306 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



studied and elaborate plans of organization that permit the great- 

 est freedom of operation, while reducing to a minimum the oppor- 

 tunity for legal attack. Such devices, to the extent that they ex- 

 ceed the bounds required for proper self -protection, can not long 

 stand before an increasing intelligence of their aims and methods. 

 That same intelligence, acting through the media of courts and 

 legislatures, must arrive at a more equitable solution of the prob- 

 lem of corporate rights and corporate aggression. 



In the effort to extend to the greatest degree the sale of its 

 products, a trust now and then has adopted other measures than 

 the endeavor to place upon the market products of a quality and 

 price that will insure the largest consumption. In certain locali- 

 ties it has, regardless of immediate loss, placed the selling prices 

 of its product at a point so low that a competitor can not meet 

 them without loss that, if continued, will drive him from the 

 field. But it has happened that the resources of a competitor, or 

 his facilities for production, have been such that he can success- 

 fully defy such an onslaught. In such a case a trust has some- 

 times adopted another method of attack by coercing merchants 

 into desisting from the sale of the competitor's products under 

 threat of using the influence of the trust to harass and embarrass 

 them. Such methods, although sometimes apparently successful, 

 often redound to the injury of the user, for one of the first steps 

 of the object of the persecution is to enlist sympathy by giving 

 publicity to his position. When, however, an industrial organi- 

 zation gives a merchant who agrees to sell its products to the 

 exclusion of similar products of other manufacturers lower prices 

 than if he also handled competitors' goods, it is simply acting 

 upon the established principle of selling greater quantities at 

 lower prices than lesser quantities. If these low prices yield a 

 profit to the producer, and the products can be sold by the 

 merchants at a lower price than similar products of competing 

 producers, the result is that consumers are benefited by the re- 

 duced prices, and the profits of the merchants and manufacturers 

 are increased by reason of the extended consumption. 



An organization controlling the shipment of large quantities 

 of material used in manufacture, or of a finished product, has 

 oftentimes been able to obtain lower rates of transportation than 

 its competitors because transportation companies have underbid 

 each other in the desire to obtain the extensive traffic, and the 

 advantage gained by means of the low rates has contributed to 

 the exclusion of competition. Many of the States have estab- 

 lished commissions to look into the administration of transporta- 

 tion companies, and the Interstate Commerce Act was the begin- 

 ning of national action in the same field. And the State and 

 national commissions are throwing light on the problems of trans- 



