We have in our hands a decision by Judge Russell,
of the New York Supreme Court, which shows the extent to which the "'Trust" system, or system of using capital to create monopolies, is pushed in the United States. A National Wholesale Druggists' Association has been formed which includes almost every large drag-dealer in the Union, and which fixes the price of drugs. If any private dealer under- sells the Association the latter warns the whole trade by circular not to deal with him, and as a rule succeeds in ruining the business of the refractory firm. John D. Park and Sons' Company resolved to resist the dicta- tion, and applied for an injunction, which was refused in the particular instance, but granted as a general principle, all men being enjoined to abstain from " con- spiring " to enforce "a restraint of trade." The case is an extreme one, because it is clear that a Trust of the kind is, or may be, playing with human life. It does not matter much if they raise the price of patent medicines, which seems to have been the specific grievance, to a guinea a drop ; but suppose they put drugs like quinine, opium, or the aperients out of the reach of the poor. It will be remem- bered that Mr. Bryan's followers place the Trust system in the forefront of their charges against capital, and cases like this give them an argumentative foothold, all the more effec- tive because ordinary Americans are very nearly crazy about drugs. They suffer from depression, and take to medicine as a remedy as Northern Europeans take to alcohol.
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