The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-12-13

way between these two companies in 1 its relation to interstate commerce. As a producer of oil, it's case cannot be 1 different fro mthat of the Sugar com- pany, but as an owner of pipe lines | engaged directly in interstate trans ] portation it occupies a position more nearly analogous to that of the rail- ! roads. One mans guess is as good as anothers as to how this combination l will be regarded by the United States supreme court. The substitution of MT. | Moody for Mr Justice Brown makes no ! difference, because Ar. Justice Brown was of the majority in the Northern Se- curities case, and it is safe to predict l that MT. Moody will not be with the minority. It is clear from an eXamina- l tion of these authorities that any cor poration or holding company, or trust, engaged in the manufacture of any | commodity, and not engaged in it's dis tribution, is outside the scope of the an- ti-trust law, which will affect such | companies because the supreme court holds, practically unanimously, that such companies do not deal directly with interstate commerce. If therefore, the beef trust, and all other combina- tion engaged in the production of any articles, will follow the example of the sugar trust and incorporate under thu laws of state, 1t is difficult to see how the federal government can in any way affect them. In other words, it is in the power of every individual combination 1 to place itself entirely without the power of congress to interfere with its business by incorporation under a state l law.
 What I have said relates to the at
 tempts of the federal government to | break up combinations which have re- suited in the maintenance of monopoly. We see the great limitations which are; as a practical matter placed upon fed eral power, which render it powerless to prevent monopoly. Does congress have the right to take the next step, to regulate the price at which articles engaged in interstate commerce may be sold.
 Congress probably has the constitu- tional right to regulate the rates of interstate transportation This how | ever, is a very different matter from
 the power to fix the prices of articles entering into such transportation. But for a moment assum that congress has that power. It certainly cannot exer- else it directly. It would be a most absurd proposition to have congress de- | liherating and deciding that a bushel of wheat should be sold for seventy-five cents, and gallon of oil for ten cents, and pound of sugar for five cents.
 No one, I believe, is so visionary as to suppose for a moment that we are go- ing back to that practice which fail ed so wofully in Europe, of establish
 ing laws fixing the price of the neces- saries of life by legislation, It is, there- fore, profitless to take up your time in discussing the academic question of the power of congress to do this.
 Neither can congress delegate to a commission, or any other body, this power to fix prices If it could dele-
 gate this power, who in this country
 would like to have the prices of the products of our industries fixed by a
 body of half dozen men, no matter 1 how able or how disinterested?
 My conclusion, therefore, on the con-
 stitutional side of this question is that
 there is no power in the federal gov
 ernment which can be practically ex-
 ercised to put a stop to the evils of combination.