Why One Mill Refused the Shingle Trust
A local manufacturer pens a defiant letter against the push for a shingle monopoly, arguing for the free market over artificial price fixing.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
I have been asked a number of times why we did not join the Shingle Manufacturers' Association. First, we are opposed to all trusts. We believe supply and demand will regulate the price of every commodity. Moreover, we believe any artificial means taken to control prices will react in the near future and keep the market unsettled. We think it is better for 75 percent of the mills to run ten months in the year than for 100 percent to run six months and have laborers out of employment and objects of charity. We do not want to antagonize the association, but we do not believe in shutting down mills and throwing men out of employment merely to bolster up parties who cannot compete in the market on account of having poor facilities. Dealers will be suspicious and will not buy as long as the product is controlled by a combination, as the Middle States are no friends of anything which savors of a trust.
“We do not believe in shutting down mills and throwing men out of employment merely to bolster up parties who cannot compete in the market.”
This letter perfectly encapsulates the 'anti-trust' sentiment that defined Washington's Gilded Age politics. The argument—that consolidation hurts both small business and the working class—mirrors modern anxieties about corporate consolidation in Seattle's housing and tech industries.
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