The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1903-01-07
Recommendation for Immediate Leg
isIation.

lives have been devoted to industry. who
have developed and made profitable the
properties now possessed by the trusts at
prices far in excess of the cost of mod
ernzed duplicates, who will not long re-
main idle when assured that their capf-
tai and experience can be securely en-
ployed in the business to which they
were trained.
"Too much has been said IN public dis
cusson to the trusts in this respect. Or
ganizations in one state to control the
production in other states of commodities
consumed in all the states are, as a rule,
devices of shrewd men to capitalize for
their own benefit the countrys prosperity.
They are begotten in prosperous times.
Poor times offer no inducements. They
are essentially different from the combi-
nations effected by producers of their
own motion for economic reasons. These
which have been. recklessIy conceived
contain within themselves the germ Of
their own undoing. They have, as a rule,
only acquired the ownership of the stocks
of the industries of The country which
had already attained their gigantic stat
ure Their existence does not increase
the productive capacity of the country as
higher prices of products have stimulated
competition, nor have they brought us by
their existence increased demand, as the
pend upon the title to capital stocks of
producing companies.
my suggestion, therefore, Is that as q
first step In policy to be persistently
pursued upon every industry large and
small, in the country, can be assured OF
equal rights and opportunities and until
the tendency to monopolization OF the
important industries of the country is
checked, that all discriminatory practices
tr,kn .toto dn he IL.
sive to both enjoined and punished. Such
legislation to be directed alike against
those who give and those who receive
the advantages thereof and to cover dis
elimination in prices as against competi-
tors, in particular localities, resorted to
for the purpose of destroying ocmpeti-
ton in Interstate and foreign trade, as
we'll as discrimination by carriers.
Obviously Unreasonable.
''Such practices are so obviously unrea-
sonable that to inhabit them would be
measure for the regulation of commerce
to keep it free and unrestrained and not
to attempt to exercise arbitrary power.
Such legislation to certainly reach pro-
ducers, guilty of practices Injurious to
national and international commerce,
should, in my judgment, take the form of
penalizing the transportation of the goods
produced by the guilty parties, and the
federal courts should be given power to
restrain such transportation at the suit
of the government
'1t may be said that under the act to
regulate commerce a shipper may be
punished for receiving rebates or special
rates less than the lawful published
rates and that 1t Is unnecessary to pro-
vide additional legislation In this respect
OF curb trusts, monopolies and combina-
tions. This however. Is an erroneous
statement.
Whatever the congress may have de-
signed in the act to regulate commerce
regarding the punishment of shippers for
participation in violation of that act, as
construed by the courts. their punishable
offenses fall under two heads:
Il Where the shipper has solicited or
participated in instances of unjust dis
elimination. and
'2. In cases of fraud perpetrated by
him against the carrier, for example, by
false representation Of the contents of
package.
LAS to the first, the courts have held
that to constitute unjust discrimination,
1t Is necessary to prove that at the time
the lower and unlawful rate was being
granted to the favored ripper the higher
and lawful rate was imposed against an