Springfield weekly Republican. [volume], October 26, 1911, Page 2, Image 2

About Springfield weekly Republican. [volume] (Springfield, Mass.) 1851-1946

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THE CHICAGO CONFERENCE
The narrow scope of the resolutions
adopted by the progressive republicans at
Chicago, not to mention their strong in
dorsement of the presidential candidacy of
Senator La Follette, tend to <on firm the
opinion that the conference was organized
with one object in view—the advancement
of a personal ambition. Mr La Tollette
has captured the insurgent movement and
turned it into fuel for his presidential
motor.
One cannot help comparing this move
ment with that of the liberal republicans
in 1872. when surely the reasons for in-
Furgency against the dominant forces in
the republican party were fully as strong
as they are to-day. The liberal re
publicans of 1872 had more courage
than the progressive republicans of our
lime. They had no fear of taking an in
dependent position, if necessary, entirely
outside of the regular party organization.
And as the time approached for the Cin
cinnati convention, they had. to he sure,
several candidates for the presidency in
mind, of whom one seemed to tower above
the others, yet no one was able to say that
the liberal republican movement in large
degree reflected the presidential aspirations
of Charles Francis Adams.
In the winter and spring of 1872, Mr
Adams was widely talked of as the prob
able candidate of the Cincinnati conven
tion. but his personal attitude was shown
in his letter of April 18. to David A.
Wells:-
I do not want the nomination, and could
only be induced to consider it by the cir
cumstances under which it might possibly
be made. If the call upon me were an un
equivocal one. based upon confidence in
my character earned in public life, and
a belief that I would carry out in prac
tice the principles which I professed, then,
indeed, would come a test of my courage
in an emergency; but if I am to be nego
tiated for, and have assurances given that
I am honest, you will be so kind as to draw
me out of that crowd. ... 1 am so un
lucky ns to value that independence more
highly than the elevation which is brought
by a sacrifice of it. This is not incon
sistent with the sense of grateful recog
nition of the very flattering estimates made
of my services in many and high quarters,
but I cannot consent to peddle with them
for power.
Such was the attitude of the man who
was then regarded more than any other as
the coming leader of the republican insur
gents of that generatton: that tho nomina
tion. unfortunately, went finally to such an
impossible candidate as Horace Greeley
demonstrated how absolutely free the
movement was from the control of a per
sonal ambition.
The insurgents of '72 were at least full
of courage. In appealing to the people,
they did not forget the one issue which,
more than any other perhaps, had origi
nally stirred them to revolt. The spoils
system and administrative corruption after
the civil war had reached depths of degra
dation unparalleled in the United States
before or since. The period reeked with
scandal and fraud in government. And,
in their resolutions, the liberal republicans
met the issue squarely, sayings—
The civil service of the government
has become a mere instrument of partisan
tyranny and personal ambition, and an
object of selfish greed. It is a scandal
and a reproach upon free institutions and
breeds a demoralization dangerous to the
perpetuity of republican government. We.
therefore, regard such thorough reforms of
the civil service as one of the most
pressing necessities of the hour. . . .
Is it not amazing that, while the ques
. tins of tariff revision iu the interest of the
•’ultimate consumer." was the starting
point and the main inspiration of the
present insurgent republican movement,
. the Chicago resolutions adopted by the
progressive republican conference are ut
terly silent regarding it? And why, pray?
There is no discernible reason except that
Senator La Follette's candidacy requires
that the question at this time should be
ignored. The senator is for what? Free
trade? No. Tariff for revenue only?
No, Tariff for revenue with incidental
protection? No. A standpatter? No.
For Canadian reciprocity? No. All that
can be said is that Mr La Follette Is
somewhere between six of one and half a
dozen of the other. He is a protectionist
-never forget that—especially in favor of
protection for the farmer; he is also a re
visionist. ...but. without working, injury to
any American industry or to American la
bor. In short, it ia utterly impossible to
place him on this issue at the present
time, and for the simple reason that Pres
ident Taft’s final position, which is de
pendent upon the reports of the tariff
board, will not be known until next win
ter. Next winter we shall know what
Senator La Follette's tariff platform is to
be, for it will be exactly contrary to Mr
Taft's.
There are certain features of the pro
gressive resolutions adopted at Chicago
that call for sympathy and approval. “Spe
‘cial privilege" is deservedly assailed. And
we are inclined to agree with the state
ments that "The present condition of un
‘certainty in business is intolerable and
‘destructive of industrial prosperity,” that
"Industrial corporations should by affirm
‘alive legislative enactment be given defi
nite rules of conduct by which business
‘shall be made safe and stable while at
'the same time the interests of the pub
flic should be fully safeguarded,” and that
•'constructive legislation rather than de
structive litigation" should now he the
aim of our statesmen. Presidential pri
maries. also, are some time likely to come.
But there is no sign of high and noble
courage, untainted in the slightest degree
by personal ambition and the exigencies of
delegate hunting, in these Chicago res
olutions: and this is to be deplored. If
a revolt is to succeed. it must have a gen
uine moral basis rather than a personally
conducted candidacy at the bottom of it.
NOT ENTIRELY CLEAR.
Gov Baldwin, in his Bridgeport address,
declared that the antitrust law had had
result* which nobody anticipated. And
he illustrated hi* point by calling attention
to the case of the highly respectable Tor
rington manufacturer who might have been
sent to jail rather than fined, under the
criminal section of the act, ‘‘if the judge
'who sentenced him had not been satisfied
‘that he had acted according to the advice
‘of his lawyer.”
"A statute," continued the governor of
Connecticut, who is also n dintinguished
jurist, "ought to be so plain that a law
•yer, at least, can tell what it means."
Hut "the Sherman act is not of that kind.
‘I presume that it ha* already cost over
$2,000,090 to find out from the courts
•juat what It forbids. They have been
'alow iu telling us. but within the laat
'year they have told us that it does not
'forbid a reasonable restraint of trade.'
In the governor's opinion, this is delight
fully definite.
If $2,000,000 has been spent in finding
out from the courts just what the law
means and what it forbids, have we got
our money's worth in judicial interpreta
tion? The opinion is spreading that we
have not. Discussing the United States
supreme court decisions in the Standard
oil and American tobacco cases, in his
new book. “Corporations and the Slate."
Senator Burton of Ohio inquires if the
decisions "have cleared the atmosphere
'so that all organizations doing an inter
‘state business can know whether they are
‘legal orillegal." "It was confidently hoped."
he continues, that this would be the out
'come, but the general feeling- at present
‘is that the situation is still somewhat un
‘certain.” It is true that the court has
declared reasonable or normal restraints
of trade, as they were regarded by the
common law. not illegal: it is true that
combinations that use unfair, coercive or
oppressive methods to meet competition
are declared illegal. But, writes Mr Bur
ton:—
One question which the court has not
settled conclusively is whether a combina
tion of competing concerns brought about
not by coercion, but by mutual consent,
which does not attempt to stifle the com
petition of rival concerns, is contrary to
law. The decision still leaves some uncer
tainty ns to whether the holding company
form of organization, in and of itself,
would be considered illegal, a question
which would assume especial importance
if by this means a given industry were
monopolized.
Thus it appears, on good legal author
ity,—for both Gov Baldwin and Senator
Burton are eminent jurists and publicists—
that $2,000,000 worth of litigation has
failed to make the antitrust law entirely
clear, even to lawyers. We merely have
the satisfaction of knowing that it is some
what clearer than it used to be.
ATTACKS UPON THE JUDICIARY.
Criticism of the courts in recent years
has frequently gone to the length of charg
ing “usurpation” by the federal judiciary
in exercising the power to annul on con
stitutional grounds acts passed by Con
gress. Possibly, the volume of this criti
cism increases as time passes. Frequent
expressions of it may be noted among the
extremer exponents of radicalism in the
press. In his New York speech Friday
night Mr Roosevelt took care to take him
self out of that class of critics by saying
that “we have been wise in giving great
‘power to our judges, including this power
‘of judicial interpretation of statutes to
‘see whether they conform with the fun
‘damental law of the land.” But imme
diately he qualified the statement by say
ing that it was a power “with which the
‘people have merely temporarily parted
‘and not one which they have permanently
‘alienated." What Mr Roosevelt meant
by that is not very clear. If the power
to annul acts of Congress or Legislatures
is vested in the judiciary by the constitu
tion, then it is no “temporary" power, ex
cept in so far as the people may take it
away by changing the constitution.
Congressman Victor Berger, at the last
session of Congress, introduced an old-age
pension bill whose last section has aroused
some discussion. It read;—
That in accordance with section 2, ar
ticle 3. of the constitution, and the prece
dent established by the act of Congress
passed over the president’s veto. March 27,
1868, the exercise of jurisdiction by any
of the federal courts upon the validity of
this act is hereby expressly forbidden-
The socialist congressman has thus sought
to prevent by law a possible decision by
the federal judiciary declaring invalid his
old-age pension act, in ease it should reach
the statute book. The McArdle case,
which is the precedent be relies upon, has
misled him, however, and the others who
have fastened upon it. Congress, it is
true, during the period of reconstruction in
the South, passed over President Johnson's
veto, a bill which prohibited the right
of appeal to the United States supreme
court from decisions of the inferior federal
courts under the law in question. The
basis for such an act was section 2, article
3, of the federal constitution, reading as
follows:—
In all cages affecting embassadors, other
public ministers and consuls, and those in
which i state st, II bo a party, the supreme
court shall have original jurisdiction. In
all other cases before mentioned, the su
preme court shall have appellate jurisdic
tion. both as to law and fact, with such
exceptions and under such regulations as
the Congress shall make.
In sustaining the right of Congress to
pass the art in question, and which Mc-
Ardle disputed because it prevented him
from appealing from an inferior court to
the highest court in the land, the supreme
court unanimously declared: “It is quite
•clear that this court cannot proceed to
‘pronounce judgment in this case, for it
•has no longer jurisdiction of the appeal,
'and judicial duty is not le* s fully per
■formed by declining ungranted jurisdiction
‘than by firmly exercising that which the
‘constitution and law confer.”
Congress could not abolish the right of
the lower federal courts to annul acts of
legislation on constitutional grounds with
out abolishing the lower courts themselves.
This it eould do. perhaps, leaving the su
preme court as the sole survivor of the
federal judiciary and still vested hy the
constitution with original jurisdiction in
the special cases mentioned in section 2,
article 3. But in abolishing the inferior
federal courts Congress would plunge the
country into anarchy; for there would
then be no way to enforce federal laws
by judicial methods. Indeed, the consti
tutional right of Congress to abolish the
interior federal courts, without immedi
ately creating other courts in place of
them, must be strongly questioned, ip view
of the fact that the constitution contem
plates the existence of inferior courts as
an integral part of the federal judiciary.
But while the judiciary could not be suc
cessfully undermined along the Une taken
by the Berger old-age pension bill, it is
now and then urged that the power to de
clare void an act of Congress waa origi
nally "usurped.” and much emphasis la
placed by the extretner critics of the courts
upon the undoubted fact that the constitu
tional convention of 1787 refused to insert
in the constitution a provision specifically
granting to federal courts the power re
ferred to. Persons who follow this line of
attack, however, never undertake to refute
Chief Justice Marshsll’s reasoning in the
epochal cases upon which he founded the
implied power of the court* to apply to
law* the constitutional test. That reason
ing has stood impregnable tp assault for
several generations for the simple reason
that it could not be overthrown. The poo-
THE SPRINGFIELD WEEKLY REPUBLICAN: THURSDAY. OCTOBER 26. 1911.
pie. too. accepted it. realizing that it laid
the foundation for a permanent nation.
The constitution itself provides that
the constitution, and the federal laws
"made in pursuance thereof." shall be the
"supreme law;" and no one has yet been
able to show how judges, who take an
oath to respect tho constitution, can en
force ant statute that violates tho “su
‘preme law.” They are forced, in doubt
ful eases, to choose between the statute
and the constitution.
A country with a written constitution
like the United States must vest the power
to interpret the constitution somewhere,
if the constitution is to survive. There
would have been inevitable disaster to our
framework of republican government if,
with three coequal departments, the execu
tive. legislative and judicial, the power of
constitutional interpretation had not been
assumed by one of those departments. For,
with all three assuming that power, the
resultant conflicts would have strained
the republic to the point of complete dis
integration. But if the power was to be
exercised by one of the departments of
government, the judiciary was certainly
the best fitted to bear the burden of it
and carry it. for the welfare of the people,
as a sacred trust.
We had one terrible civil war over an
issue of constitutional construction: we
might easily have had others, with more
still to come, if the United States supreme
court’s power to pass upon legislation,
from the constitutional point of view, had
not been generally recognized and respect
ed by the several states and the great ma
jority of the American people. If we are
a great nation to-day. much of the credit
for that achievement cannot be denied to
the federal judiciary. The constitution
could, to our advantage, no doubt, be
changed in several ways; and judges, of
course, are merely human. Yet so long as
our present form of government endures;
so long as we have a written constitution,
and co-ordinate and coequal departments
of administration, we must have courts
with power enough to make in reality the
constitution “the supreme law of the
'hind.”
MR TAFT’S TRUST POLICY.
George W. Perkins, in his recent De
troit address, quoted from the party plat
forms in IDOB and from Gov Hughes's
Youugstown speech to show that the pres
ent administration had abandoned the
trust policy which the country had in
dorsed at the polls and had set out to
execute the Bryan policy which the coun
try by an overwhelming majority had re
jected. This indictment is not strictly
true. Just what has happened, however,
needs to be understood, if possible; and
one must go back to Mr Taft’s speech of
acceptance as well as to Gov Hughes’s
Youngstown attack on the Bryan program
in order to obtain a desirable perspective.
And, at the same time, Mr Taft’s speech
of acceptance should be read in the light
of the trust plank of the national repub
lican platform. ‘
It is. of course, undisputed that the plat
form policy of the republican party has not
yet been carried into effect. The trust
plank of 1908 declared: —
It (the antitrust act) has been a whole
some instrument tor good. . . . Bilt ex
perience has shown that ita effectiveness
can be strengthened and its real objects
better attained by such amendments as
will give to the federal government greater
supervision and control over, and secure
greater publicity in the management of
that class of interstate corporations en
gaged in interstate commerce having pow
er and opportunity to effect monopolies,
and at the same time will not interfere
with the operation of such associations
among business men. farmers and wnge
earners as result in a positive benefit to
th® public.
The antitrust law has not been amended
(by Congress); and the president’s attitude
has evidently changed considerably since
the campaign for his election. His alti
tude for some two years has been that to
the courts alone should be left the entire
trust question. Before the supreme court
decisions in the oil and tobacco cases, he
said that legislation would be ill-advised
until the judges had spoken; since those
decisions, he has been content, apparently,
with the situation as they left it. The
burden of his utterances on the trust ques
tion during his present western tour has
been simply his executive obligation and
inflexible purpose to enforce the law, aS
now interpreted—“whether we be damned
'or not." as he said last week at New
castle, Wy. Not a word has come from
him concerning amendments to the law.
The president has no more adopted Mr
Bryan's IDOS program than the supreme
court has: and Mr Bryan’s criticism of the
recent oil and tobacco decisions has been
ns violent as Mr Taft's praise has been
unqualified. But, at the same time, Mr
Taft's tone and temper have changed. It
seems easy to prove that fact by quota
tions from Mr Taft’s speech of acceptance
at Cincinnati July 28, 1908. Having se
verely attacked Mr Bryan's federal licens
ing program of forbidding a corporation to
control "more than 50 per cent of the total
‘amount of any product consumed in the
‘United States,” as "impracticable,” “ab
•surd" and "socialistic”: and having con
demned the Bryan trust program as "de
•structive,” compared with the “progress
■ive and regulative - ’ policy of President
Roosevelt—Mr Taft made the following
observations, clearly designed to reassure
“big business” and to show that he fa
vored regulation rather than extermina
tion;—
Ilie combination of capital in large
plants to manufacture goods with the
greatest economy is just as necessary as
the assembling of the parts of a machine
to tho economical and more rapid manu
facture of what in old times was nude
by hand. The government should not in
terfere with one any more than the other,
when such aggregation* of capital are
legitimate and are properly controled, for
they are then the natural result* of mod
ern enterprise and are beneficial to the
public. In the proper operation of compe
tition the public will soon share with tho
manufacturer the advantage in economy
of oiwration and lower prices.
The oppressive combination, the undue re
straint of trade, the unlawful monopoly—
these, of course, were condemned by Can
didate Tnft, yet he did not fail to take ad
vantage of the occasion to say also:—
It is perfectly conceivable that in the
interest of economy of production a great
number of plants may be legitimately as
sembled under the ownership of one cor
poration. It is important, therefore, thn)
such large aggregations of capital and
combination should be controled so Jhat
the public may have the aAvahtage o .
amiable prices, and that the avenues of
enterprise may be kept open to the indi
vidual and the smaller corporation wisb
l ing to engage in business. . . .
Competition in a profitable business will
not be effected by the mere aggregation
of many existing plants under one com
pany. unless the company thereby effects
' economy, the beaeot of which it
shares with the public, or takes some ille
gal method to avoid competition and to
perpetuate a hold on the business.
Candidate Taft’s closing utterance on
the trust question now commands our at
tention. It seemed to forecast his own
policy as president:
Unlawful trusts should be restrained
with all the efficiency of injunctive process;
and the persons engaged in maintaining
them sh<mld be punished with all the se
verity of criminal prosecution, in order
that the methods pursued in the operation
of their business shall be brought within
the law. To destroy them and to elim
inate the wealth they represent from the
producing capital of the country would en
tail enormous loss, and would throw out
of employment myriads of workingmen
and working women. Such a result is
wholly unnecessary to the accomplishment
of the needed reform, and will inflict upon
the innocent far greater punishment than
upon the guilty
The contrast in tone and temper, and even
in policy, between the speech of accept
ance and the recent addresses of the
president is thus seen to he very marked,
lie is now for the prosecution of the
unlawful trusts in order to break them
up; while, in the summer of 1908, he
favored their restraint by judicial process
from pursuing monopolistic or unfair bus
iness methods and the criminal prosecu
tion of the trust, managers responsible for
such unlawful practices.
In so far as Mr Taft's trust program
as outlined iu his Cincinnati speech varied
from the policy embodied in the repub
lican platform, it has not been carried into
effect any more than the republican party's
program has. In the matter of criminal
prosecutions, the Cincinnati speech came
Into harmony with Mr Bryan; yet nhder
this administration no trust magnate has
been sent to jail for violating the Sherman
act and no effort has been made to indict
criminally the defendants in the oil and
tobacco trust cases. And it is a singular
fact that, while Mr Taft favored criminal
prosecutions in 1908. the recent supreme
court's decision in effect reading “undue”
or “unreasonable" into the antitrust law
has gone far to emasculate the criminal
section of that act. For a criminal statute
above all things must be clear. There is
no such absurd thing as “undue” larceny
or "reasonable" arson: and citizens have
a right to demand that criminal prohibi
tions should leave them in no doubt as
to the straight and narrow way of strict
conformity to law.
In his Cincinnati speech, furthermore,
Mr Taft condemned the Bryan 50 per
cent restriction of product scheme as a
working definition of monopoly. Congress
should lay down no such rule, he declared,
although he was not then opposed to any
congressional legislation whatever on the
trust question. Yet in now leaving the
entire trust question to the courts, as
sisted of course by the executive as prose
cutor, the president puts up to the judges
the question what percentage of control
over product in an industry constitutes
monopolization. This is seen in the pres
ent efforts to disintegrate the tobacco
trust. At this point, the president is not
necessarily inconsistent with his criticism
of the BryaH percentage scheme, since
he may argue' that elasticity is desirable
in defining hit>hbpoiy< and that this elas
ticity cannot Be provided for in a legisla
tive act so well as by judicial determina
tion in Special' caseS' as they arise. Yet
in thus preferring, evidently, ‘ judicial to
legislative handling of the question, Mr
Taft tends to increase the power and func
tions of the courts at the expense of Con
gress. Here, again, he comes into conflict
with the La Follette wing of his own
party, whose recent declaration at Chicago
denounced thei proposition "to leave the
‘question whether great business enter
‘prises are legal or not merely to judicial
‘determination.” “We seek constructive
‘legislation, not destructive litigation.”
Analysis shows, on the whole, a state of
considerable confusion, comparing the
present situation with that prevailing in,
the campaign of IDOS. The president's
position just now would he stronger if, in
fact, the recent oil and tobacco decisions
by the supreme court had thoroughly
‘‘cleared the air.” But they have not.
There remains some uncertainty as to the
meaning of the law. Our own impression is
that before one can reach a final conclu
sion as to the changes in the president's
attitude his next message to Congress
should be awaited. In that he may recom
mend legislation in line with his party's
platform, and calculated to remedy what
many consider imperfections in his present
policy and in the law, as construed by the
highest court.
“VOTES FOR WOMEN” QUESTION.
To the Editor of The, Republican:—
Tho inclosed Republican squib, clipped
from the Philadelphia Record, leads me to
suggest that the reason for the phenome
non noted is quite apparent in the fact
that the geographical areas mentioned are
sparsely settled and that women are nu
merically few compared with men.
These regions are the frontiers of the
Anglo-Saxon race, primarily settled hy vig
orous young men, adventuring new cli
mates, soil*, conditions. Having conclud
ed to accept life in these newly-established
societies, they long for the companionship
of women, and therefore offer them tho
premium of an equal voice in the making
of laws and institutions under which thev
are to dwell. The matter is a feature of
what our socialist friends mean by their
phrase “economic determinism.”
As to tho political wisdom of the ex
periment ifor such it must be considered
for some time yet) there are stronglv-held
diversities of opinion. The habit of sub
jection. impressed by unnumbered centu
ries of mule domination over the femulc
mind, has developed, on the one hand, nnd
suppressed, on the other, characteristics
that would appear to make the question
one of grave doubt.
However, ns the cure for tho Ills caused
by liberty is merely more liberty; ami as
the only prevention for tho restrictive ten
dency, ominously apparent, is franchise ex
tension, lot us who wish to keep it our
selves help on its extension everywhere.
Western Starr
weitoeor, Md.. October 18. 1911.
The editorial paragraph in The Repub
lican that inspired Mr Starr to make hiq
very interesting observation* was as f<>|-
lows:—
The question will now be asked oftener
than before why the states that give votes
to women, in an unrestricted way, are
all located in the Rocky mountains or on
the Pacific coast. The question might be
made broader, indeed. Why is if that in
the English-speaking world women thus
far have succeeded in obtaining a full
franchise mainly In those English-speaking
states that surround the Pacific ocean?
Australia mid New Zealand on one
of the Pacific and our far western states
mi the other side have done more for
equal suffrage than all the rest of the
world together. It cannot be any peculiar
ity in Pacific ocean air that has worked
amh a result, for the Orient breathe* It
and oriental women have not made grout
progress toward political consciousness.
The only visible explanation is that the
newest English-speaking democracies on
earth those when- social custom Is least
hardened nnd tradition is least authorita
tive are located around the Pacific; and
it is the new political society rather than
tho old one that is most receptive to inno
vations.
It is true that there are more males
than females m each of the six western
states of the Union that now have votes
for women. In 1900 the total,excess of
males in those states was 352,050 and
there was still an excess of about 300,000.
after deducting the Chinese and Japanese
who seldom bring women with them when
they come to this country. In New
Zealand, too. Ilie males exceed the fe
males.
But what of it? Mr Starr argues that
it explains votes for women in those com
monwealths. If his "economic determin
'ism" works in this way without men
knowing it, then woman suffrage was
strangely belated in California. The state
was founded about half a century ago,
and iu the earlier years the scarcity of
women was much greater and also more
sinister in its social effect than in our own
time. Yet even as late as 1896 California
rejected by a large majority a suffrage
amendment, while even Inst week the one
that was carried obtained less than 3000
majority. In Oregon, where the males
exceeded the. females by 50,000' or more
in 1900, an equal suffrage amendment was
defeated only a short time ago. What is
the matter with Oregon? Is not the socie
ty of women appreciated there?
But if. according to the "excess of
‘males" theory, the "economic determin
‘ism” referred to gets in its work through
the consciousness of the enfranchised sex,
the equal suffrage movement in those
states should have had its origin among
and have drawn its inspiration from the
men; hut has anyone ever heard of the
noble representatives of the male sex i.n
the Pacific coast fighting campaigns for
woman suffrage in the hope of increasing
the petticoat immigration? Ask the wom
en out there, and they would say, prob
ably, that they had to make a /uss to get
the ballot, exactly as women do every
where.
THE TRUST AND THE ORE LANDS.
The decision of the directors of the Unit
ed States steel corporation to abrogate on
January 1, 1915, its lease of the so-cajied
Great Northern ore fields seems to bring
into the dear light of day the real founda
tion of the sensational reports of the past
six weeks concerning the “voluntary dis
‘solution” of the concern. When the re
cent bear raid on “Steel” was most in
tense, and semipanicky conditions pre
vailed in the stock market owing to the
heavy selling of “Steel common,” induced
by fear of a government prosecution un
der the antitrust laws, it was not difficult
to convince the cooler-headed investors
that if the corporation was vulnerable to
attack in the courts it was on account of
its predominant control of the ore lands
of the Northwest and of the railroad trans
portation of ores from the mine to the
mill. This was the position taken by the
United States commissioner oL corpora
tions, Herbert Khox Smith, in his repprt
last spring on the Steel corporation:— .
Not only on account of its great hold
ings of ore but also on account of these
peculiar advantages enjoyed in the trans
portatioii'of the ore, the Steel'corporation
occupies an extremely commanding posi
tion in the iron and steel industry, In
deed, |n so far as the Steel corporation's,
position in the entire iron and steel in-'
dustrv is of monopolistic character it is
chiefly through its control of pre holdings
and the transportation of ore.
Mr Smith estimated that the corporation
controled 75 per cent of the ores, com
mercially available, in the Lake Superior
district. The estimate, however, is open
to criticism, as all such estimates are.
The United States geological survey has
estimated the merchantable iron ore in
the United States at 4,478,150,000 fans,
of which the Lake Superior district con
tained 3,510,000,000 tons; and 75 per cent
of that would be 2,362,500,000 tons. But
the Great Northern lease brought to the
Steel corporation at the outside no more
than 500,000,000 tons, and its ore land,
holdings elsewhere have been estimated at
about 1.300.000.000 tons. The estimates
at some point must he wild. Yet Com
missioner Smith fastened upon the ore
leases in the Lake Superior region for spe
cial criticism, saying in his report that
“This system as applied in the lake ore
‘region, without any effective restriction
'as to the size of holdings, plainly facili
tates concentration of ore property, as it
'greatly reduces the investment required
‘to control large bodies of ore. It has
‘unquestionably had a large influence in
‘producing the high concentration of con
trol now existing in lake ores as well as
‘elsewhere."
While the Great Northern ore lands
lease has been crlticiz.ed as a bad bargain
for the steel corporation because of tho
onerous term* imposed in the matter of
royalties, it is still a fair inference that
the decision to capcel the lease reflects
the desire of the steel corporation to do
everything possible to satisfy the govern
ment that it is not violating the antitrust
law in the conduct of its enormous busi
ness. If the step has been taken for this
reason, it is to the credit of the corpora
tion, and it should go far to make inad
visable a government prosecution, besides
tending to restore confidence in the general
business situation. Whether the steel
corporation could he successfully attacked
under the supreme court decisions in the
Standard oil and American tobacco cases
has been very doubtful; with the Great
Northern ore lands disposed of. the govern
ment's warrant for an attack would ho
much weakened. For the natural infer
ence from the court decisions is that no
form of corporate organization is neces
sarily illegal except when its business
practices are characterized by wrongful
intent, that Is, the intent to monopolize.
It remains to be determined whether the
corporation will also seek to break the
force of the criticism of the United
Kiate* commissioner of corporations re
garding its control of ore transportation.
Operating its own railroad lines for the
carrying of Lake Superior ores to the
furnaces, charging high rates on those
roads to its manufacturing competitors,
and with all other railroad line* charging
tho independents In the steel Industry the
same rates, the United States steel cor
poration has a marked advantage at this
point over ita trade rivals. An obvious
remedy for such a state of tiling* would
be n readjustment of rates for orc* on all
the railroads in question by order of tho
Interstate commerce commission. but no
complaint had ever been filed with the
commission by the independents up to the
time the Stanley congressional committee
began it i inquiry. According to Mr Top
ping, chairman of the Republic iron and
steel company, the reason for this absence
of specific complaints has been “diffidence
'on the part of producers of steel to make
'anv broad and general attack on the
'railroads" because of the danger of losing
orders from those roads for steel rails and
other railroad material It is very pos
sible, however, that rather than expose
itself to attack by the government the
steel corporation will bring about a re
duction of ore transportation rates satis
factory to the independents, and. if the
corporation should do this on its own
lines, the other railroads would be forced
to follow its lead.
That, in warding off possible attack by
the government through these readjust
ments, the steel corporation would gain
more than it would lose through the con
cessions to its trade competitors will prob
ably be the general opinion. If it loses
the mastery of the Lake Superior ores,
the corporation may still have access to
them on equal terms with its rivals,
while its ore laud holdings elsewhere re
main very large indeed. Iff the mean
time. the corporation's position with in
vestors would be much strengthened if
they could be rid of the recurrent fear of
a government suit for its disintegration.
Business in general would respond to the
removal of this particular menace.
Whether there is any secret or tacit un
derstanding. however, between the cor
poration and the government concerning
these points, it is impossible to say.
SCIENCE AND CONSERVATION.
The recent outspoken attack on conserva
tion by Vice-President Sherman would
have little importance if it did not repre
sent a rather widespread feeling that the
future may he left to take care of itself.
In some cases, no doubt, laudation of the
anticipated cleverness of posterity may he
but a convenient cloak for the reckless
greed which eares nothing for the welfare
of others, whether now living or still to be
born. But many people have a vague feel
ing that science can work miracles. Why
trouble to save things when whatever is
needed can be made in a laboratory? A
little consideration of the nature of the
most important work now being done in
applied science would correct this view,
and incidentally would refute the cynical
observation lately made, that about all
that is left to conservation is the growing
use of concrete in place of wood.
As a matter of fact, that is a splendid
example of what conservation should
mean; fire hazards and the destruction of
forests are reduced at one stroke. But it
is only one instance of what modern tech
nology is doing for conservation. The most
vital work now being done in commercial
chemistry is precisely in the elimination of
waste and the substitution of common and
unlimited materials for those that are cost
ly and needlessly fine for the purpose, as
wood is needlessly fine for houses. There
are some regrettable aspects to commercial
chemistry. It is not pleasant to see high
ly-educated talents dedicated to the adul
teration of food, textiles, and other articles
of commerce, Or to the manufacture of in
ferior substitutes that are meant to be
palmed off as the real thing. There is
much profit in this flort of invention, but
ethically it does not rank above the trick
ery’ of the skilled lawyer who shows cor
porations how to outwit the law.
Nor can we feel entirely complacent
over the fact that So large a part of the
legitimate and laudable work of the sci
entist necessarily goes to replacing the
failing bounty of Nature. Spectacles are
a triumph of civilization, but good eyesight
is a better thing. Wescan be proud of
our modern scientists, but in so far ns
their work merely offers a cheap and in
ferior substitute for what in the past has
been cheaper and better, it must be a
rather melancholy pride. It is a great
thing to be able to make imitation wood,
imitation cork, imitation leather, imitation
whisky, imitation food. So is it a great
thing to be able to make a perfect arti
ficial leg, but a real leg is better. We
may take a comfort in the prospect that
artificial substitutes will not he lacking—
in another century or so there may be ar
tificial men and women who will look
upon the obsolete natural product as very
crude and imperfect. But so long as the
natural man persists, with his primitive
taste for natural sunshine, natural air, and
other unimproved products of Nature, the
prospect of a laboratory-made world will
seem rather depressing.
But this is only one way, and perhaps a
too sentimental way, of looking at the
case. The big fact, the essential fact is
that applied science is being directed with
tremendous and cumulative energy to the
checking of waste, and specially to the
utilization of waste products. If one scien
tist unscrupulously deviaea a way to color
unripe fruit to a tempting and fallacious
sun-kissed aspect, another will he hard at
work finding a way to use. legitimately
the juice und the rinds of the orange
“culls," fruit rejected a* imperfect, and in
the past an entire waste. If one inventor
makes false maple out of the cheaper gum
tree, another will he showing how cam
phor can be manufactured from the re
jected twigg and fallen leaves of the
camphor tree. Others are seeking to find
a use for banana trash and the husks of
cocoanuta, of which it is believed paper
Clin he blade. The. search for naw vegeta
ble fibers goes on endlessly. Coal dust
mixed with various patent substances is
mgde into briquets which burn as well as
pure coal. The oily shale found in many
parts of die world will sooner or later be
converted into fuel. Methyl alcohol is
made from marsh gas, denatured alcohol
for fuel out of cellulose refuse. Sawdust,
formerly burned or left to rot, is being
turned to a hundred uses.
In all these ways science is quietly
contradicting the assumption that con
servation is to be left to some imagined
race of omniscient future beings to prac
tice. Every new Use found for refuse is
a practical step toward conservation. And
the more stringent competition becomes
the greater must become the function of
the practical chemist. If we should see a
somewhat continued period of business de
pression, the chemist rather than thp en
gineer or than even the captain of hi
ilusliy, would he the man of tho hour.
For bis mission Is, specifically, economy,
and he can find a hundred way* to econo
mize for one that the commercial world
has yet put into practice.
Yot the entire burden of conservation
must not be put upon the scientist. It is
fopiish to invent a way to make wood out
of sawdust and then burn up valuable
forests by the square league. Why should
the world bo kept toiling in dingy fac
tories to make by a patent process any
thing that Nature stands ready to pro
'id*!' Mhy should chemists be driven to
concocting out of base materials a pass
able substitute for what can be afforded
by » little forethought and common sense.
It may be that science can extract cucum.
bejs from sunshine in a way which Dr
M iley would sanction, but natural cucum
bers are good enough. Great as are the
savings effected by scientific utilization of
waste, they are small as compared with
what might be achieved by a general
atoidance of waste. The most destructive
force iu the world to-day is materialism,
and specially the wide diffusion of ma
teiial satisfactions which machinery and
democracy have made possible. The result
has on the whole been for the advance
ment of mankind, but at a frightful and
incieasing cost of natural resources. The
next stage ought to be a gradual cultiva
tion of the higher and inexhaustible satis
factions. M hen men can be brought to
see things in their right proportions simple
and durable pleasures will count for far
more, and lavish waste will seem bar
barous and repulsive. It is a long road
to the sane and simple life, but civiliza
tion will yet traverse it. The chemist and
the teacher of the art of living are natural
allies in the work for the conservation of
resources.
THE DEMAND FOR SKILL.
The most important element in the
movement for scientific efficiency is an in
creased recognition of the need for skill.
The method of rewarding skill is a mat
ter of detail and is likely to vary from
time to time according to the relations of
capital and labor. But every increase in
technical skill is a substantial gain to
society, and the new stress put upon it is
not in the least exaggerated. Except in
certain lines, skill has always been neglect
ed and underrated in America, because of
the more primitive life of a new country
and the natural decay of many of the old
handicrafts that belong to a more com
plicated civilization. In matters of vital
concern to a frontier people, notably ship
building, navigation and machinery, Amer
ican skill has at all times been unsur
passed, but the range of skilled employ
ments has been limited, and there has
been plenty of room for the jack-of-all
trades. The new developments which are
disturbing both education and the busi
ness world, simply indicate that this easy
going day of irresponsible amateur effort
is past; that a new order is being forced
upon us in which the central fact is the
demand for skill.
It is a reasonable demand, and by de
grees it will be met, but it ought to be
considered broadly, and without hysterical
criticism, For much of the prevalent lack
of skill nobody is to blame; it is a nat
ural result of conditions favorable in them
selves, but impossible to maintain under
an increased stress of competition. Such
conditions produced, with no great skill on
their part, many of the very business men
who now complain that skilled workers
are so scarce. In finding the remedy al!
must take a hand; the whole responsibility
must not be thrown, fog example, on the
schools. We are not ready yet to see
the public schools of America converted
into a factory for turning out new cogs
and levers for the great industrial ma
chine. Employers will have to be patient
and do their share, probably an increased
share, toward converting raw novices into
skilled workmen. Much has been done in
this direction by some of the great manu
facturing concerns, and this policy will
be extended. The demand for skill is
reasonable; the demand for skilled begin
ners is another matter, and must not be
too suddenly or rigidly enforced^
Nor must skill, though essential, be
looked on as a panacea. We find it often
brought forward as a cure for unemploy
ment. but a little consideration of the
facts would show that if all were skilled
there would be no gain in this respect so
long as production can be made to outrun
consumption. No doqbt many of those
now out of a job could find work if they
were prepared to do it. And it is appar
ent that a country where technical skill
is so advanced as in Germany enjoys an
economic advantage over more backward
countries and may suffer less from unem
ployment. Yet the advantage is largely
competitive, whether between individuals
or between nations, and with the diffusion
of skill tends to disappear. There has al
ready been complaint of a glut not only
of educated clergymen, lawyers and doc
tors, but of experts in such obviously prac
tical lines as engineering, electrical work,
etc. The demand for skill must be distin
guished from the demand for skilled labor,
which must obviously fluctuate. What
many employers unconsciously have in
mind when they ask for skill is a surplus
of skilled labor to be had upon demand in
any desired quantity.
Undoubtedly the great need of America
just now is more skill. Only in business
in the narrower sense do we hold first
place. In office organization, in advertis
ing. and in energy, nothing more could be
asked, so far as domestic trade goes; in
foreign commerce we largely fail for lack
of a cosmopolitan point of view and a fail
ure to appreciate the wants of foreigners.
That shop practice has not kept pace
with office management is now being gen
erally recognized, and earnest efforts are
being made at betterment. America hng
tho* fnr done its big things by energy »nd
shrewdness, working on enormous natural
resources. The great retail store is a fine
example of what may be done by intelli
gence. enterprise and the gift for organ
ization which Americana have in a high
degree. Yet this very gift has tended to
retard skill. It ha* favored the stand
ardization of Industry, with a view to pro
ducing the maximum amount of a limited
number of things in a way calling for the
minimum amount of skill. That has been
the characteristic of the past 20 years, but
the need for a broader industrial founda
tion is now being felt.
Mr Edison has lately noted how little
n hundred dollars’ worth of German goods
weighs, which means that what Germany
is selling to the world is skill. Three
fourths of the profitable chemical patents
taken out are of German origin, and one
need hardly look further for the cause of
Germany's great industrial advance. It
Is plain that nt last America is awakening
to the need for adequate and varied train
ing. and the next 10 years will witness