The daily sentinel., 1910-01-07
The Fair

their requirements so as to carry on
business in a number of different
states
To the suggestion that this pro-
posal of federal Incorporation for in
dustrial com mbinations is intended to
furnish them refuge in which to
continue industrial abuses under fed
eral protection, II should be said that
the measure contemplated does not
repeal the Sherman antitrust law
and is not to be framed so as to per-
NIT the doing TO the wrongs which it
is the purpose of that law to prevent,
but only',o router continuance and
advance of the highest Industrial eff
ficiency without permitting ind ustrial
abuses.
Such national Incorporation law
will be opposed, first, by those who
beliece that the trusts should be COM
pletely broken up and their property
destroyed. II viii be opposed, sec
ond, by those who doubt the consti-
tutiOnality of such federal incorpora-
tion, and even if it is valid. object TO
il as TOO great federal Capitalization.
lit will be opposed, third. by those
who will insist that a mere voluntary
A4NDh pol dAioAl Aiht III uOl at
tract to its acceptance the worst of
the offenders against the antitrust
statute and who win therefore pro-
pose instead of II, n system of com
pulsory licenses for all federal cor
porations engaged in interstate busi-
ness. Let us consider the objections
in their order. The government is
now trying to dissolve some of these
combinations and it is not the inten-
tion of the government to desist in
the least degree in its effort to end
these combinations which are today
monopoliZing the commerce of this
country; that where 1t appears that
the acquisition and concentration of
property go to the extent of creating
n monopoly or of substantially and
directly restraining interstate COM
merce, it is not the intention of the
government to permit this monopoly
to exist under federal incorporation
or to transfer TO the protecting wing
of the federal government, the state
corporations now violating the Sher-
man act.
But 1t is not and should not be the
policy of the government to prevent
reasonable concentration of capital
which is necessary to the economic
development of manufacture, trade
and commerce. This country shows
a power of economical production
that has astonished the world and
has enabled us to compete with for
eign manufactures in many markets.
1t should be the care of the govern
ment to permit such concentration of
capital while keeping open the ave-
nues of individual enterprise and the
opportunity for man or corporation
with reasonable capital to engage i'll
present business supremacy, we
should give to industrial concerns an
TO reorganize and to con-
centrate their legitimate capital in a
federal corporation and to carry on
their large business within the lines
of the law.
Second, there are those who doubt I
the constitutionality of such federal
Incorporation. The regulation of
interstate and foreign commerce is
certainly conferred in the fullest
m easure upon congress, and If for the
purpose OF securing in the most thor
ough manner that kind of regulation,
congress shall insist that il may pro-
vide and authorize certain agencies
to carry on tnat commerce, it would
seem to be within its power. This
has been distinctly affirmed with re-
spect to railroad companies doing an
interstate business and interstate