The Savannah morning news., 1904-03-15

prediction had been made that dis
aster to business, and widespread fl
nancial ruin would follow the eXecu-
ton of it's provisions, and he added
that such predictions had been made
in connection with all preceding cases
under that act, but he said, they
have not been verified" He said the
court has no function to supervise leg
islation from the standpoint of wis
dom or policy.
Justice Harlan set aside as fallacious
the argument that the acquisition of
stock by the Northern Securities Com
pany was in the nature of an invest
ment, saying that there had been no
actual investment in any substantial
sense. In this connection he referred
to Mr.. Morgan as authority for the
statement that the stock had been
transferred to the securities company
merely for the purpose of suppressing
competition and quoted the testimony
of Mr.. Morgan in which he had said
that the securities company had been
created a custodian because it had no
other alliances. This" said Justice
Harlan, disclosed the actual nature
of the transaction, which was only to
organize the securities company as a
holding company in whose hands, not
as a purchaser or absolute owner, but
simply as custodian, We're to be placed
the stocks of the constituent compa-
MES"
Coming to the conclusion of his
opinion, Justice Harlan said:
THE judgment of the court is that
the decree below be and hereby is
affirmed, with liberty to the Circuit
Court to proceed in the execution of
it's decree as the circumstances may
require"
Justice Brewers Opinion.
Justices Brewer, Brown, McKenna
and Day concurred in this opinion, and
they, with Justice Harlan constituting
a majority of the court, made it the
opinion of the court. Justice Brewer,
however, did not accept the reasoning
of Justice Harlan in all it's details and,
therefore, delivered brief opinion of
his own. He expressed the opinion that
some of the recent decisions of the
court in antitrust cases had gone too
far, and after mentioning several of
them, said: ~
Instead of holding that the anti
trust act included all contracts, rea-
sonable or unreasonable, in restraint
OF interstate trade, the ruling should
have been that the contracts there
presented were in themselves unreason-
clOlC les VI INTERSTATE IIdQe, ana.
therefore, within the scope of the act"
Justice Brewer, however, regarded
the merger as an unreasonable combi-
nation in restraint of interstate com
merce and so concurred in judgment
of the judgment of afflrmance.
The Dissenting Views.
The dissenting justices, including
Chief Justice Fuller and Justices
White, Peckham and Holmes, present.
ed two opinions, giving their reasons
for not agreeing with the majority of
the court in the decision reached. The
first of these was delivered by Justice
Holmes and the second by Justice
White.
Justice Holmes construed the anti
trust law as criminal statute. Logi-
cally construed, he said, to-day's de-
cision should be followed by the Grim
inal prosecution of the parties at inter-
est in this case, yet he did not expect
to hear it maintained that Mr. Nor
gan could be sent to prison for buy
ing as many shares as he liked of the
Great Northern and Northern Pacific.
even if he bought both at the same
time and got more than half the stock
of each road"
Justice White based his opinion
upon what he said were the two prin-
cipal questions at issue, which were,
Does the antitrust act, when right
ly interpreted, apply to the acquisition
and ownership by the Northern Securi-
ties Company of the stock in the two
railroads, and, second, If it does, had
Congress the power to regulate or
control such acquisition and owner
ship"
Justice White said he conceded to
the fullest extent the power Of Con-
gress over interstate commerce. But
this question" he said, lis ownership
commercials the acquisition and own
ership, of property interstate COM
mercer" Commerce undoubtedly is
traffic, he went on, but it is something
more. If it be true that ownership OF
railroads may be controlled by the fed
eral government, why may not all
ownership be so controlled?
If the principle here adopted be
true, he contended, Mr.. Hilrs control
of the railroads in question could be
taken from him. He could not accept
this theory, but contended for the
right of the states TIC regulate matters
of this character for themselves. For
the federal government to take the po-
sition that 1t can supervise in such in
stances, is for il to pull down the pill
lars of the temple upon which it rests.