Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-04-10
THE MERGER DECISION
RECEIVED WITH FAVOR BY THE
AMERICAN PRESS.
Comment on Finding Of United States
Circuit Court in Case Of North
ern Securities Company.
From the Philadelphia Ledger.

From the Philadelphia Ledger
The tendency toward combination and
toward community of interests has seemed
SO inevitable, or, at any rate it has pro-
ceeded of late years with 80 great rapidity
and on so large a scale in the whole field
of industry and notably in the manage
ment and control of railroads. that the
people had got into the habit of thinking
that nothing could stay the movement,
even when the specific acts were in clear
violation not only Of state laws and state
constitutions, but in direct and palpable
violation of the Sherman antitrust law
passed in 1890; and this feeling of helpless
ness has seemed to give force to the state
ment now heard on every hand that the
era of competition has irrevOcably passed,
and that the old theories of economics have
become completely Outworn. The decision
in the Northern Securities case shows that
the government has a powerful remedy in
its hands which will, judging by the out
General to check illegal combinations, at
least; not only railroad mergers, but any
combination which is engaged in interstate
commerce or which exercises a monopolis-
Is It New Lawp
From the New York Times.
1t is plain that the great corporation
lawyers must begin the study of the law
anew-Or, rather, they must begin to study
the new law. Inc decision OF the united
States circuit court at ST. Paul declaring
the Northern Securities Company to be
corporation formed for an unlawful pur-
pose makes this evident. The eminent
counselors employed by the corporations
which were parties to this transaction ad-
vised their clients that the course they
wished to take was safe and lawful. The
court says it is not. The lawyers proceed
ed upon the assumption that the right to
buy and sell property is inalienable. The
court says that in order to effect lawful
transfer of property both the buyer and
the seller must be competent to make the
trade, and incompetence is affirmed when
either the buyer or the seller seeks to &C
complish a purpose declared to be unlaw-
full. Conceivably this opinion might work
to deprive man of his property.
The President Sincere.
From the Philadelphia Inquirer.
After this we shall hear no more about
this administration being opposed to
trusts in theory but against the enforce
slant cry of demagogic journals that the
President is playing double-faced game.
1t is certain that the corporations will have
hard work In finding more than one face
presented to them now. On its surface the
decision Is sweeping and apparently fraught
with calamity to property interests. We
do not believe that this will be it's final
result. Whatever good there is In combi-
transportation companies will endure;
what is OF evil must disappear. We
do not believe 1t possible that there
will be any breaking up of the large
corporations which have been gradually
and through many years accommodating.
The Pennsylvania cannot be reduced to a
line from here to Pittsburg nor the Reading
to It's original track from Germantown to
Pottsyille.
Abandon slHoldinr. Principle.