nearly $200,000 less than another responsible bidder offered. Is that honest?

MR. HILL: What right had the Secretary of the Treasury to take an outside and a private bid which had not competed with any of the others?

MR. PETTIGREW: It would have been better to have taken an outside bid, a private bid, which would have saved the Treasury of the United States $190,000, than to have sold the bonds to an outside or an inside private bid which lost to the Treasury $190,000.

CHAPTER XIX

THE TRUSTS

The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, having under consideration the bill (H. R. 379) to provide revenue for the Government and to encourage the industries of the United States

R. PRESIDENT:1 I do not care to address myself

MR

to the pending amendment, but I wish to submit some remarks in regard to the amendment which I offered on the 25th of May, providing that all articles the subject of a trust shall be admitted free of duty.

Mr. President, our civilization is founded upon the theory of evolution, upon the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, upon the law of competition, and is opposed to socialism. We say, as far as is consistent with the existence of protection under the law, Let man, untrammeled and unrestrained, work out his destiny. The result of this theory in the past was feudalism, or the supremacy of brute strength and physical courage, and its resulting paternalism. But feudalism, by the operation of the law of competition and evolution, destroyed itself by the subjugation of the weaker by the stronger and the creation of monarchical forms of government in its place.

To-day, under the operation of this law of competition, we are drifting toward socialism on the one side and plutocracy on the other. It is for us to say whether we will stop the march of events in their course, and make this again a gov. ernment of the people, by the people, and for the people, or allow the present to crystallize and thus continue to be what we now are a government of the trusts, by the trusts, and for the trusts a plutocracy of artificial persons, sustained by bribery. In the past all plutocracies have been of natural 1. Speech in the Senate June 14-15, 1899.

persons, with something of conscience and human sympathy in their composition, and they have kept discontent in check by force and bribery, by a paid police, and by a standing army. But as our plutocracy is of the worst form, without heart and conscience, being an artificial person, it is fitting and well that it should be forced-if its existence shall be perpetuated-to rely upon the one means of sustaining its existence-that of loathsome bribery.

We have abandoned as a people the doctrine so oft repeated and so much believed, that competition is the life of trade, and have adopted the doctrine that competition is killing, resulting in the organization of trusts and combinations to restrict production, to maintain or increase prices, until today there are but few articles manufactured in the United States that are not the subject of a trust. There is a trust to control coffee, coal, sugar, lead, oil, glass, all kinds of hardware, steel, chemicals, and crockery. Thus the fundamental principle of our civilization is overturned, and those who can not combine--the farmer and individual proprietor and toilers of the land-are at the mercy of those who do combine.

When the Republican party came into being as the advocate of protection to American industry by the means of a tariff, it wisely based its advocacy of the doctrine of protection upon the theory on which our civilization rests-competition, and declared that the building of American factories to supply the protected article would create competition and thus lower the price of the article to the consumer. In every campaign we have told the people the story of nails-how they were 6 cents per pound, and we put a duty on them of 2 cents per pound, and American genius and energy produced the machinery, and competition reduced the price, and nails sold for 1 cent per pound, and the Republican doctrine of protection was triumphantly vindicated.

Last year the nail trust was organized, and the price of nails rose from I cent a pound to 334 cents a pound, and thus the Republican theory of protection was completely overthrown. The same story can be told of almost every manufactured article in this bill. How to remedy this defect

so as to justify a tariff for protection in the future is the problem which every Republican is called upon to solve. The two questions are so intimately connected that they must go together. No tariff bill can be defended that does not protect the people against trusts. If the Republican party undertakes it, you will go down in defeat at the next election.

Mr. President, I offer my amendment in good faith as a protectionist. If it is not adopted, the theory of protection falls to the ground. If it is adopted, you can defend this bill before the people of the United States.

The amendment provides

That all articles on the dutiable list mentioned in this act shall be admitted free of duty if said articles or articles of a like character of domestic production are manufactured or their sale controlled or the price affected by a trust or combination to increase the cost of said articles to purchasers by preventing competition or otherwise. Every contract, combination in the form of a trust, or association or corporation whose effect is to restrict the quantity of production or increase the price of any article, or any conspiracy in restraint of trade, shall be deemed a trust within the provisions of this act.

Any citizen of the United States may file a petition, verified by oath or affirmation, in any district court of the United States where the defendant has an office or place of business or may reside, alleging the existence of a trust as herein defined, and that articles or products subject to duty under this act, or articles or products of like character of domestic production, are manufactured, or their sale controlled, or the price affected by said trust; whereupon a summons shall be immediately issued from said court directing the defendant to appear and answer said petition, the case to be governed as to time and manner of service, the pleadings and all proceedings had therein, as is now provided by law in civil causes instituted in the district courts of the United States.

If any citizen of the United States shall file with any district attorney for said district the petition herein set forth, it shall be the duty of said attorney to institute proceedings forthwith in the district court for said district in the name of the United States for the purpose of determining the issues made by said petition, like proceedings to be had in such case as hereinbefore prescribed.

The summons to the defendant or defendants herein required shall be served upon the president or chief officer, if a corporation, or upon all the members, if an association or partnership, and the Secretary of the Treasury shall also be notified of the existence and nature of the suit.

All cases instituted as herein provided shall be advanced upon the docket of the court so as to have precedence of trial over all civil causes thereon, and an appeal may be taken from the decision of the district court to the circuit court of the United States for the district, under the same rules as are prescribed for like appeals in other civil cases, but the judgment of the circuit court shall be final.

If the decision of the court shall be that the allegations of the petitions are true, an order directing the customs officers of the United States to thereafter permit the importation of such article or articles free of duty shall at once issue: Provided, That where a duty is levied upon raw material or any article that is improved by any process after being imported, the duty on the raw material or unrefined or unimproved article shall be collected, and like amount of duty upon the refined or improved article as provided by this act; but the differential or additional duty shall not be collected if the improved or refined product is found to be the subject of a trust, as hereinbefore set forth: Provided, That at any time after judgment the Secretary of the Treasury, upon written grounds, or any party to the proceedings upon petition, verified by oath or affirmation, may move the court to set aside or suspend the enforcement of such judgment. If upon hearing it shall be adjudged that the trust has ceased to exist, it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to withdraw or cancel his orders to the customs officers, and such officers shall immediately resume the collection of the duties imposed by this act. The parties to the original proceeding who do not join in the motion shall have reasonable notice thereof, and the motion shall be advanced and have precedence of trial over all civil causes. Appeals may be taken as in the original proceeding to the circuit court, but the judgment of that court upon the motion shall be final.

But you urge that if this amendment is adopted it will defeat the object of passing a tariff bill, as no revenue will be derived therefrom. If this is true, then surely we are in the hands of the trusts. But I contend that this tariff bill is so framed that the articles which are the subject of a trust are not the articles from which much revenue is derived, the evident purpose of the framer of the bill being to give the American market to the trusts and raise the revenue from other articles.

Is it not more reasonable to suppose that the trusts will dissolve rather than share the rich American market with foreigners? For if the trusts do not disband, and thus allow the various manufacturers to compete with one another, the opera