Evening star., 1897-03-23
AGAINST THE POOL
The Decision Rendered Against a
Freight Combination.
SUPREME COURT SUSTAINS CONGRESS-
Telegraph, Express and Telephone
Companies Probably Included.
ANTI TRUST ACT STANDS


Association is one of far-reaching effect
trust law of 1890 to be applicable to rail-
read transported ton and declares the traffic
agreement of the railroad pool to be lille
gal. The pool freight association" in
question consisted of the Atchson, Topeka
and Santa Fe road and seventeen other rail-
road companies. Their agreement was "for
the purpose of mutual protection by the
establishment and maintaining of reasonable
rates. rules and regulations on all freight
traffics, both through and local" 1t was
charged by the government in the circuit
court for the district of Kansas that the
defendant companies in the association
were engaged in unlawful combination and
conspiracy of great injury and grievous
prejudice to the common good and the well
fare of the people of the United States"
The circuit court dismissed the BILL and
an appeal was taken to the United States
circuit court of appeals for the eighth cir
cult, where the dismissal by the court be-
low was sustained. From that ruling an
appeal was taken to the United States Su-
preme Court. where the former decisions
are overruled and the ground taken that
the pool was unlawful and amenable TO the
antitrust act of 1890. The court stood five
to four the decision being rendered by Jus-
uce Peckham, Chief Justice Fuller and JUS
tees Harlan, Brewer and Brown concur
ring Justice White gave the dissenting
opinion, in which Justices Field, GRAY and
Shlras cCncurred.
Congress Sustained.
The companies involved in order to avoid
the possibility of an adverse decision dis
solved the pool. The court however, re-
fused to play hide-and-seek with them
and declined to dismiss the appeal on this
ground. The substance of the decision is
given in the following extract:
I'VE have held that the trust act did not
apply to company engaged in one state
in the refining of sugar in the circum-
stances detailed in the case of the United
States against E. c. Knight Company be-
cause the refining of sugar under those cir
cumstances bore no distinct relation to
commerce between the states or with for
eign nations.
ITO exclude agreements as to rates by
competing railroads for the transportation
OF articles of commerce between the states
would leave little for the act to take effect
upon. The interstate commerce act does
not authorize an agreement like the one
in question.
1T may not in terms prohibit, but it is
far from comforting either directly or by
implication any authority to make it. If
the agreement be legal. it does not owe
Its validity to any provision of the COM
merce act. and If illegal, it is not made SO
by that act.
THE fifth section prohibits what is term
ed pooling. but there is no express pro-
vision in the act prohibiting the mainte-
nance of traffic rates among competing
roads by making such a provision as this,
nor Is there any such provision which per-
mits 1t.
THE general nature of contract like
the one before us is not mentioned in or
provided for in the commerce act Com
peting and non-connecting roads are not
authorized by that statute to make an
agreement like this one
AS the commerce act does not authorize
this agreement, argument against a re-
peal by implication of the provision of
the act which 1t is alleged grants such au-
thority becomes ineffective. There is no
repeal In the case, and both statutes may
stand, as neither is inconsistent with the
other.
Railroads Not Excepted
We see nothing either in contempora-
neous history. In the legal situation at the
time of the passage of the statute, in its
legislative history, in any general diff
ference in the nature or time or trading
Of manufacturing companies from railroad
companies which would lead us to the con-
clusion that 1t can be supposed that the
legislature in prohibiting the making of
contracts In constraint of trade intended to
exclude railroads within the purview of
that act.
III prohibits contracts, combinations, etc,
in restraint of trade commerce. Trans
porting commodities is commerce. and if
from one state to or through another 1t
Is interstate commerce. When the act
prohibits contracts in restraint of trade or
commerce, the plain meaning of the Ian
guage used included contracts which relate
to either or both subjects.
Both trade and commerce are included
so long as each relates to that which is
interstate or foreign. While the statute
prohibits all combinations in the form of
trusts otherwise. the limitation is not
confined to that form alone. All combina-
tions which are in restraint of trade or
commerce. are prohibited, whether in the
form OF trusts or any form whatever.
I'VE are asked to hold that the act of
Congress excepts contracts which are not
in unreasonable restraint of trade, and
which only keep rates up to a reasonable
price. Notwithstanding the language of
the act makes no such exception. In Other
words, we are asked to read into the act,
by the way of judicial legislation, an ac-
ceptance that Is not placed there by the
law-making branch of the government.
This we cannot and ought not to do.
Trusts All Alike.
"Why should not a railroad company be
included in general legislation aimed at
the prevention of that kind of agreement
made in restraint of trade, which may ex-
ist in all companies and which tends very
much toward the same results, whether
put in practice by trading and manufac-
turing or by a railroad company?
'It is true, the results of trusts or COM
binations of that nature. may be different
in different kinds of corporations, and yet
they all have an essential similarity, and
have been induced by motives Of individual
or corporate aggrandizement as against the
public interest.
I'm business trading combinations
they may even temporarily, perhaps
permanently, reduce the price of the article
traded in or manufactured, by reducing the
expense inseparable from the running of
many different companies for the same
purpose.
Trade or commerce under those cir
cumstances may nevertheless be badly and
unfortunately restrained by driving out
of business the small dealers and worthy
men whose lives have been spent therein
ard wLo might be enabled to readjust
themselves to their altered surroundings
Low Prices No Excuse.
Mere reduction in the price of the COM
modify dealt in might be dearly paid for
by the ruin Of such class and the absorp-
tion of control over one commodity by an
all-powerful combination of capital
1T is wholly different when such changes
are effected by combinations of capital
whose purpose In combining Is to control
the production or manufacture of any par