The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-08-29
THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIk
TON AND THE TRUST EVIL,


Too much Importance cannot ne attach
ed to the report of the committee on
Commercial Law of the American Bar
Association, printed yesterday. 1t was
the most comprehensive and statesmanhke
summing up of the evils of trusts that
ability of the lawyers who drafted the re-
port gives it increased weight and i'm
portance. There is no body of men sc
capable of dealing with this gigantic evil
as the American Bar Association. The
bar must be looked to when legislation
is shaped and when statutes are enforced.
The association now recognizes the trust
as the greatest evil that must be met.
1t declares that ''if combinations continue
competition will cease and commercial
Jurisprudence will eventually be entirely
changed" After pointing out, as ex
amples of the dangerous combinations
the Standard Oil trust, the shipping trust,
the sugar trust the railroad trust, the
report declares that: eve cannot, there
fore, rely on natural forces, on the law
of supply and demand or on economical
considerations to limit the growth OF
modern combinations 1t declares, with
a high conception of the duty of the
profession to the public, that if the trusts
are to be checked 1.-The American bar must
act and the American Bar Association
must take the lead"
The remedies proposed will be termed
drastic, but the able lawyers who drew
the report know that trusts cannot be
them. They know that the remedy must
go to the root of the disease or it vi
be ineffective and worthless. The three
remedies proposed are: l. Taxation,
graduated SO as to make it impossible for
such great combinations as the Steel Trust
to exist; 2. Compel better and cheaper ser
vice; 2. IF necessary, the State itself can
enter the industrial field as a producer
and restore the force of competition to
its former supremacy by becoming itself
a competitor of the great trusts One
Western State broke the binding Irvine
trust by resorting to this course for a
short time.
The lawyers are the most conservative OF
men in all callings. They are not quick to
propose radical or drastic measures or
radical reforms. The fact that a COM
mittee of distinguished lawyers unani-
mously presented the able report and that
its reading was applauded by the men,
bers who heard it is most significant. 1t
means that the most influential and most
learned of the professions is aroused tc
the Importance of checking the revolu
ton in laws and in business which the
trusts are making. There is no single
influence in the country that csn do so
much to check monopoly if its member
ship is ready to throw down the challenge
to the trusts. The lawyers will find
when they take the lead that the bulk
of the people are behind them. If the
Association commits itself to the policy
outlined in the report of the committee
on Commercial Law it will be hailed
throughout the country as the greatest
service the bar has ever rendered to jus
tice in the history of the United States.
OF course there was dissent to the re-
port. 1t was first voiced by an attorney
of the Southern Railway trust, Fabius
II. Busbee, Esq, of Raleigh. An attorney
of the sugar trust and railroad trust at
torney also grew excited. One of these
ment, surprise and Indignation" Of
r. course. These trust lawyers have SOLD
their service to monopolists to create the
illegal combinations condemned. Theil
speeches were on the key of Demetrius
the silversmith. by this craft we hav
your wealth. Exactly. If the Bar AS
ISOLATION goes cunning for the trusts, i
goes cunning for lawyers who get big
salaries to tell the trust magnates how
to rob the people illegally and keep ou
of jail An able corporation lawyer il
New York recently said: Things hav,
changed. A few years ago my client;
would say to me wish to do thus anC
So Can do it legally?' would then Civ
my legal opinion. Now they com
and say. L have done thus and so. Sc,
that ] am not troubled Lawyers VIII,
appear for great corporations as for 9th