p. 9 | With the Trusts

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 28, 1903

With the Trusts

With the Trusts.—Congressmen are still laboring over the question of what legislation to allow upon the trust question. It is very doubtful if the bill introduced by Senator Hoar against the iniquities of the trusts will even be allowed consideration, the leaders deeming it unwise to permit to pass a bill which would so directly affect the combinations of capital which they profess a desire to curb. The administration, however, is anxious to see some anti-trust legislation, and leading senators have given assurance that something will be done in that line. There seems little belief, however, that any laws will be enacted that will curb the growing power of the trusts; and it is this growing belief that is giving heart again to some of the trusts proposed months ago, but held back from consummation through fear of adverse legislation. We learn this week of the consolidation of all the salmon packing plants of Southern Alaska; also of a gas and electric trust in the State of California with a capital of $15,000,000 and a bond issue of $10,000,000. Other trusts of smaller pretensions have been completed or work begun looking to their consummation. In Germany the trust question is a live issue at the present time; and word has just come of the formation of a great trust of locomotive builders in England. We may have anti-trust legislation, and they may have it in other countries; but the spirit which actuated the building of the trust is with us to stay, and that is the inordinate greed for gold.