The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-01-07

the act contracts affecting interstate
trade in but a small and incidentaf
way. and apply the statute only to the
real evil aimed at by congress.
The statute has been on the stat
ute books now for two decades. and
the supreme court in more than
dozen opinions has construed 1t in ap-
pI1cation to various phases of business
combinations and in reference to va
r1ous subject matter. It has applied to
the union under one control of two
competing interstate railroads. to the
joint traffic arrangements between
several interstate railroads, to pri-
vate manufacturers engaged in a plain
press competition in a part of the
country, including a dozen states,
and to many other combinations af-
feeting interstate trade. The value to
statute which is rendered more and
more certain of it's meaning by a SER
les of decisions of the supreme court
furnishes strong reason for 1eav-
ing the act as it is, to accomplish it's
useIui purpose, even though II 1t We're
being newly enacted useful suggestions
as to change of phrase might be
made
It is the duty and the purpose of the
executive to direct investigation by
the department of justice through
the grand Jury or otherwise, into the
history, organization and purposes of
all of the industrial companies with
respect to which there is any reasonable
ground for suspicion that they have
been organized for purpose and are
conducting business on a plan which
is in violation of the antitrust law.
The work is a heavy one, but it is not
beyond the power of the department
of Justice. if sufficient funds are fur
| nished to carry on the Investigations
and to pay the counsel engaged in the
work. But such an investigation and
possible prosecution of corporations
whose prosperity or destruction af-
fects the comfort not only of stock
ers, employees and associated trades
| men must necessarily tend to disturb
the confidence of the business COM
munity to dry up the now flowing
sources of capital from its places of
boarding, and produce halt in our
present prosperity that will cause suf-
fering and strained circumstances
among the innocent many for the
faults of the guilty few. The ques-
| ton which I wish in this message to
bring clearly to the consideration and
discussion of congress is whether in
order to avoid such a possible BUSH
ness danger something cannot be done
| by which these business combinations
great financial disturbance, of chang
! ing the character, organization and
| extent of their business into one with
| in the lines of the law under federal
control and supervision, securing COM
pliance with the antitrust statute.
Industrial Combinations.
Generally in the industrial combi-
nations called trusts the principal
business is the sale of goods in many
states and in foreign markets; in 9TH
| er words, the Interstate and foreign
| business far exceeded the business
| justify the federal government in
granting a federal charter to such
combination to make and sell in in
terstate and foreign commerce the
products of useful manufacture under
such limitations as will secure a COM
pliance with the antitrust law. It is
possible so to frame statute that while
it offers protection to a federal COM
| pany against harmful, vexatious and
unnecessary invasion by the states
| it shall subject. it to reasonable tax
alton >and control by the states, with
respect to its purely local business.
Good Trusts and Bad Trusts
Many people conducting great bus
| 1nesses have cherished hope and a
/ belief that N some way or other a line
| may be drawn between good trusts
and "bad trusts and that it is pos
sible by amendment to the antitrust
| law to make a distinction under which
good combinations may be permitted
to organize, suppress competition,
control price, and do it all legally if
! only they do not abuse the power
by taking too great profit out of the
business. They point with force to
/ certain notorious trusts as having
| grown into power through criminal
methods, by the use of illegal rebates
and plain cheating, and by various
acts utterly violative of business hon
esty or morality, and urge the estab-
l1shment of some legal line of sep
aratlon by which criminal trusts
of this Kind can be punished, and they,
on the other hand, be permitted under
the law to carry on their business.
Now the public and especially the bus
: mess public, ought to rid themselves
of the idea that such a distinction
is practicable or can be introduced
into the statute. Certainly under the
present antitrust law no distinction
exists. 1t has been proposed, however.
that the word reasonable" should be
made part of the statute and then
it should be left to the court to say
what is reasonable restraint of
trade, what is reasonable suppress
sion of competition, what is a reason
that this is to put into the hands of
the court power impossible to exer-
4 else on any consistent principle which
will insure the uniformity of decis-
ion essential to just Judgment. It is
i to thrust upon the courts a burden
that they have no precedents to en-
able them to carry, and to give them a
power approaching the arbitrary. the
use of which might involve our whole
judicial system in disaster.
Antitrust Law Violations.
In considering violations of the an
THRUST law, we ought, of course. not
to forget that the law makes unlaw-
full methods of carrying on business
!, which before its passage were re-
garded as evidence of business saga
| city and success, and that they were
, denounced in this act, not because OF
their intrinsic morality, but because OF
the dangerous results toward which
| they tended, the concentration of in
dustrial power in the hands of the
7 few, leading to oppression and injus
| tice- In dealing, therefore, with man,
! of the men whoshave used the NTH