Mexico Missouri message., 1904-03-24

continue TO be directed by the same
Interests. When the legal advisers
have measured and weighed the opin.
ion 1t may be possible to accomplish
the same result BY lodging the owner.
ship Of the stocks In some other rail.
road, rs Is now done IN a score Of
similar cases, as the New York Cen
trail owns Lake Shore. as the Penn.
sylvania owns Baltimore and Ohio, as
the Oregon Shore Line owns the
Southern Pacific, being In turn owned
by the Union Pacific.
AS an individual cannot be prohib.
tied from buying securities, so a rail.
road corporation cannot be prohibited.
In the majority opinion there Is no
reference TO this form OF control.
The question was not raised and non
interference with the scores of cases
where such control is held may be re-
garded as pointing out the way for
the retention of the Hill properties.
While the decision does not touch
upon the ordinary method of holding
railroads, 1t has q direct bearing upon
the industrial situation. Many Of the
corporations formed along the trust
line in the last ten years come under
the designation of an unlawful combi-
nation as laid down in the dictum OF
the opinion. The Securities company
as the h rad and front of those Offend
ing is Justice Harlan's keynote, and
every combination of properties, every
putting together of manufacturing
concerns has been based upon the Sc
curities idea. The United States Steel
combination exchanged its stocks for
those of dozen great corporations,
many of which were in turn built
upon many competing plants. This
corporation, which is used as illus
trative of the others, derives it's rev.
enue by dividends from the underly-
ing plants, each one of which is gov.
erned by its own board, but under
direction and control of the central
power
From its PRONUNCIATION the Sherman
antitrust act was understood as es-
tablishing a criminal offense to be
proceeded against by form of indict-
ment of individuals and to bring a
corporation to punishment in the in
Fiction of ine. Instead of seeking
a specific act of restraining trade by
overcharge, rebate or extortion, the
government profited by the trend of
practice before courts and appealed
to the Injunction. The proceedings
against the Securities company was
to enioin it from doing things feared
or alleged and the order of the court
below was in the form CT injunction,
now affirmed by the Supreme court
The Securities company being pun
ished not for what it has done but
what It is capable of doing.
The same procedure is imminent
against any corporation which owns
the stocks of two or more engaged in
the same line of business. The court
declares there is but one remedy, the
repeal of the law; if the enforcement
along the line outlined in the opinion
becomes fashionable Wall street trad
ers will congratulate themselves that
the blow fell after Security values
had been brought down to the dollar
for dollar basis and liquidation may
possess an element Of profit.
john Marshall Harlan, who handed
down the decision in the Northern Sc
curities case, has been an associate
justice of the Supreme court OF the
United States since Nov. 20, 1877. He
was born in Boyle county, Kentucky,
in 1888, was educated in Center col
| lage and Transatlantic university and
was a county judge at the age Of 20.
From 1861 to 1868 he was colonel OF
the Tenth kentucky regiment in the
Union army, and from the latter year
until 1867 was attorney general OF
the Blue Grass state. Justice Harlan
was one OF the arbiters in the BerinG
sea case. He it was who handed
down the decision in the famous Ne
braska maximum freight rate case.