Trust Wars Strengthen the Trusts
On January 8 the Carnegie Company made official announcement of its intention to engage in the iron pipe and tube business in opposition to the National Tube Combine. The Carnegie Company is to erect the largest tube plant in the world on the shore of Lake Erie, at a cost of $12,000,000. As this would interfere with the work of the National Tube Combine, the latter concern has intimated its intention of engaging in the rail and structural steel business in opposition to the Carnegie Company. Thus will be inaugurated a war of two of the largest trusts in the country. It will end, however, as the coffee and sugar trusts have ended their war, either in consolidation of interests, or in each company buying out the plant of the other, so that in the end the power of the trust will be more absolute than before. War against the salt trust has also been inaugurated by the Consumers' Association, which will organize a trust of its own; the result of which will be to control more effectually the salt industry than heretofore. In every such move the power of the trust is increased, and opposition to it or relief from it becomes more hopeless.