the facts upon which the history of
the trusts must be based. In the fall of 1899 there met in Chicago a
great conference on the trusts, where business men, economists, and
politicians discussed the economic and social possibilities of the
movement. A willingness to hear and perhaps to rely on the judgment of
experts was shown in the discussions over the trusts. It marked a change
in the American attitude toward government. By 1902 the demand for a
solution of the trust problem was heard repeatedly, but there was little
agreement as to whether the trusts were good or bad, or whether they
should be abolished, regulated, or owned outright by the Government. It
was not even certain what powers the United States possessed to regulate
general industry, but a group of Supreme Court cases suggested that the
power could be found. In the Trans-Missouri Freight Case (1897), the
Supreme Court declared that the Sherman Law applied to railway
conspiracies, and in the Addystone Pipe Case (1898), a decision against
an industrial combination, written by Circuit Judge William H. Taft, was
upheld by the court of last appeal. The Northern Securities Case,
started in 1902, was pushed to a successful end in 1904, when it became
apparent that legal control could be exercised if Congress so desired.

Labor followed the course of industry and transportation, becoming
stronger and better united, and showing a keen jealousy of centralized
control. The years of trust promotion were years of notable strikes and
of episodes which drew attention to the social results of industrial
concentration. Sometimes the trust had labor at a disadvantage, as was
shown in the strike against the Steel Corporation by the Amalgamated
Association in 1901. In 1892 this union had conducted a great strike
against the Carnegie Works and had lost public sympathy and the strike.
Its men had committed open violence, and an anarchistic sympathizer had
tried to murder Carnegie's representative at Homestead, Henry C. Frick.
In 1901 the strike affected the unionized mills of the Steel
Corporation, but that trust had only to close down the mills involved
and transfer pending contracts to other mills, remote and non-unionized.
The strike collapsed because of the superior organization of the trust.

More important than the steel strike in its effect upon the public was
the strike of the miners in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania.
In 1900 these workers were organized by