Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-03-14

restraint could not be assumed.
They also claimed that the purpose for
| the bringing together of the two companies
| was to so harmonic their relations that 1t
would be possible to develop to larger
extent than ever before certain classes OF
| trade and commerce between the United
States and the orient those roads connect
| ing with ship lines from the Puget Sound
region to the far east. 1t was claimed, in
fact, that there had been actually an in
crease of trade, SO that it could not be said
that the merger had resulted in restraint
| of trade.
The decision of the court. rendered by
| Associate Justice Harlan, is most positive
| ly against all of these contentious
Merger Declared Trust.
Justice Harlan said that in the merger of
| the two roads the stockholders disappeared
| and reappeared in the Securities Company,
! the two thus becoming practically consoli-
| dated in a holding company, the principle
| object being to prevent competition. mo
scheme or device could certainly more ef-
| fectively come within the prohibition of the
antitrust law, and it is within the mean
| ing of the act trust
| The contentious of the Securities Com
pany were reviewed, and Justice Harlan
! said they had received full attention. He
! quoted the various opinions involving the
trust question, saying that from them it
is to be gathered that all contracts in re-
Straint of trade, reaSonble or unreasonable,
are prohibited by the Sherman law, and
that Congress has the power to establish
such regulations as are laid down in that
law Congress had power to enact the
statute.
Replying in detail to the points made
for the Securities Company, Justice Har-
Ian said that the contention that the law
is an interference with the rights of the
individual states by which the companies
are Incorporated was not well founded.
In such cases, he said, the authority of
Congress is supreme. He also declared it
to be unnecessary to determine the right of
owners of railroad stock to sell their prop
| erty nor was 1t true that the right of the
Securities Company to own and hold rail-
road stock is the only question involevd.
Such contentious are wide of the mark
mere men of straw. All that the gov
| ernment complains of is the existence of
| corporation to repress commerce, and is not
| concerned with the other points.
Justice Harlan said that in this day
| there should be no doubt of the complete
| power of Congress to control interstate
commerce, all appropriate means might be
resorted to for that purpose. All the prior
trust cases We're In support of that con-
| tention. Whether free and unrestrained
| competition was wise, he said, was an eco
nomic question with which the court need
| not concern itself, the question was that
of statutory law.
He asserted the power of Congress over
| interstate commerce to be as complete as
| the power of state over domestic COM
merce
Plea of UnconStitutionality.
Coming to the plea of the railroads that
the antitrust law should be declared un-
constitutional, he said that the court could
| not see its way to that end If he went
on, ''the securities company's contentious
are sound why may not all the railroads
of the United states enter into combiQa-
tion and by the device of a holding cor
poration control rates throughout the coun-
try in defiance of COngreSS?'
Justice Harlan also took occasion to sly
that there hau been nothing in the secur-
tiles companyS certificate of incorporation
to indicate it's purpose to be that of de-
stroying commerce, and he therefore alb
| solved the state of New Jersey from any
charge Of such knowledge in advance. 1t
might be true that a federal court has no
power to dissolve a corporation of state,
but this circumstance could not be an indi-
cation of powerlessress to enforce the law,
| than which no corporation is stronger. No
device could suffice to prevent this enforce
ment of the national statutes.
The courts had indeed consistently held to
the supremacy of the national laws in case
of conflict between those laws and the laws
of the states. So long as Congress con-
| fined itself to it's prescribed functions, he
| said, there could be no danger. At any rate
the error, if any, was with Congress and
It was for Congress to supply the remedy,
| and not for the courts.
Justice Harlan also discussed the pre-
| dictions of financial disaster from the
lOrCefDe0I Oh the dIll-lTuSl law, Dut us
| couraged them, saying they were usua.
under such circumstances and need not
| be realized.
J. Pierpont Morgan Quoted.
Justice Harlan declared that the only OBJ
| ject of the merger was to prevent compe-
tition, and he said that if no one else knew
this to be the case ]. Pierpont Morgan, one
of the defendants, knew that to have been
the case. Extracts from Mr.. Morgan's tes-
timony were quoted in support of this
statement
Material Allegations Sustained.
'In our Judgment said Justice Harlan,
"the evidence fully sustains the material
allegations of the bill and shows viola
ton of the act of Congress, in so far as
1t declares illegal every combination con-
spiracy in restraint of commerce among the
several states and with foreign nations, and
forbids attempts to monopolize such COM
merce
Laying aside the many things of minor
character and summarizing the principal
facts, it is indisputable, upon this record,
that under the leadership of the defendants,
Hill and Morgan, the stockholders of the
Great Northern and Northern Pacific rail-
way corpora tions, having competing and
substantially parallel lines from the great
lakes and the Mississippi river to the Pacinc
ocean at Puget sound, combined and con-
ceived the scheme of organizing a corpora
ton under the laws of New Jersey, which
should hold the shares of stock of the con-
stituent companies"
Continuing, Justice Harlan said that ''this
combination is, within the meaning of the
| act, a trust, but If not it is combination
in restraint of Interstate and international
commerce, and that is enough to bring it
under a condemnation of the act"
He held that If such combination were
| not destroyed "all the advantages that
| would naturally come to the public under
| the operation of the general laws of com
| petition, as between the great Northern
| and Northern Pacific railway companies
| will be lost, and the entire commerce of
| the immense territory in the northern part
| OF the United States between the great
| lakes and the Pacific at Puget sound. will
be at the mercy of single holding corpora
tlon, organized in a state distant from the
| people of that territory"
| Duscussing the contention of the defend
| ants that the enforcement of the act of
| Congress would be an interference by the
| national government with the internal
| commerce OF the states creating those cor
| porations, Justice Harlan said: This view
| does not impress us. There is no reason
| TO suppose that Congress had any purpose
| to interfere with the internal affairs of the
| tk.<Ya