The President

and the Trusts

CURRENT COMMENT

"Some governmental sovereign must be given full power over these artificial, and very powerful corporate beings. In my judgment, this sovereign must be the national government. The first exercise of that power should be the securing of publicity among all great corporations doing an interstate business. The publicity, though non-inquisitorial, should be real and thorough as to all important facts with which the public are concerned. . When publicity

was attained, it would then be possible to see what further should be done in the way of regulation."-President Roosevelt, at Providence, R. I., Aug. 23.

"I firmly believe that in the end power must be given, probably through a constitutional amendment, to the national government to exercise in full supervision and regulation to those great enterprises. .

"Some of my ultra-conservative friends have professed to be greatly shocked at my advocating govermental control of corporations. I would explain to these gentlemen once for all that they err whenever they think that I advocate on the stump anything I will not try to put into effect after election."-President Roosevelt, at Wheeling, W. Va., Sept. 6.

"Reasonable publicity in the affairs of large corporations will check stock watering and protect the community from many of the evils of combinations. National legislation may very properly prevent the fictitious capitalization of corporations. Where an actual national monopoly is estab lished, national supervision is called for. . . All legislation looking toward the extension of government ownership must be resisted. Government supervision is safer and more efficient than governmental ownership and management. These measures are practicable, they are sufficient, and they are safe. For their attainment public sentiment should be united and persistent."-New York Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin.

"If the situation demands a revision of the constitution in certain essentials, then the day of relief will be indefinitely postponed, for while the democrats lustily shout that they are opposed to trusts, they will do all in their power to prevent any interference with the right of the states to perpetuate them."- San Francisco Chronicle.

"By means of that constitutional power there can be enacted, through all time to come, any legislation affecting the business of the country which may commend itself to the successive congresses, republican, democratic, or socialistic in majority, as the case may be.. . . In the power of definition of 'trusts, monopolies and combinations' is inseparably involved not only the power to regulate and control, but also to prohibit and dissolve any form of business enterprise, any business partnership whatsoever, which the congress may choose to regard as a trust, monopoly, or combination; in short, the absolute power of life or death over all the industries of all the states."-New York Sun.

"Mr. Roosevelt has only one object in life at the present time and that is to be renominated and reëlected president. He knows very well that no man can secure the republican nomination over the opposition of the trusts, and what he says about curbing their power is intended for campaign purposes only. The trusts understand this perfectly." Indianapolis Sentinel.

[What England evidently hopes.] "May it not, therefore, happen that the result of the movement which Mr. Roosevelt has inaugurated will be to convince him and his fellow-countrymen that in the reduction of the tariff rather than in special legislation lies the best remedy for most of the abuses which they feel or apprehend?"-The Economist, London, Eng.

"If general concerted action is desirable, and this action cannot be taken by the federal government, . . . one method readily suggests itself, that of a conference of the representatives of the various states. . . for the pur

pose of agreeing upon certain broad general principles for the regulation of corporations.

"It would not be necessary in a movement of this kind to have unanimous consent. Suppose that twelve or fifteen of the leading states of the union were to agree upon a common basis of corporation laws-that is, what it was permissible for a corporation to do and what was not permissible-and in what way state action should be employed. If the governments of these various states were to adopt concurrent statutes of this kind, and were to make it a provision that all companies which did not carry on their affairs in harmony with these should, after a specified time, be prohibited from doing business in the states in question, we have not the least doubt that the great corporations would bring their affairs into conformity with these requirements, and that the other states of the union would find it necessary to frame their corporate laws in substantial conformity with those which their larger or more important sisters had adopted." -Boston Herald.

The Coal Strike at White Heat

"It is notorious that the real object is to secure the recognition of his [Mr. Mitchell's] national organization as an authority entitled to decide upon the rates of wages and the conditions of labor in the coal fields wherever situated. If this demand be conceded, it will not be possible for any man not holding a union card to secure employment in the coal fields.

"This will amount to a denial of the right of every man to sell his labor in a free market. The concession of this demand will make Mr. Mitchell the dictator of the coal business and put him in control of votes enough to decide the next presidential election."-From Abram S. Hewitt's public

statement.

"In the days of the individual employer, when one man's dislike was not sufficient to blacklist and bar out from work the mechanic who had incurred his displeasure, the doctrine advocated by Mr. Hewitt had some ground to stand upon, but it is obsolete in our time when the hostility of a single

concern under the domination of the confederated trust is sufficient to make the worthiest mechanic in the land a veritable Ishmaelite and deny him the opportunity to earn his daily bread in a land of plenty and prosperity.”—Scranton

Truth.

"The coal operators cannot mine coal because the miners make demands which render it impossible to mine coal profitably, and . . . the state has enacted laws prohibiting the employment of men in the mines unless they have worked two years in the anthracite mines, and, therefore, they cannot for the time being mine coal. How, then, under these circumstances, can there be any violation of public duty? If we yield to the extravagant demands of the miners we will lose money. If we attempt to increase the price of coal we will destroy the industries depending upon anthracite fuel. If we increase the price on the domestic sizes we will be called robber barons, oppressors of the poor, monopolists and enemies of mankind. We are not fighting labor organizations. We are fight

ing the battle of freedom for the individual and his right to labor on his own terms." -From statement by President Baer of the Philadelphia & Reading R. R., in reply to Senators Quay and Penrose.

"High words these, but the way this battle of freedom is being fought is to crush the union so that the miners can make no organized opposition to lowering wages or to introducing the cheapest labor that can be brought from Europe. The aim of the operators is not to exalt labor, but to degrade it. The labor for which they are fighting is not American labor, but the pauper labor of Europe, and, if the law allowed them to do it, doubtless they would make the fight for Chinese labor. They want free trade in labor while they are opposed to free trade in coal. For the words 'his right to labor on his own terms,' in Mr. Baer's statement, should be substituted 'our right to compel him to labor on our terms.' That is the practical sense of it, which Mr. Mitchell sets forth clearly." -Boston Herald.

"Highly organized and centralized capital denies to

labor the right also to organize, that it may meet capital on something like an equality. That the right of labor to organize should be so denied is astonishing. And the practical effects of such denial have been most deplorable. . . . "The operators insist that they cannot trust the union at all. Why not try? The bituminous mine owners have tried, and have found that their trust in the honor of the miners was not in vain. They saw that trust justified when the union voted to keep its agreements and not strike in their mines. Why should not the anthracite operators give the miners the same trial?"-Chicago Inter-Ocean.

"If it [the strike] do not result in better relations between the capital and labor that anthracite coal mining represents, it will result in questioning the whole relation of the monopoly of necessities of life to society, and possibly be the beginning of reënforcement of a tendency to readjust those relations. Whatever may come to pass as to this, it is beyond question that there is born into our society a new belief as to the rightful relation of capital and labor; that there should be mutuality of duties and privileges." -Indianapolis News.

Infinite Wisdom "The rights and interest of the laboring man in Coal Mine will be protected and cared for-not by the Management labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country, and upon the successful management of which so much depends. Do not be discouraged. Pray earnestly that right may triumph, always remembering that the Lord God omnipotent still reigns, and that his reign is one of law and order, and not of violence and crime."-From letter of President Baer to W. F. Clark, of Wilkesbarre.

"Few have reached the point of considering the socalled 'coal barons' as shining examples of God's perfect work, in which His loving designs for the welfare of the whole human race were made manifest. It seems, how