John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[479] in the Treasury and Post-Office departments, it never lost an opportunity to argue against “all annexes and extensions” of federal power, the creation of “new hospitals for office-holders,” and the enlargement of governmental activity, no matter what the excuse. For these reasons it objected to the creation of a department of agriculture, or a department of commerce and labor, both of which were then under consideration.

It opposed the indiscriminate denunciation of trusts for political effect as “the greatest humbug of the hour,” and explained that

... a trust is a vast partnership, a combination in trade or manufactures. The objects of trade being to buy as cheap as possible, to sell as dear as possible, and to get control of the market as far as possible, the formation for these purposes of these gigantic and widely extended partnerships is just as natural and regular as the partnership of two shoemakers or of two blacksmiths.

But while it held these views in regard to the nature and functions of trusts, and admitted that they should be subject to proper regulation by the power that created them, it also held that all trusts should be treated alike — that the commercial trusts should not be struck down while labor trusts and trades-unions should be allowed to carry on their operations without any regulation at all. True to its convictions, it always contended that neither labor trust nor trades-union should be permitted to deprive a private workman of his right to work at any time or place, or for any rate of compensation that might please him. It stood for the equal rights of all men before the law, and for the effective protection of every individual against the tyranny and violence of the many. While Dana had stood all his life for the rights of every class of labor, and for the betterment of its condition by all proper means, he