The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-08-20

0poltzing trade which prosecutions and investigations have shown to be used in actual practice. The decisions of the courts and the experience of executive and prosecuting officers make the fram- Ing of such statute possible. It will have the good effect of making much clearer to those business men who would obey the laws the methods to be avoided.
 Another and perhaps the most ef- fective method in the past for an un- lawful trust to maintain itself has been to secure secret rebates or other unlawful advantage in transportation, by threat of withholding business from the carrier. This is undoubtedly what has enabled the Standard Oil Company and the sugar trust and other great combinations to reap an illegal harvest and to drive all competitors from the field. If by asserting complete Fed eral control over the interstate rail- ways of the country, i've can suppress secret rebates and discrimfnations of other kinds, we snail nave gone long way in the Suppression of the unlawful trusts.
 Answers MT. Bryaa.
 MT. Bryan asks me what would do with the trusts. I answer that would restrain unlawul trusts with all the efficiency of inJunctive process and would punish with all severity of the criminal prose- -cution every attempt on the part of ag- gregateda capital through the illegal means l have described to suppress competition.
 There has been great activity in the Department of Commerce and Labor and In the Department of Justice in an ef- fort to investigate and restrain tine continuance of such unlawful methods and the success which has attended this effort in the dissolution of a number of such trusts where they consisted of several companies or partnershipssunit- ed by contract in restraint of trade has been gratifying, In the case of those who have made themselves into one corporation, there restraint is more difficult. It involves enormous labor on the part of the Government to pros ecute such a combination because the proof of the gist of such combination lies underneath an almost limitless va- irety, of transactions. In the outset, it can be very much more easily reached | by bill in equity than in criminal | prosecution and the question of law ar ising may be more quickly settled. | When the law is declared so that the | corporations understands exactly the l Limitations unon it's action, and it then | pursues it's previous illegal methods, nothing but criminal prosecution ought
 MT. Bryan is continually asking why some of the managers of unlaw- | full trusts have not Jeen convicted and sent to the penitentiary I sympathize with him in his wish that this may be done, because I think that the inDris- | onment of one or two would have a | most healthy effect throughout the | country; but even without such im- prisonment | believe that the prosecu- | tions that are now on foot and the in- | functions which have already been is- sued, have had a marked effect on busi- ness methods One reason for the small number of sentences of Imprisonment | in trust prosecutions is that the reve- | lations of unlawful trust methods and dishonest nave been chiefly made | known in secret rebates and as I have | already said, the E1xins act, until amended by the Rate Bill, only pre- scribed fines as mode of punishment | in such cases.
 Juries Hesitate to Imprison Again. 1t is difficult to induce juriei | to convict individuals of 8 violation oi the antitrust law, if Imprisonment is to follow. In the case of the Tobacco cept a plea of guilty by the individua defendants, offered on condition that only the penalty of a fine be imposed not hesitate to stuitifV itself. by find. l ing the corporation guilty and acquit' ting the individual defendants. whc had personally committed the acts upor | which the conviction of the corporation | was based. In the early enforcement oi ' statute which makes unlawful, bo' | cause of it's evil tendencies, that whIcf has been regarded in the past as legiti. | mate, 1uries are not inclined .bv theil | verdict to imprison individuals. The | course which the Government has per sued of resorting to civil processes nrSt and clarifying the meaning of a gener' | is probably the best course to pursue l As the criminal prosecutions go on | (and many such prosecutions have nov | been begun), if the violations or th' | trust law are continued has created al | anxiety among those engaged in doubt full enterprises that has either. driver | them out of the business or made then | careful not to give occasion For furth | CT complaint.
 | trusts root and branch If Mir. Bry' | ans language Is more than mere rhet' | oric and he means to siege the proper | ty. to divide 1t up and sell it in pieces 1 and disassemble the parts, then I an | with trusts, because believe that suct | large combinations legitimatelv con ducted greatly add to the prosperity oi | the country.
 ward combinations of capital for the rt l auction in the cost of production should | be exactly the same ns toward the | combinations of labor for the purpose of bettering the condition of the wage l worker and of increasing his share oi | the joint profit of capital and labor i They are both to be encouraged in | every way as long as they conduct themselves within the law. They botf l weild enormous power and if welded i Tor good can be Of inestimable benefit l Their power for evil when in the hands | of interruptions men is such that if fl is to be restrained,it- eeds the use of al
 the means which the executive and thu | courts can lawfully command. I thinl 1t entirely possible by the rigorous pro | secution of the law against Illegal com | binations and bv the equal and just op- l eration of railways, to prevent re-oc' currapce of what we have had in tht past and to restrain within the bounds