The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1908-03-21
AMEND TRUST Law
.op1ANT CONFERENCES Al
,yu,1E HOUSE DURING THE
PAST WEEK.
,osed Amendments Are Along the
,.se Suggested by the Conference
..a National Civic Federation at
o.i,,oo a Few Weeks Since-Public-
-, :, Accounts of Interstate Cor
porations.

,rosbington, D. c., March 14.-An
ortant conference was held at the
,,.s;te House recently respecting
,dnnnts to the Sherman antitrust
,u The changes in the law will be
onosed along the lines suggested by
=, Conference of the Civic Federation
,,,d in Chicago a few weeks ago. No
oncrete results were reached, and it
i. likely that more conferences will be
hold The president is DESTROYS that a
hill embodying the conclusions OF the
Conference, if any be reached, be sub
,,ittpd to congress for passage at this
session.
Participating in the conference were
.bo president, Secretary Root, Secre-
torv Garfield, Attorney General Bona
.orta Herbert Knox Smith, commits
rionpr of corporations; Seth Low, for
mpr mayor of New York; Samuel Com
norc nresident of the American Fed
pration of Labor; Victor Morawetz,
General counsel for the Atchison, To-
nuka & Santa Fe railroad, and Francis
Ivpde stetson, of the firm of J. p.
Morgan & Co. of New York.
Some Ideas Offered.
Mr. Smith presented in tentative
sbane some of the ideas offered at the
Civic Federation conference in Chi
cago The form in which the sugges-
tions were made was in that of bill,
but if had not been reduced to def
mite shape. The proposed changes
are of sweeping Importance and inter
est. and, if crystallized into law, they
would mean practically rejuvenation
of the Sherman antitrust law.
While no agreement was reached,
the trend of the discussion indicated
that a common ground of understand
ing shortly will be reached, and per-
haps within a week measure will be
drafted which will be satisfactory to
all parties The particular interest of
the labor officers is to secure an
amendment to the Sherman law which
will exempt the unions from the prac-
teal operation of the act as conspira-
cies in restraint of trade.
Amendments were proposed relating
to the operation of railroads, one pro-
viding that pooling, under proper re-
strictions, ought to be permitted by
law.
Traffic Arrangements Wrong.
1t also was suggested that consolida-
tons and traffic arrangements ought
to be permitted by connecting lines,
except such arrangements as would
permit of the abuse of that privilege.
An important amendment was also
proposed by which there would be fur
Their regulation of corporations doing
an Interstate business, and providing
for reports from officers of such cor
porations to the department of com
merce and labor along the lines of the
reports now made by the railroads to
The Interstate commerce commission.
Such an amendment, it was pointed
out would insure proper publicity OF
The operations of interstate corpora
ions and insure the utmost fairness in
all dealings with the people.
With the enactment of the amend
ments proposed the government might
oegln anew it's work of dealing with
corporations. In fact, it was proposed
mat prosecutions now in contempla-
uon by the government against cor
poratons under the provisions of the
enerman act be abandoned If the pro-
posed amendments should be enacted
into law