Woodrow
Wilson's Progressive Program: The New Freedom
From his Campaign Speeches, 1912
I take my stand
absolutely, where every progressive ought to take his stand, on the proposition
that private monopoly is indefensible and intolerable. And there I will fight
my battle. And I know how to fight it. Everybody who has even read the newspapers
knows the means by which these men built up their power and created these monopolies.
Any decently equipped lawyer can suggest to you statutes by which the whole
business can be stopped. What these gentlemen do not want is this: they do not
want to be compelled to meet all comers on equal terms. I am perfectly willing
that they should beat any competitor by fair means; but I know the foul means
they have adopted, and I know that they can be stopped by law. If they think
that coming into the market upon the basis of mere efficiency, upon the mere
basis of knowing how to manufacture goods better than anybody else and to sell
them cheaper than anybody else, they can carry the immense amount of water that
they have put into their enterprises in order to buy up rivals, then they are
perfectly welcome to try it. But there must be no squeezing out of the beginner,
no crippling his credit; no discrimination against retailers who buy from a
rival; no threats against concerns who sell supplies to a rival; no holding
back of raw material from him; no secret arrangements against him. All the fair
competition you choose, but no unfair competition of any kind. And then when
unfair competition is eliminated, let us see these gentlemen carry their tanks
of water on their backs. All that I ask and all I shall fight for is that they
shall come into the field against merit and brains everywhere. If they can beat
other American brains, then they have got the best brains.
But if you want
to know how far brains go, as things now are, suppose you try to match your
better wares against these gentlemen, and see them undersell you before your
market is any bigger than the locality and make it absolutely impossible for
you to get a fast foothold. If you want to know how brains count, originate
some invention which will improve the kind of machinery they are using, and
then see if you can borrow enough money to manufacture it. You may be offered
something for your patent by the corporation,-which will perhaps lock it up
in a safe and go on using the old machinery; but you will not be allowed to
manufacture. I know men who have tried it, and they could not get the money,
because the great money lenders of this country are in the arrangement with
the great manufacturers of this country, and they do not propose to see their
control of the market interfered with by outsiders. And who are outsiders? Why,
all the rest of the people of the United States are outsiders.
They are rapidly
making us outsiders with respect even of the things that come from the bosom
of the earth, and which belong to us in a peculiar sense. Certain monopolies
in this country have gained almost complete control of the raw material, chiefly
in the mines, out of which the great body of manufactures are carried on, and
they now discriminates when they will, in the sale of that raw material between
those who are rivals of the monopoly and those who submit to the monopoly. We
must soon come to the point where we shall say to the men who own these essentials
of industry that they have got to part with these essentials by sale to all
citizens of the Unites States with the same readiness and upon the same terms.
Or else we shall tie up the resources of this country under private control
in such fashion as will make our independent development absolutely impossible....
A trust is an arrangement
to get rid of competition, and a big business is a business that has survived
competition by conquering in the field of intelligence and economy. A trust
does not bring efficiency to the aid of business; it buys efficiency out of
business. I am for big business, and I am against the trusts. Any man who can
survive by his brains, any man who can put the others out of the business by
making the thing cheaper to the consumer at the same time that he is increasing
its intrinsic value and quality, I take off my hat to, and I say: "You
are the man who can build up the United States, and I wish there were more of
you."...
Shall we try to
get the grip of monopoly away from our lives, or shall we not? Shall we withhold
our hand and say monopoly is inevitable, that all that we can do is to regulate
it? Shall we say that all that we can do is to put government in competition
with monopoly and try its strength against it? Shall we admit that the creature
of our own hands is stronger than we are. We have been dreading all along the
time when the combined power of high finance would be greater than the power
of the government. Have we come to a time when the President of the United States
or any man who wishes to be the President must doff his cap in the presence
of this high finance, and say, "You are our inevitable master, but we will
see how we can make the best of it."
We are at the parting
of the ways. We have, not one or two or three, but many, established and formidable
monopolies in the United States. We have, not one or two, but many, fields of
endeavor into which it is difficult, if not impossible, for the independent
man to enter. We have restricted credit, we have restricted opportunity, we
have controlled development, and we have come to be one of the worst ruled,
one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized
world-no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction
and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress
of small groups of dominant men.
|