The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-03-20
AGAINST THE ANTITRUST LAW.
Wholesalers Waiting for n Fight to
BE Made on II.

BE Made on 1t.
The Savannah wholesale grocerymen
and other wholesale dealers are speculat-
ing upon the chances of having the Geor-
gia antitrust law declared unconstitu-
tional.
No move has yet been made in that
direction. but the jobbers are in hopes
that such move will be made and they
expect that the Atlanta Jobbers, who have
even larger and more diversified interests,
will be the ones to start the bah rolling.
The recent decision of the United States
court, declaring the Texas antitrust law
unconstitutional, is what has given rise
to this hope in the bosoms of the jobbers.
They admit that the Texas law was more
extreme and more sweeping in it's char
acter, and hence they cannot feel assured
that the United States supreme court
would administer the same sort of a dose
to the Georgia law.
The fact that the trusts have not at
tackled the law before now is something
which the local jobbers do not under
stand, and which lead them to believe that
the law was invulnerable. The trusts have
the best lawyers in the country at their
service, and undoubtedly gave the law
y
nave agreed that 1t was not worth while
to make the fight, but unless that was
the view taken by the trust attorneys,
they must have considered the law good
law If poor business.
The merchants here say that the law
mas been observed since it went into ef-
feet and that the trusts have shown no
disposition to violate it. The home mer-
chants, they said, did not care to run the
FISK OF mourning the penalty of the law
and for that reason no one had defied it
or attempted to make a test case. The
merchants here are willing however, TO
bear their proportion of whatever test
fight is made upon the constitutionality
of the law.
1t might not be amiss to give the rea-
sons why the wholesale grocers and other
jobbers are opposed to this law. They are
not monopolists or trust lovers by nature.
The reason briefly is that the wholesale
dealers and not the trusts are the suffer-
ers by the law
The trusts are not losing any money
in Georgia by reason of the operations of
the law" said Mr. l. B. Tiedeman vice
president of, the Wholesale Grocers' AS
ISOLATION, to Morning News reporter
yesterday They fix their prices and OBJ
tain them just the same as before the
law went into effect The wholesale deal
ers are the sufferers. Under the contract
system, which is prohibited by the anti
trust law, we enjoyed certain and legit-
innate profit upon every article we sold
coming under the contract system. The
profits were not by any means large or
excessive, out they were sure. 1t pre-
vented the wholesale dealers from cut
ting each others prices. which had been
the practice before the contract system
went into effect. With the contract sys-
TEN we are left open to cut-throat COM
petition, and the profits, always small in
the wholesale grocery business, are liable
TO disappear altogether If the law re-
suited in any benefit to the consumer
there would be some justice in it. but the
consumer is not benefited in the least
The only people who are benefited are
the retailers. For instance IL we shade
the price on sugar an eighth of a cent
the retailer will not give his customers
any greater number of pounds to the dol
lar. The difference Is too slight to be of
Importance to them. If we give a GUS
toner difference of % cents a gross or
make a reduction of cents a box on
cigarettes, the retailer does not reduce
the price of box of sEuff or of a pack
of cigarettes to his customers
The difference is too slight. But 1t is
that much taken out of our profits and
added to those of the retailer II, does not
make much of a difference to the retailer
even, but in selling to number of retail
ers our profits are considerably lessened.
AT a low estimate the wholesale grOcerS or
Savannah will suffer net loss of $4,000
a year by the operations of this law"
Mr.. Tiedeman was asked II, with a
proper presentation of the facts as to the
effects of the law. he did not think the
legislature might be induced to repeal it.
He did not think so. The members of
the Legislature had much rather boast to
their constituents he said. that they had
knocked out the trusts. when as a matter
of fact the trusts were unhurt, and 1t
was only the merchants of Georgia who
had been hurt. The features of the bill,
which excerpts agricultural products and
live stock, when in the hands of the pro-
ducers, from the provisions of the law,
Mr. Tiedeman thought, might afford suf-
hcientg rounds for declaring it unconsti-
tutional.