Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1907-08-20

Enthusiastically ngAd Attends Banquet and Reception His MM0amhI Holiday Dress Him

ulators and thus to pile such an nm
profitable debt upon railway as to n
make bankruptcy and Teceivership
probable in the first business strin- n
gency.
Amendments Against Purchase Of
Stock in Competing Lines and
Against Common Directors.
A much used means Of eliminating
| competition among interstate lines
serving the same territory is the ac-
| quiston by one company of the stock
in another and the election of direc-
tors to represent that stock This
| process is facilitated by the uncon-
trolled power to issue securities be-
yond the needs of the company for
| its legitimate business and would be
curbed by the restriction proposed. 1
The evil ought further to be directly
restrained by making it unlawful for
an interstate railway to acquire
stock in a competing line This is
a simpler remedy of meeting the evil !
| than by recourse to the antitrust
Ilaw under the Northern Securities
i case. In addition to this, competing
lines should be prohibited from hav-
ing common directors or officers.
Objections to Government Ownership.
/ I am opposed to government own
ership- Is.
First, because existing government
railways are not managed with either
the efficiency or economy of private
ly managed roads and the rates
charged are not as low and there
fore not as beneficial to the public.
Second, because it would involve
an expenditure of certainly twelve.
billions of dollars to acquire the in
terstate Railways and the creation
of an enormous national debt.
Third, because it would place in
the hands of reckless executive
power of control over business and
politics that the Imagination can
hardly conceive, and would expose
our popular institutions to danger.
TRUSTS.
L pass now from railway reeuls-
ton and the abuses arising in tho
discharge of public function to the
evils which have grown out of the
combinations existing in private bust
at1onsness, and so come to the SUBJ
]ect OF trusts. The combination of
capital in large plants to manufac-
ture goods with the greatest econo-
my is just as necessary as the assem-
bling of the parts of a machine to
the economical and more rapid man.
ufacture of what in old times was
made by hand. The government
| should not interfere with the one
| any more than the other. In the
| proper operation of competition the
public will soon share with the man
ufacturer the advantage in lowered
prices. When, however, such COM
| binations not only lower the cost
! to themselves, but are able to con-
! troll the market and maintain or
raise the old prices, the public de-
rives no benefit and is helpless in the
hands of monopoly.
Antitrust law
Fear of the existence of such an
abuse led to the passage of the anti
trust law in 1890. 1t recognizes two
forms in which this evil may be
maintained. One is by an agreement
among number of different manu-
facturers of an article for the main
tenance of the price of Inc article
| and the suppression of competition.
This is denounced when the contract
| is in restraint of interstate trade as
criminal offense against the United
! States. punishable by fine and inn
prisonmerit. and a conspiracy which
!, may be restrained by injunction ii
a civil suit, The other form is de
nounced, with similar remedies
against it, as monopoly of inter-
state trade, and covers the union of
| the eonspiring conn anies into one
lcompany which, BY owning all the
plant or nearly all the plant. engag.
ed in the manufacture Of the pro
duet and by use Of other devices,
controls the prices. The supreme
court has not defined whst 4 naonop-
gontdnued ON page 81.