Judge Grosscup On Trusts

The lecture by Judge Grosscup, a judge of the United States court of appeals, Chicago, before the Good Government club Saturday evening, on "The New Nation,"' was a masterly effort. The judge read from manuscript, but did not confine himself to his manuscript at all closely. Considerable of the address was spoken without reference to his manuscript at all. The fact that it was understood that the address would deal with the trust question, together with the knowledge that Judge Grosscup is a student of this overshadowIng issue, drew a large audience.

Among other things the judge holds that the withdrawal of the people from proprietorship in the industries of the country is one of the great evils of trust control of those industries. In this connection he said:

" A normal bank deposit represents the surplus that accumulates between periods of investment; the money let loose in the changes of investment; and the working capital needful to existing active enterprise. But I know of no reason for the growth of such normal deposit much beyond the rate of growth of population and general wealth. A comparison of these growths is significant. The growth of population from 1880 to 1890 was about 20 per cent; of general wealth about 25 per cent. Compared with this, during this first decade of somewhat active consolidation, there is found a growth of bank deposits of about 73 per cent. The growth of population from 1890 to 1900 was about 20 per cent, of general wealth about 23 per cent. Against this, during a period covering an increased activity of the consolidation idea, the deposits grew 85 per cent. And during the five years covering the climax of consolidation, though the increase and population and wealth went on at the rate of about 20 or 25 per cent per 10 years, the increase in the deposits - measuring again by decades - was at the rate of more than 160 per cent. Can anyone explain this disproportion - beginning with activity in consolidation and rising rapidly as consolidation increased - except upon the inference that the people, having little confidence in existing trust organizations, have been thus cut out from ownership? "

This condition of things, Judge Grosscup looks upon as very harmful. Any kind of industrial organization which drives the mass of people out of proprietorship and converts them into employees is undoubtedly a movement in the wrong direction. It has been the proud boast of this nation in the past that it was a nation of proprietors. But trust organization is changing in large degree this source of stability of our people and converting them into a people working for wages. Judge Grosscup looks upon this condition as a breeder of the spirit of socialism, which he sees rapidly growing among the American people. He said:

"We must expect men who do not see their way to an improvement of their conditions under old forms of industrial liberty, will entertain sympathy for a system that promises something new. The separation of labor from proprietorship - the separate mobilization, of these two forces as enemies, instead of their commingling in common interests - is the most un-republican and menacing fact that now confronts the American people."

It is undoubtedly true that the American people have advanced far on the road to socialism and it is equally true that conditions in the industrial world have made them socialists in governmental matters. The American people are not naturally socialistic, but they have been forced into the path of socialism by the trend of events.

Judge Grosscup in the latter part of his address declared that the legislation now pending in congress is inadequate and will not accomplish the purpose for which it is ostensibly enacted. He declared that there must be a known uniform basis of incorporation and the people must be assured by the mere fact of incorporation, that the assets and proposed stock issue conform to the known legal basis. Then he declared the corporation so organized must be subjected to visitation by some department of the government. This he held should be done in addition to the publicity required by the pending legislation. The pending laws he said were inadequate because they make no change in the basis of corporate organization, nor do they provide for visitation. They exhibit no purpose - at least no controlling purpose - to widen the proprietorship of the country. The publicity proposed is confined to the gathering and publication of statistics, valuable, possibly, to the speculator or the trained investor, but ineffective and worthless to the ordinary man who may be seeking ownership. What chiefly is needed - the intervention of the government as trustee, not as mere newsgatherer; a guaranty that when a corporation is created its creator has seen to it that it is fairly organized, not mere statistics of hap-hazard corporate organization, that the people cannot comprehend- is absent from the bilis. In short, the measures pending miss sight of the prime mischief to be remedied, and the remedies to be adopted.

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Secretary Root in a recent New York speech declared that after thirty years trial negro suffrage is a failure. The secretary is right in the views of very many thinkers who would have been unwilling to admit the fact at any time during the past thirty years trial. It was a mistake to handle the suffrage problem as it was handled and thousands are now willing to admit the fact. There should have been a period of preparation for the right of suffrage. It was nothing against the negro that he was not fitted for the right of suffrage when it was thrust upon him. It was too much to expect that he was prepared. Self government has been a matter of slow development among the Anglo Saxons. And even at the present time there are many features of popular government that need improving to say the least even at the hands of the white race. It was not to be expected therefore, that men could be taken right out of slavery and made immediately into competent self-governing citizens.

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If this morning's reports from Lansing be true, namely, that Governor Bliss, on account of the opposition among the senators, will not appoint Tom Navin a member of the Jackson prison board, it is well. There are better men whom the governor may appoint and whose appointment will not arouse the feeling that this appointment would certainly create. The elevation of Navin to a public position of trust and responsibility would not be creditable to popular government. There have been, no doubt, other men in prominent station with no better records than Mr. Navin, but even that is no excuse for the appointment of Navin. No one desires to place a straw in the way of Navin in any legitímate effort he may make to be a man and a good citizen, but when any man seeks preferment at the hands of his fellows, seeks a position as a public representative, he must expect the public will examine his armor.

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