The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1910-01-13

IoAe the interstate commerce committee
OF the senate I earnestly urge that they
be enacted into law.
ANTITRUST LAW AND
FEDERAL INTERPRETATIONS
Government Control of Big Industrial
Corporations Favored-Asserts
Scope Of Present Law Is
Too Wide.
There has been a 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 a union Of
former competitors it has reduced the
probability Of excessive competition; and,
third, if the combination has been ex-
tensive enough, and certain methods in
toners have been adopted, the combiners
have secured monopoly and complete
control of prices or rates.
complete control over a particular line of
manufacture has frequently been called
a trust" I presume that the derivation
of the word is to be explained by the fact
that usual method of carrying out the
plan of the combination has been to put
the capital and plants of various individ-
uals, firms, or corporations engaged in
the same business under the control of
trustees
The increase in the capital of a bust
ness for the purpose of reducing the
cost Of production and effecting economy
in the management has become as essen
tial 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 a
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 or attempt
to monopolize, and every combination or
conspiracy with other persons to monopo-
lize any part of interstate trade or COM
nerce 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 bigness of the en-
terprise, but it was the aggregation of
canitaI and plants with the express or
innlied intent to restrain interstate or
foreign commerce, or to monopolize it in
whole or in part.
Trust Not Necessarily Bad.
Monopoly destroys competition entire
lv and the restraint of the full and free
~ restrain commerce and trade. A COM
hination of persons, formerly engaged in
+rade as partnerships or corporations or
otbarwise of course eliminates the com
ne+itiou that existed between them: but
The incidental ending of that competition
is not to be regarded as necessarily
diroct restraint of trade, unless of such
an all-embracing character that the in
tention and effect to restrain trade are
annarent from the circumstances or are
EXPRESSLY declared to be the object of
the combination. A mere incidental re-
s+raint of trade and competition is not
within the inhibition of the act, but it
10 where the combination or conspiracy
or contract is inevitably and directly a
substantial constraint Of competition, and
GO a restraint of trade, that the statute
is violated
The second condition Of the act is sup
nlenent of the first. A direct restraint
of trade such as is condemned in the
first section, If successful and used to
suppress competition, is one of the COM
monest methods of securing trade
condemned in the second
section.
1t is possible for the owners of a bust
ness of manufacturing and selling useful
articles of merchandise so to conduct
their business as not to violate the in
hibitions of the antitrust law and yet
to secure to themselves the benefit Of the
economies Of management and of produc-
ton due to the concentration under one
control of large capital and many plants.
If they use no other inducement than
the constant low price of their product
and its good quality to attract custom,
and their business is a profitable one,
they violate no law. If their actual
competitors are small in comparison with
the total capital invested the prospect
of new investments of capital by others
in such a profitable business is sufficient
~ near and potential to restrain them in
the prices at which they sell their prod
uct. But if they attempt by a use of their
preponderating capital, and by a sale Of
their goods temporarily at unduly low
prices, to drive out of business their
competitors, or Ii they attempt, by ex-
elusive contracts with their patrons and
threats of non-dealing, except upon such
contracts or by other methods of sim
liar character, to use the largeness Of
their resources and the extent of their
output compared with the total output
as means of compelling custom and
frightening off competition, then they
disclose purpose to restrain trade and
to establish monopoly and violate the
act.
Law to Suppress Abuses.
The object of the antitrust law was
to suppress the abuses of business of the
kind described. It was not to interfere
with great volume of capital which,
concentrated under one organization, re-
duced the cost of production and made
its profit thereby, and took no advantage
of its size. by methods akin to duress, to
stifle competition with it,
l wish TO make this distinction as en-
phatic as possible, because I conceive
that nothing could happen more destruc-
tive TO the prosperity of this country than
the loss of that great economy in produc-
ton which has been and will be effect
ed in all manufacturing lines by the en-
pioyment of large capital under one man
agement. I do not mean to say that
there is not a limit beyond which tie
economy of management by the enlarge
ment of plant ceases: and where this
happens and combination continues be-
yoad this point the .yery fact shows In