10 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
merce, but in recent years it has reached a degree of fury of which onr 
ancestors had little conception. It is not many years ago that we began 
to hear of destructive competition, though precisely where the line be- 
tween the destructive and any other degree of competition is to be drawn 
it is impossible to say, for it has always crushed or oppressed the weak 
and has been the weapon of the strong. Still, in recent times, it has 
taken on a rigor and remorselessness far exceeding anything known be- 
fore, and its destructive effects upon capital and vested interests have in 
countless instances fairly won for it the name of destructive competition. 
It is a ceaseless war, as old as the human race, in which no truce or 
armistice is possible, and only the fittest can survive. 
Men of affairs have in all times largely snatched every opportunity 
to escape wholly or in part from the pressure of competition. Formerly 
it was possible to escape it, sometimes by grants of monopoly or of special 
privileges by the crown, but these grants became so odious that they 
were first greatly restricted and then denied altogether. In later 
days, when the pressure of competition greatly intensified, it was natural 
that those who were squeezed by it uncommonly hard, who were facing 
the alternative of destroying or being destroyed, should resort to un- 
usual means of rescue from a desperate situation. Modern ingenuity 
and enterprise has discovered a way in which it can be done, though only 
as yet in limited fields and to a partial extent. It consists in the union of 
the stronger interests into a compact which shall abolish competition 
among themselves, and unite their resources and strength in one cen- 
tralized mass against competition by outside parties. 
These organizations have received the popular name of “trusts’.” Be- 
yond the fact that they have been formed for the purpose of escaping in 
some measure from competition, it ‘would be impracticable to frame any 
definition of them which would include them all, or even any considerable 
part of them. The basis of organization differs widely, and no two are 
alike either in the form or extent of the consideration. In truth, there 
are frequently features of these modes of combinations which are not 
fully known to the public, and are matters of inference rather than posi- 
tive knowledge. But the proximate purpose of the combination is to 
avoid the full pressure of competition, and is sufficiently plain. The 
ultimate purpose, of course, is large profits for which the avoidance of 
competition is the means to an end. 
SCOPE AND NATURE OF TRUSTS. 
This purpose, however, is here attributed to those concentrations of cap- 
ital which are engaged in the production and distribution of commodities 
of widely extended demand throughout the country at large. There 
have been others which have received the name of trust whose objects 
