THE TRUST PROBLEM RESTUDIED 67
and agricultural combinations, but will the courts admit the dis- crimination? The United States Supreme Court has declined to approve it.
Yet who believes that any legislature will outlaw trade unions and agricultural combinations for the regulation of production and prices? " Politics," reinforced by sentiment, will continue to prompt evasion of the requirements of equality and uniform- ity, and this evasion will excite complaint and protest a sense of injustice and wrong that will render the strict enforcement of anti-trust laws extremely hard and unpleasant in these days of strikes, sympathetic and general, picketing, boycotting, and the assertion of the right to deprive non-union men of their means of livelihood by threats of industrial warfare.
At the same time it is absolutely certain that there will be no repeal of anti-monopoly statutes, no general acquiescence in the claims of the trust apologists. Will there be a change in the character of the legislation aimed at trusts? Able and judicious men have been advocating such a change, in view of the acknowl- edged futility of the kind of remedies thus far applied. As stated above, publicity is one of the most popular prescriptions, and it is plausibly argued that the conservative and good trusts will cheerfully aid in securing publicity, as they have nothing to conceal and are but too anxious to convince the public of their utility. But, as Governor Cummins of Iowa (an independent and progressive official) has pointed out, publicity is at best only a safeguard against certain abuses affecting trust share- holders ; it is not a "remedy" at all. The sort of publicity that is proposed is no bar to limitation of production or undue raising of prices. It would not even prevent overcapitalization and dis- regard by the majority of the interests of the minority stock- holders. It did not interfere with operations which have been the subject of wide animadversion lately. In one flagrant New York case a queer merger was effected, not only against the con- sent of the protesting minority, but with cynical violation of the right of discussion. "Vote first, and debate afterward," was the arrogant remark of the president of the corporation in response to the minority's complaint that the transaction sought to be
