The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-26
DRASTIC ACTION
 BY FEDERATION Resolutions Are Passed Upon Trust Question COMBINATIONS NECESSARY Labor Union, Farmers Union and Elm. ployers' Trade Agreements Are
 Indorsed and Certain 9th
 CTS With Limitations.
COMBINATIONS NECESSARY

Chicago October 25.--Today's session Of the National Civic Federation was given over to five-minute talks by business men who discussed the various topics intro- duced by the various speakers during the last three days
 The committee on resolutions presented it's report as follows:
 After 20 years of federal legislation, ss interpreted by the court, directed against the evils of trusts and combinations and against railroad rebates, beginning with the interstate commerce act of 1SSI and the antitrust act of 1890, general and justihable conviction exists that the per cent gained in enforcing these federal acts and others succeeding them demonstrates the necessity of legislation which shall render more secure the benefits already gained and better meet the changed con- dtions. These changes now demanded are:
 1. Immediate legislation is required ,ol- lowing the recommendation of President Roosevelt and the interestate commerce commission permitting agreements be- tween railroad corporations on rcason- able freight and passenger rate, subject in all respects to the approval, superyi- sion, and action of the interstate com merce commission.
 2.iThe enforcement of the Sherman act. We urge upon Congress without delay to pass legislation, providing for a non- partisan commission, in which the inter- ests of capital, of labor, and of tlie gen eral public. shall be represented. This commission shall consider the entire sub ject of business and industrial conditions. Any proposed legislation should also n clude modification of the prohibition now existing upon combinations on the follow ing subjects:
 l. National and local organizations of labor and their trade agreements with employers
 g. Associations made up of farmers, in- tended to secure stable and equitable market for the products of the soil, free from fuctuati ons due to speculation. 3. Business and industrial agreements or combinations whose objects are in the public interest as distinguished from ob- jects determined to be contrary to the public interest.
 f. Such commission should make thor ough inquiry into the advisabiiity of in- augurating a system of federal license or Interpretations as condition for the entrance of certain classes of corporations upon interstate commerce, and also into the relation to the public interest of the purchase by one corporation of the fran chise or corporate stocks of another. E g. Dhe examination, inspection and su- pervision of great producing and manu- featuring corporations already begun by the department of commerce and labor and accepted by these corporations. should be enlarged by legislation requiring complete publicity in the capitalization. accounts, operations. the transportation charges paid. and selling prices of all such producing and manufacturing cor porations, whose operations are large enough to have d monopolistic influ- ence. 6. The conflicts between the state and federal authorities raised in many states over railroad rates being now under ad- judication and under way of a final and ultimate decision by the federal supreme court, this conference deems the expres- sion of any opinion on these issues unfit ting, and confidently leaves thls great is sue to a tribunal which for llS years has successfully preserved the balance be. tween an indissoluble union and the in destructible states. defining the supreme and national powers of the one and pro- tecting the sovereign and individual pow CTS of the other.
 The resolutions were adopted as read. Immediately after the adoption of the report of the committee on resolutions the ! convention adjourned sine die.