The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1908-05-02
to be accompanied by much that Is
wrong.


Executive Needs Power.
Power should unquestionably be
lodged somewhere in the executive
branch of the government to permit
combinations which will further the
public interest, but 1t must always be
remembered that as regards the great,
wealthy combinations through which
most of the interstate business of to-
day is done, the burden of proof
should be on them to show that they
have a right to exist. No judicial
tribunal has the knowledge or expert
ence to determine, in the first place,
whether a given combination is ad-
visable or necessary in the interest OF
the public. Somebody, whether COM
mission or bureau under the depart
ment of commerce and labor, should
be given this power. My personal be-
lief is that ultimately we shall have to
adopt national Incorporation law,
though 1 am well aware that this may
be impossible at present.
lover the actions of the executive
body the power is placed and the
courts should possess merely a power
of review, analogous to that obtaining
! in connection with the work of the
interstate commerce commission at
present. To secure this would not be
a leap in the dark It would be mere
| ly to carry still further the theory of
effective governmental control of cor
porations responsible for the creation
of the interstate commerce commits
sion and for the enlargement of it's
powers and for the creation of the bu-
reau of corporations. The interstate
commerce legislation has worked ad-
mirably.
"At present the failure of the con-
gress to utilize and exercise the great
powers conferred upon it as regards
| interstate commerce leaves this COM
merce to be regulated not by the state,
nor yet by the congress, but by the
occasional and necessarily inadequate
and One-sided action of the federal jul
dietary. However upright and able a
court is it cannot act constructively;
! it can only act negatively or destruc-
lively as an agent of government; and
this means that the courts are and
must always be unable to deal eff
fectively with problem like the pres
ent, which requires constructive action.
A court can decide what is faulty, but
it has no power to make better that it
thus finds to be faulty. There should
be an efficient executive body created
with power enough to correct abuses
and scope enough to work out the COM
pick problems that this great country
has developed. 1t is not sufficient OBJ
be guilty of unwisdom or of abuses.
Any governmental body, whether a
court or commission, whether execu-
tive, legislative or judicial, if given
power enough to enable it to do eff
fective work for good, must also in
evitably receive enough power to make
it possibly effective for evil.
Control Over Combinations.
Therefore it is clear unless a ma
tional incorporation law can be en-
acted, that body or bodies in the execu-
tive service should be given power to
pass upon any combination or agree
ment in relation to interstate COM
merce and every such combination or
agreement not thus approved should
be treated as violation of law and
prosecuted accordingly. The issuance
OF the securities of any combination
doing Interstate business should be
under the supervision of the national
government.
"A strong effort has been made to
have labor organizations exempted
from any of the operations of the law,
whether or not their acts are in re-
straint of trade. Such exemption
would in all probability make the bill
unconstitutional and the legislature
has no more right to pass a bill with
out regard to whether it is constitu-
tional than the courts have lightly to
declare unconstitutional a law which
the legislature has solemnly enacted.
The responsibility is as great on the
one side as on the other, and an abuse
of power by the legislature in one di-
rection is equally to be condemned
with an abuse of power by the courts
in the other direction. 1t is not posi-
BILE wholly to except labor organiza-
tons from the workings of this law,
and they who insist upon totally ex-
cepting them are merely providing
that their status shall be kept wholly
unchanged and that they shall con-
tinue to be exposed to the action
which they now dread.
obviously an organization not
formed for profit should not be re-
CURED to furnish statistics in any way
as complete as those furnished by or
CARNATIONS for profit. Moreover, so
far as labor is engaged in production
only, it's claims to be exempted from
the antitrust law are sound. This
would substantially cover the right of
laborers to combine, to strike peace
ably and to enter into trade agree
ments with the employers,
Boycott illegal.
But when labor undertakes in a