 pean countries, and seize all natural monopolies and operate 

 them as it now does the post-office. But it is loth to do 

 this. It will not, unless the audacity and greed of such cor- 

 porations force it to take this alternative. 



Can the State control monopolistic corporations, and yet 

 leave them in the hands of stockholders, directors and 

 officers? This is the problem. If the stockholders, direc- 

 tors and officers can be made to see their own best interests, 

 and shall heartily co-operate with the State to this end, the 

 problem will be easily solved. 



President Hadley of Yale, than whom I know no better 

 authority in this sphere, says that it is the duty of the uni- 

 versities to train men to manage corporations. He surely is 

 right. To manage a great corporation so as to subserve the 

 best interests of all concerned is a task that demands an 

 honest, able, far-sighted and great-hearted man, — a kingly 

 man in the best sense of the word. With such men as rail- 



