Eddy, Arthur Jerome: The new competition: an examination of the conditions underlying the radical change that is taking place in the commercial and industrial world ; the change from a competitive to a cooperative basis (New York [u.a.], 1912)

316

THE NEW COMPETITION

The direct method has at least this merit, it is straight-
forward and open; the indirect is a cowardly evasion of
the issue.
The administration of the Sherman law is an illustra-
tion in point.
There is no question that in its terms that act covers
combinations of labor and combinations of farmers when
they affect interstate commerce. In the few cases that have
arisen the courts have been obliged to so hold, yet prac-
tically every prosecution under the act and every hill filed
to dissolve a combination have been against combinations
of manufacturers, dealers and railroads, notwithstanding
violations by other classes have been open, notorious and
flagrant.
The threat of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
to absolutely stop inter-state traffic on over fifty railroads
unless their demands for increased wages are granted, is a
case in point.

XV
The extent to which the cooperative movement is spread-
ing among farmers is shown by the following, taken from
a comprehensive summary by an authority on the subject:1
“Anyone who does not follow the subject will be sur-
prised at the extent of successful cooperation among farm-
ers of the United States and the rapidity with which it
spreads.”
“The producers are finding out in every section of the
country that it is necessary; and in every part of the coun-
try they are profiting by it.”
“In Michigan the grape-growers have very efficient
associations.”
‘“The Cooperative Farmer,” by John Lee Coulter, a Minnesota
farmer, of Mallory, Minn.; member of the Faculty of the University
of Minnesota, and Supervisor of Agricultural Statistics of the Census
Bureau. See World’s Work, November, 1911, pp. 59-63.