As long ago as 1890 the people were becoming alarmed about
this matter. But the evil has increased rapidly during the
last twelve years. It is said that one man in this country
has acquired a fortune of more than a thousand million dollars
by getting an advantage over other producers or dealers in
a great necessary of life in the rates at which the railroads
transport his goods to market.
In 1890 a bill was passed which was called the Sherman Act,
for no other reason I can think of except that Mr. Sherman
had nothing to do with framing it whatever. He introduced
a bill and reported it from the Finance Committee providing
that whenever a trust, as it was called, dealt with an article
protected by the tariff, the article should be put on the
free list. This was a crude, imperfect, and unjust provision.
It let in goods made abroad by a foreign trust to compete
with the honest domestic manufacturer. If there happened
to be an industry employing thousands or hundreds of thousands
of workmen, in which thousands of millions of American capital
was invested, and a few persons got up a trust--perhaps importers,
for the very purpose of breaking down the American manufacturer--
and made the article to a very small extent, all honest manufacturers
would be deprived of their protection.
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