Chapter 503 This is just the beginning
"Antitrust law?" Alton Parker asked in surprise, "Then who is it against?"
It is not uncommon for donors to help candidates with their campaigns without asking for anything in return. Alton Parker certainly did not think he was gifted enough to change this unspoken rule. Before coming to the opera house, he had thought that Sheffield might ask for some kind of reward, even if it was excessive, and he was mentally prepared.
But I didn't expect Sheffield to make such a request. Could it be that the other party's company was not enough to trigger the antitrust law? Of course it was enough. Applying the law flexibly was not unfamiliar to him, an old judge.
The definition of any law is actually very vague. On the one hand, the lawmakers deliberately let companies take the bait, and on the other hand, companies hire lawyers to skirt the rules. This is a two-way handle, held in the hands of two groups of people.
So Sheffield actually talked about antitrust law, which made Alton Parker very confused. Who should he investigate? He couldn't investigate everyone. What if he really found something?
"DuPont, what a good target." As DuPont's closest competitor, there was no need to ask others what dirty things DuPont had done, whose factories had been bombed, and what methods had been used to force competitors into a desperate situation. Sheffield could give examples one by one. United had done these things before, and enemies knew each other best.
DuPont's history of evil extends to the 21st century. Because the harmful organisms in the experiments had adverse effects, they concealed the facts and arbitrarily abandoned them, seriously polluting the soil, rivers and drinking water for more than 50 years. After being discovered, DuPont's response was to formulate drinking water safety standards. The United Drinking Water Company suddenly set an unprecedented safety concentration standard for tap water on the eve of the trial. After testing, it was found that DuPont did not exceed the standard, and used this to inform the people who use water that everything is legal and safe. One of the members of the team that set this standard is DuPont.
This is the DuPont of the 21st century. If the federal government wants to cause trouble for DuPont today, they will definitely catch them. As long as they investigate, there is absolutely no way that DuPont will get away.
"Is this the only request? It's been so many years." Alton Parker asked slowly. If it was just this request, it was not impossible to agree. He was not completely unaware of the rumors between the United Company and DuPont. He just didn't expect the rumors to be true. It was so many years after the civil war that they were still holding on.
When Sheffield heard Alton Parker's hesitant voice, he raised his eyebrows and temporarily lowered his voice, "Of course it's not over yet. My grandmother is in good health now. This is her greatest wish."
Today is different from the past. Before the election, Alton Parker was a district judge in New York. But after the election, he is President Alton Parker, the President of the United States for the next four years.
The other party is not a vassal of the United Corporation, and the slave owner is not arrogant enough to remotely control the president. Based on the examples known so far, no one who has tried to do so seems to have succeeded.
In addition to the demands of the government, another demand is that strictly speaking, the beneficiaries are farmers in the Midwest. The tariff issue has always been a focus of debate between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. In order to support the base, the Democratic government often chooses to lower tariffs to promote the export of agricultural and livestock products.
The Republican Party's base is in the northern industrial areas, so on the issue of tariffs, it is completely opposite, choosing to set up tariff barriers to protect the northern industry from the impact of European industry. Because of the large industrial population, the Republican government never dares to be ambiguous on tariffs.
But now everything is over. Sheffield has already communicated with the capital in the Ruhr area of Germany, lowering tariffs in exchange for the export of agricultural and livestock products to Germany. Now that the election has been won, it is time to fulfill the promise.
Whether this would cause opposition from northern factory owners is a matter of course, but whether the two most powerful Standard Oil and Morgan alliances would oppose it is an uncertain matter. Standard Oil is not only the monopoly overlord in the country, but also an undoubted monopoly in the world.
The Morgan Alliance focuses on the financial and insurance sectors, and has a number of industrial companies under its control. However, given the size of the two companies, they have sufficient ammunition to resist the import of European industrial products. The ones who are really unlucky are the small and medium-sized enterprises, especially the small workshop-type factories.
The tariff issue was certainly an urgent issue that Sheffield was very concerned about, but he was not the only one concerned. Farmers in the Midwest were no less concerned than he was. To use a phrase from the United States' foreign policy, everyone shared the benefits, and Sheffield was not the only one who reaped all the benefits.
The slave owner did not waste the new president's time. Alton Parker's time was very precious. The Democratic Party's victory was just the beginning, and there were many things waiting for him to do. The tariff issue mentioned earlier was just one of them. The main supporters of the Democratic Party were two groups of people, white supremacists in the South and agricultural population in the Midwest. In fact, the majority of voters in the South were agricultural population. How to deal with the issue of agriculture and animal husbandry itself did not need Sheffield to say much.
In addition, to build a trustworthy and reliable team, who will be the Secretary of State and who will manage the army, people will be looking for Alton Parker now. In fact, Sheffield wanted to recommend Wilson as Secretary of State, but considering Wilson's current position in the Democratic Party and his own identity, he resisted the idea.
Besides the president, the secretary of state is naturally the role that can make the citizen class feel the most. If Wilson became the secretary of state, it can be said that he would be greatly trained, and his scholarly demeanor might gather a lot of popularity. In this way, whether he is used as the leader of the Democratic Party in the future or to prepare for future elections, it seems natural.
But the problem is that Sheffield is the Democratic Party's financial backer, but the Democratic Party does not belong to him. As a financial backer, he cannot but take the factions within the Democratic Party seriously, and nominating the Secretary of State is not a decision that a financial backer can make.
Overall, after watching an opera with Alton Parker, Sheffield had gotten the promise he wanted. The new president had promised him that he would severely deal with a number of large companies that constituted unfair competition and bring fairness to citizens. Unfair competition companies represented by DuPont will definitely not escape the stick of antitrust law.
As for the United Company, everyone in this country knew that the canned food and beef trusts had been dissolved, and that the United Company did not meet the standards of a trust.
As for DuPont, it is not up to the mark? The core of the antitrust law is to target unfair competition, not monopoly. So DuPont can be sued, but United cannot.
Sheffield considered himself a capable person, but not a god. Since he was not a god, he would inevitably make mistakes and make mistakes when considering issues. He could not possibly dictate to Alton Parker just because the Democrats won. He could not tell Alton Parker who would be the Secretary of State, how to deal with the civil service system, whether to fire 200,000 Republican civil servants like President Cleveland did, or to have a peaceful handover. These were not issues he could control.
Such issues will definitely be discussed within the Democratic Party. It is not his business. What can he do? He can only take care of such trivial matters as collusion between officials and businessmen and revenge for personal gain. The exploitation and political suppression by the Democratic and Republican parties are not his business.
But what can I say? The financiers and the establishment should have lived in peace. The United States is not like South Korea, a society where the chaebols have absolute control over everything and maintain basic unspoken rules that are good for everyone.
Everything has just begun. Sheffield will temporarily curb his greed and use this term to wait and see. From now on, he has at least created a tributary in the history of the United States. However, whether he can completely change the course of history and make the torrent flow into a completely unknown area remains to be seen.
How to say it, where there is crisis there is opportunity. After careful and thorough analysis, the slave owner felt that it was not yet time to arrogantly shout, "Who else?" He should first take advantage of the political environment that was already favorable to him and let the United Company continue to lie dormant, just like a crocodile lurking in a deep pool. He should first pull DuPont, which had already reached the water's edge, into the water, and then talk about other things later.
Struggles are mostly hidden, and no one knows what happened until the end. When someone publicly shouts that there are still others, that situation is often the end of the struggle, or the beginning of the war, which is a completely different issue.
In short, with the Sheffield family's long-standing firm stance, no matter what the results of this election bear, the harvest has just begun. After Sheffield returned to Edith Rockefeller's villa, he was eager to order articles from the New York Times to see what the newspaper had to say after the Republicans lost the election.
"Shocked, a girl from a famous university stayed out all night for this reason." After reading the headline on the front page of the New York Times that day, Sheffield snorted and said self-deprecatingly, "Yes, it is well known that journalists are shameless. I actually thought they had shame. The so-called public intellectuals in this world are all masters of slapping themselves in the face and then spitting in the face."
Just a few months ago, the New York Times was constantly cheering for the Republican Party, which is completely different from its current quiet appearance, which has returned to its dirty jokes.
In short, this election, which has been regarded as the most divisive since the civil war and will determine the political landscape, has calmed down now, but its impact has just begun.
(End of this chapter)
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