serious matter for this
reason: There are some corporations, and some firms for all I know,
whose business is great enough and whose resources are abundant enough
to enable them to establish selling agencies in foreign countries; to
enable them to extend the long credits which in some cases are necessary
in order to keep the trade they desire; to enable them, in other words,
to organize their business in foreign territory in a way which the
smaller man cannot afford to do. His business has not grown big enough
to permit him to establish selling agencies. The export commission
merchant, perhaps, taxes him a little too highly to make that an
available competitive means of conducting and extending his business.

The question arises, therefore, how are the smaller merchants, how are
the younger and weaker corporations going to get a foothold as against
the combinations which are permitted and even encouraged by foreign
governments in this field of competition? There are governments which,
as you know, distinctly encourage the formation of great combinations in
each particular field of commerce in order to maintain selling agencies
and to extend long credits, and to use and maintain the machinery which
is necessary for the extension of business; and American merchants feel
that they are at a very considerable disadvantage in contending against
that. The matter has been many times brought to my attention, and I have
each time suspended judgment. I want to be shown this: I want to be
shown how such a combination can be made and conducted in a way which
will not close it against the use of everybody who wants to use it. A
combination has a tendency to exclude new members. When a group of men
get control of a good thing, they do not see any particular point in
letting other people into the good thing. What I would like very much to
be shown, therefore, is a method of cooeperation which is not a method of
combination. Not that the two words are mutually exclusive, but we have
come to have a special meaning attached to the word "combination." Most
of our combinations have a safety lock, and you have to know the
combination to get in. I want to know how these cooeperative methods can
be adopted for the benefit of everybody who wants to use them, and I say
frankly if I can be shown that, I am for them. If I cannot be shown
that, I am against them. I hasten to add that I hopefully expect I _can_
be shown that.

You, as I have just