Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1910-04-09

cry consolidation of interests exist
ing at this time must go into disso-
| luton, no matter whether II has re-
sorted to unlawful methods or not;
no matter whether it's operations
have so increased the cheapness and
the high quality of its products that
millions of consumers are materially
and continuously benefited thereby,
while the producers of the raw ma
terial are given an active and lucra-
tive market entirely lacking before.
Every combination, big and little,
must, in case of such decision, be
reorganized. The wheels must stop
while this is being done and the
disturbance and losss will be meal
culable.
1t cannot for a moment be sup
posed that Taft, vacillating as he
has shown himself thus far in judg
ment and execution, can wish for
such a contamination of business
distress. He cannot reasonably be
supposed to have changed his mind
in so short a time as since January
Z tn, when in his message he said
"The purpose of the antitrust
law was not to interfere with a
great volume of capital, which, con-
centrated under one organization,
reduced the cost of production and
made its profit thereby and took no
advantage of its size by methods
akin to duress to stifie competition
with it,"
Roosevelt himself, fiery and i'm.
petuous leader of the trust smash
ers, declared in two messages that
the Sherman law must be amended
or It would, If enforced, stop all the
business Of the country.
The desire of the better part of
the anti-corporationists is only for
the abolition of injurious restraint |
of trade, and Mr.. Taft, in the mes |
sage referred to, points out exactly !
where the law should operate He
says the great corporations disclose |
a purpose to restrain trade and vic. |
late the antitrust act when they at |
tempt "by a sale of their goods tenn
porarily at unduly low prices to |
drive out of business their competi-
tors"
The New York Herald, in an i'm
portant article last January, shows
how the small corporation or the in
dividual could, by the closer person.
al supervision of business, success
fully compete with even the greatest
but for the fact that
the latter, doing business over a
wider area, can, while maintaining
prices in the greater part of it's ter
ritory, afford to temporarily lower
prices in the particular locality
where the small competitor is at
work, and keep this up until the lat
.er is compelled to sell out or go to
'uin. 1t says:
AS the great wrong wrought by
was the discrimination be-
ween the carriers and localities
he root of all transportation evils
las been prohibited by law, so let
here be law to prevent this dis !
by industrial corpora
ions between individual dealers and
ocalities Make it imperative to
harge a uniform price to all deal :
RS and all localities-the differen- =
lals representing merely the char. :
res OF transportation-and the eX-
sting antitrust act can be repealed
omorrow."
Ten good business men with one Ia
,ood legislative lawyer could in a ,
week frame a substitute for the 9
sherman Law and include all the
'ood inte. ,Svdaetaoshrdluetao r
late all of it's absurd and dangerous }
rovision. :
Why then will the administration f
ersist In this attitude of inaction, q
Waiting and apparently hoping for !
he worst +
Why not assume the business at
ltude and do what good business
len would do?
Amend the Sherman Anti-truS. y
ct as Taft repeatedly promised in
Is early presidential speeches
'ould be done. p
The very declaration of such an 8,
ltentiOn would start business out n
its lethargy. Il
And the beginning of earnest ac- n
on I'm this direction would inauaur- i1
te rush of renewed prosperity, n
in its momentum and of N
ast proportions i'm the benefits it r
ould bestOw on every individual i'm te
Ie United States. II
Foreign capital, suspicious now 3,
the outcome, and holding back in to
lrprise at the governments atti.
lde, would, as indicated in the i'm
)rtant letter published at the be-
inning of this issue, begin to flow
no the country to the immense
etterment of our whole position.
The solution of the country's bus
ess problem, the ability to clear
way the clouds of distrust, to
lieken enterprise and to attract
reign capital in vast amounts, lies
.th the adm 'nstration.
The thinking business men Of the
untry call upon MIR. Taft To adopt
is simple, sensible, Just, method
dealing with the problem.
business.
Business throughout the counuy
in a peculiar state II Is large IN
lume, but, especially in the East