The leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1895-1905, 1902-01-01
THE TRUSTS.

II h0oI o.
a late special from Jackson states
that Attorney General McClurg has
ordered the dismissal of the quo war
rauto cases against the thirty-six in
surance companies and the sixteen oil
mills.
After driving the Southeastern Tar
if Association out of the State to stay
and breaking up the oil mill combina-
ton of October, 1900, and developing
the imperfections of the antitrust
laws of this State, he found that he
could not finally succeed in driving the
insurance companies out of the State
or in confiscating the million dollars
worth of oil mill property. Taking
counsel with Judge Powell as to both
cases and with Governor McLaurin,
during whose administration the insur
ance case was instituted, and also with
ex-Attorney General Nash and Messrs.
Stirling & Harris, who instituted the
proceeding against the insurance COM
panies, he concluded the wise and
proper thing TO do was not to follow
these prosecutions any further, but to
ask the legislature to so amend the
law as to make successful prosecution
possible.
In the oil mill case the Supreme
court held that all civil proceedings
against them could be prosecuted by
the Attorney General alone, and that
he must go into each county of the
domicile of the mill to institute his
proceeding, matter which is utterly
impossible for him to do. In that
case, as we'll as in the insurance case,
the present statute makes everybody
liable to indictment, principals and
agents, who had anything to do with
the formation of the combination, and
all such persons under the present law
are exempted from testifying because
it would incriminate themselves, and it
was found impossible to succeed in
these cases without putting some of the
criminal conspirators on the witness
stand.
The Attorney General took the wise
course, and instead of making a grand
stand play and losing out on final trial
he is satisfied with the breaking up of
these combinations and asking the leg
islature to pass more effective laws,
among which he recommends statute
that will make all the conspirators and
their agents take the witness stand
and show their books and to authorize
the district attorneys to institute pro-
ceedings in their respective districts
and to empower the circuit judges
to infiict proper fines instead of de
stroying immense property values.
This is the most fortunate termina-
ton of these suits. To have succeed
ed in the oil mill case would have de-
stroyed million dollars worth of
property, and debarred the incorpora-
tors from further corporate rights OF
any kind in the State, and to have sue
ceeded in the insurance cases would
have driven out of the State the insur.
ance companies that carry, perhaps
eighty per cent. of the different kinds
of insurance held by the people of the
State, which would have been most
serious calamity. The Southeastern
Tariff Association is now out to stay
and the cotton seed combination of
last year was completely broken up
and much good has resulted from an
honest effort to enforce the law. The
United States courts are after the oil
mill men because of combination made
this year, and it may be that the At
torney General will be heard from
again as soon as he can get the legisla-
ton desired. In his report to the
legislature the Attorney General calls
attention to the refusal of the grand
juries to enforce the law by indict
ments as they have right to do, as an
illustration of his claim that the law is
too severe as now written to be effect
ually enforced.