The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-12-04
CONGRESS LISTENS To
PRESIDENTS MESSAGE
Continued from Page I.

be additional LEGISLATION looking to the
proper control of the great business con-
Germs engaged in interstate business, TINS
control to be exercised for their own bene-
fit and prosperity no less than for the
protection of investors and of the general
public. AS l have repeatedly said IN mes
sages to the congress and elsewhere, eX-
perience has definitely shown not merely
the unWisdom but the futility of en-
deavoring to put a stop to all business
combinations. Modern Industrial condi-
lions are such that combination Is not
only necessary but inevitable. 1t is SO in
the world of business just as il is so In
the world of labor and 1t is as ldle TO
desire to put an end to all corporations,
to all big combinations OF capital, as 10
desire to put an end TO combinations of
labor Corporation and labor union alike
have come to stay. Each II properly man
aged is q source of good and not evil.
Whenever in either there is evil. it should
be promptly held to account; but it should
receive hearty encouragement so long as
II is properly managed. 1t is profoundly
immoral to put or keep on the statute
books a law. nominally in the interest of
public morality, that really puts pre-
MUM upon public immortality, by under
taking to forbid honest men from doing
what must be done under modern bust
ness conditions, so that the law itself pro
vides that its own infraction must be
the condition precedent upon business sue.
cess. To aim at the accomplishment OF
too much usually means the accomplish
positive damage. In my message to the
congress a year ago. in speaking of the
antitrust laws, l said:
Former Message Again Quoted.
1.-THE actual working of our laws has
shown that the effort to prohibit all COM
binatiOn, good or bad, is noxious where
it is not ineffective. Combination of cap
ital like combination of labor, is Il nee
essary element in our present industrial
system. 1t is not possible completely TO
prevent it; and if it were possible such
complete prevention would do damage to
the body polite. What We need is not
vainly to try to prevent all combina-
tiOns, but to secure such rigorous and
adequate control and supervision of the
combinations as to prevent their lnJur-
ing the public. or existing in such form
as inevitably to threaten injury. = .
1t is unfortunate that our present laws
should forbid all combinations instead Of
sharply discriminating between those
combinations which do good and those
combinations which do evil Often
railroads would like to combine for the
purpose of preventing a big shipper from
maintaining improper advantages at the
expense of small shippers and of the gen
eral public. Such a combination, instead
of being forbidden by law, should be IA
VOred It is a public evil to have
on the statute books law incapable of
full enforcement, because both judges and
iurieS realize that its full enforcement
would destroy the business of the coun-
try: for the result is to make decent men
violators of the law against their will, and
to put a premium on the behavior of the
willful wrOng-doers. Such result in turn
tends to throw the decent man and the
wiIlfuI wrong door into close association,
and in the end to drag down the former to
the Iatter's level; for the man who be
comes a laWbreakeT in one way unnap-
PLY tends to lose ali respect for law and
To be willing to break it in many ways.
No more scathing condemnation could
be visited upon a law than is contained
in the words of the Interstate Commerce
commission when, in commenting upon
the fact that the numerous joint traffic
associate do technically violate the
law. they say: The decision of the Unit
ed States supreme court in the transmits
souri, case and the Joint Traffic aSsOcia-
ton case has produced no practical ef-
feet upon the railway operations of the
country. Such associations. in fact. exist
now as they did before these decisions
and with the same general effect. In
Justice to all parties. we ought probably
to add that it is difficult to see how our
interstate railways could be operated with
due regard to the interest of the shipper
and the railway without concerted action
of the kind afforded through these asso-
Citations
This means that the law as construed
by the supreme court is such that the
business Of the country cannot be con-
Quoted without breaking it