manufacturing in which the fixed capital required is but small, this is
all that would be needed to encourage the establishment of new
competitors and discourage the monopoly from grasping after undue
profits from the public.

In the case of those manufacturing monopolies in which a large fixed
capital must be invested at the start by any new competitor, we have a
much more difficult problem. It is true that in this case the monopoly
itself has more at stake; and this may induce the starting up of new
competitors simply to be bought out by the trust,--a sort of
blackmailing operation which is certainly repugnant in its character. It
might be possible to provide that rates charged by the monopoly must be
so stable that a competitor would have a chance to establish itself
before the monopoly could bring its own rates down. It might be possible
to force the monopoly to keep all its factories in operation, and thus
oblige it to keep down its price in order to dispose of its products;
but there are evident practical difficulties in the way of enforcing
such laws. It seems a great pity that just now, when to find some
employment of prison convicts in some manner that will not "compete with
free labor," and thus displease the labor interests, seems an
impossibility, we cannot set the convicts at work to compete with the
trusts and bring down their profits to a reasonable point. Surely the
labor party would find no fault with this use of convict competition.

There is one step, however, which we can take, and whose effect would
certainly be very great; in its desirability, apart from questions of
monopoly, all honest men are practically united. We can reform our laws
regarding corporate management. It is a mild arraignment compared to
what is deserved, to say that our present laws regarding the formation
and management of corporations, taking the country as a whole, are a
shame to the people and a disgrace to the men who made them. They seem
designed to place a premium on fraud and knavery, and to assist the
professional projector and stock manipulator in reaping gains from
innocent--generally very innocent--stockholders. Now a real reform in
our corporation laws would greatly simplify our work in controlling
monopolies. Let us have no more stock-watering of any sort at any time
in a corporation's life. Let us have no more "income bonds" which yield
no income, and "preferred stock" in which another is preferred after
all. Two