The Trusts | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 11.

The Trusts.

The great salmon trust of the Pacific Coast, which was capitalized at $13,250,000, has gone into the hands of receivers. The failure is said to be due to the light run of salmon; but an examination of the company's books shows that at least $10,000,000 of its stock was water, and that the assets of the company are worth not more than $3,000,000. The President has appointed two assistant attorney-generals whose business is to prosecute trusts for the violation of the anti-trust laws. A bill has passed both houses of the California Legislature, the purpose of which is to grant to corporations the legal right to combine, designed to apply to corporations outside as well as inside of the State. This bill expressly legalizes that absorption of one corporation by another, which is the essential element of the trust movement. The railway mergers were such acts and are now being prosecuted in the federal courts. This is an attempt to make legal what the laws now condemn and ought to condemn.