On Friday week it was announced in New York that
the great financial firm of J. P. Morgan and Co. had surrendered no lees than thirty directorships in various corporations. This is significant news. It means that the heads of Trusts are going half-way to meet the legislation which threatens them. They no longer fight every point and only give way to sheer legislative violence. Nor does the action of the Morgan firm stand alone. Two weeks ago, in voluntary response to the recommendation of the Postmaster-General that the telegraphs and telephones should be owned by the State, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company separated its telegraph and telephone business and got rid of its interest in the Western Union Telegraph Company; pledged itself not to buy the controlling interest in any private telephone company; and put its service at the disposal of other companies. We shall be greatly surprised if Americans have any reason in the long run to be grateful for the supersession of private enterprise by State ownership. But that is not the point now. The point is that a new spirit has appeared in the United States, and that the heads of Trusts are doing of their own accord what the law was still seeking means of forcing them to do.
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