72 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
porations is more efficient than a single corporation. But it ought to be patent that a corporation may be too big as well as too small.
However, let it be granted, for the sake of the argument, that trusts and combinations are "inevitable" and that it is idle, and worse than idle, to seek to prevent their formation. How is the public to be protected from extortion and oppression under a policy of industrial freedom ? Socialism would of course abolish trusts, but it would abolish some other things along with them. Certainly the American people are not pre- pared to adopt the heroic remedy of collectivization of all industry. They are still " individualistic," in Professor Clark's confessedly vague sense of the term, and therefore they may be supposed to prefer measures in consonance with private enter- prise, free competition, and free contract. What has been sug- gested, what may be suggested, along those lines ?
Several years ago the head of the sugar trust declared that the tariff was the mother of trusts. That was an exaggeration, but only an exaggeration. It contained a great deal of truth, as even protectionists now admit. Governor Cummins, a Repub- lican, vigorously supports the demand for the removal of pro- tective duties from trust-controlled industries. There is no inconsistency between this position and a general belief in pro- tection for new or weak industries. Who has ever known of a trust in an "infant industry"? The industry which invites con- solidation has graduated from the infant school, and there is no reason for a vestige of protection in its interest. Those inde- pendent firms which are strong enough to withstand the trust would be strong enough to hold their own under a low tariff or free trade. At any rate, as Governor Cummins has said, the interests of the consumers are paramount. When we are com- pelled to choose between high duties for the benefit of a few manufacturers and their employees, and reasonable prices for the public, hesitation is scarcely possible.
But the protective tariff is not the only breeder of monopoly. Perhaps enough has been said of late about secret rebates and illicit favors to trusts on the part of common carriers.
