Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1910-01-12
ANTITRUST LAW and -
FEDERAL INTERPRETATIONS
Government Control of Big Industrial
Corporations Favored-Asserts
Scope Of Present Law Is
Too Wide.

There has been marked tendency in
business in this country for 40 years last
past toward combinations of capital and
plant In manufacture, sale and trans
portation. The moving causes have been
several: First, it has rendered possible
great economy: second, by union of
former competitors it has reduced the
probability of excessive competitions; and,
third, if the combination has been ex-
tensive enough, and certain methods in
the treatment of competitors and GUS
toners have been adopted the combiners
have secured a monopoly and complete
control of prices or rates
A combination successful in achieving
complete control over a particular line of
manufacture has frequently been called
trust I presume that the derivation
of the word is to be explained by the fac
that a usual method of carrying out the
plan of the combination has been to nut
the capital and plants of various individ-
ua1s, firms. or corporations engaged in
the same business under the control of
trustees.
The increase in the capital of a BUSH
ness for the purpose of reducing the
cost of production and effecting economy
in the management has become as essen
tal in modern progress as the change
from the hand tool to the machine.
When, therefore, we come to construe
the object of congress in adopting the
so-called SHERMAN Antitrust Act' in
1890, whereby in the first section every
contract. combination in the form of g.
trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in re-
straint of interstate or foreign trade or
commerce, is condemned as unlawful and
made subject to indictment and restraint
by injunction; and whereby in the Sec
Ond section every monopoly attempt
to monopoliZe, and every combination or
conspiracy with other persons to monopo-
lie any part of interstate trade or COM
merce, is denounced as illegal and made
subject to similar punishment or re-
straint, we must infer that the evil aimed
at was not the mere bgness Of the en-
terprise, but it was the aggregation of
capital and plants with the express or
implied intent to restrain interstate or
foreign commerce, or to monopolize it in
whole or in part.
Trust Not Necessarily Bad.
Monopoly destroys competition entire
" and the restraint of the full and free
operation of competition has a tendency
to restrain commerce and trade. COM
bination of persons, formerly engaged in
trade as partnerships or corporations or
otherwise of course eliminates the COM
petition that existed between them: but
the incidental ending of that competition
is not to be regarded as necessarily a
direct restraint of trade, unless of such
an an-embracing character that the in
tention and effect to restrain trade are
apparent from the circumstances or are
expressly declared to be the object of
the combination. A mere incidental re-
straint of trade and competition is not
within the inhibition of the act. but IT
is where the combination Or conspiracy
or contract is inevitably and directly
substantial constraint Of competition, and
so a restraint OF trade. that the statute
is violated.
The second condition of the act is SUD-
plement of the first. A direct restraint
of trade such as is condemned in the