Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 34.djvu/643

Rh nevertheless, by officers of the pool known as "eveners." When a second term of the organization is discussed, these shippers' preferences, as growing out of the improved management or facilities of a particular line, are given weight in a revision of ratios. Were pooling agreements legalized so that their terms could be enforced, Mr. Fink, the first railroad authority in America, declares that the principal step toward settling the railroad problem would be taken. In the great work which the Interstate Railroad Commission has accomplished, not the least benefit has arisen from the publicity it has given to complaint. It is now clearly proved that corporations dread condemnation at the bar of public opinion, and that they often have an unsuspected sense of responsibility which can be directed to curtail their abuse of power.

With a home market safe from foreign competition, with the steady swallowing of little fish by great, and the growth of these from great to greater, it was only natural that the policy which aimed to suppress what was deemed undue rivalry in transportation should be paralleled in manufacturing industry. Hence a few years ago we saw associations begun to be formed among producers of iron, steel, paper, salt, and other articles of prime necessity, all intended to regulate output and price-lists. As a rule, these associations did not work well. They lacked the means to punish breaches of faith to which superior facilities or management might tempt one of the associates. Some more substantial bond was called for if agreements were to be respected and harmony of interests maintained. Then arose the "trust," with its organic tie; an industrial creation nothing short of revolutionary. In the most approved form of "trust," such of the concerns to be affiliated as are not incorporated, are transformed into joint-stock companies. Then all the companies, new and old, transfer their property to the "trust," an unincorporated board which represents each of the unified concerns. The trustees then exchange "trust" certificates for the various companies' shares, usually on the basis of a trebled or quadrupled valuation. Control is then exercised by the board over all the operations of the industry thus organized; one refinery or mill is enlarged, another is closed; territory is apportioned to each active member of the combination, output is regulated, prices fixed. Let us mark the prize which tempts to this apparently perilous relinquishment of direct control of its affairs by each party to the union. We can see it best displayed in the case of the Standard Oil Trust.

No chapter in the history of American industry is more interesting than the record of the rise and progress of this "trust." Beginning in 1870 with an inconsiderable refinery in Cleveland, its founders took diligent heed of the fact of railroad competition: "special" rates were then commonly granted to any shipper who