The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-03-17
LET THE GOOD WORK GO ON.

Securities case was so nearly equal, but
| it is gratifying that the decision of the
court puts a quietus upon Mr.. Morgan
gigantic transportation trust. IT the
Northern Securities Company could own
all the railroads in the Northwest, we
would soon have seen a Southern, West
ern and Eastern Securities Company CIV
| ing a monopoly of transportation in every
part of the country. all forerunners of
Morgan's contemplated Amalgamated or
General Securities Company that would
swallow up all the others and own every
important railway system in the United
States. Judge Thayer, who wrote the de-
cision in the case in the Circuit case, af-
ter expressing his qualification at the de-
cision, affirming his opinion put the
whole matter clearly in these words:
I'm my judgment it would have been
little less than a public misfortune if
the Supreme Court had sanctioned the
doctrine that, notwithstanding the Sher-
man Antitrust law, a corporation could
be created, having no business of it's
stocks of other corporations, and there
by control them.
"It requires but little foresight to see
that if such holding corporations are
tolerated it is not only possible but ex-
tremely probable that within few years
a. few men would control all the trans
portation facilities and all the industrial
enterprises in the United States, and in
win of
would be even stronger than the Gov
eminent ITSELF
The cost of transportation constitutes
large portion of the price the consumer
pays for almost everything he buys.
Without perfect monopoly, freight rates
have advanced very much upon inter
State business in North Carolina, and if
the Northern Securities Company had
been upheld in it's wholesale abolition
of competition it would be only short
time before the freight charges every
where would be regulated upon the
amount the traffic will bear.
The country will rejoice that the will
OF the people prevails and that the trans
pCrtation trust has been defeated, at least
temporarily. 1t is too much to expect
that the mcnopolists at the head of the
scheme will accept this decision as final.
They will try to hit upon some new ex-
pedient that will run the gamut of the
closely divided court. There's millions
| in it," and they will continue to try to
| find some evasion of the law that will
stick. Failing in that, they will seek a
repeal of the law. or some amendment
that will emasculate it.
If all the things that Mr. Roosevelt has
DONE the bringing of this suit does him
more honor than all the other acts COM
bined. Now that he sees it is possible
to enforce the antitrust law to prevent
the operations of a trust in the forming,
let him enforce the law against those
trusts that are actually preying upon the
people in violation of the law. 1t is of
Importance to have stopped one giant
trust in the forming. 1t is even more
important to enforce the law agains other
trusts, say the steel and paper trust, that
enjoy special favors through protection
| as we'll as immunity from prosecution.
The quickest way, according to the
Democrats, to hit the steel trust and the
paper trust a solar plexus blow would be
to deny them the bonus given in the
Dingley tariff law, and to follow that up
by prosecution and Imprisonment of its
will not touch the tariff system of rob
bling Peter TO pay Paul and will not per-
nit Imprisonment of men who rob on a
large scale, it is not too much to ask
that prosecutions be commenced against
all trusts upon the lines which compelled
the Securities Company ito die a-born-
ing" The law is plain, Congress has ap-
plopriated ample money to conduct the
prosecutions, and now that it is clear
that the law will uphold the prosecutions
why any delay? The tobacco trust could
be proceeded against in North Carolina;
the sugar trust in Louisiana; the rice
trust in South Carolina the steel trust
IN Pennsylvania; the oil trust in Ohio;
the paper trust in Maine: and the va
rious other trusts in the other States
WIN New Jersey and New York as the
States where nearly all of them are in
cG'rorated or conducted as the places for
| the prosecution of nearly all the balance
or these giant robbers of the people The
district attorneys in each State, with the
assistance of special counsel, could be-
gin this work at once and the trusts will
be kept on the run and the law will be
indicated. If Mr.. Roosevelt is really in
earnest in his opposition to trusts he
will make a strenuous attack this spring
ali along the line.