The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1911-06-09
ANTITRUST Law TOO
DETECTIVE
ROOSEVELT WOULD NOT TRY TO
STRENGTHEN 1T At
PRESENT.
Instead He Would Have Congress Pass
Law Providing for Supervision Of
Corporations No Less Strict Than
That Now Governing Railway Lines.

New YORK, June S.-IneO0Ore HOOSe-
welt has an article on 1.-The Standard
Oil Decision and After" in the Out
look. It says, in part:
"The decision Of the supreme court
in the Standard Oil case has. of course,
brought out many proposals for alter
ing or amending the antitrust law.
There are two classes of men whose
respective attitudes in reference to
this law are in the ordinary diametri-
cally opposed, and in results almost
identically the same-those men who
wish no interference by the govern
ment with any combination or cor
poration; and those men, who, under
the plea of being against all combina-
lions and big corporations. propose abb
solutely to prohibit their existence.
Opposed by Two Classes.
''In the ordinary. these two sets of
men are Numerically opposed. In
practice the activities of the second
class. who wish totally to prohibit all
corporations, can result only in prac-
tically fulfilling the wish of the first
class by leaving the present situation
fundamentally unchanged. Actual ex-
perience with the antitrust law, ex-
tending over many years, has shown
that it does not, and cannot, by any
possibility, be made to do what the ex-
IRENE antagonists of corporations de-
sire or assert that they desire.
Antitrust Law Defective.
CAS- construed by the supreme court,
the antitrust law accomplishes GER
tain amount of good, and it has been
a good thing to obtain the decision
that has been obtained against the
Standard Oil Company. But as a
means of effectually graphing on be-
half of the whole people with the
problem created by what are common
ly called trusts-that is, of enormous
combinations of corporate capital en-
gagged in interstate business-the anti
trust law is radically and vitality de-
fective, and any effort to strengthen
it would be worse than futile and
would result only in prolonging the
time during which the corporations
would escape control of the kind de-
manded in the interests of the people.
Against Any Change.
"The antitrust law was framed on
the theory that it was possible to turn
back the wheels of progress in indus
trialism, and in an age of combination
to put stop to the combinations I'M
der which business was carried on.
While, as I have said, the antitrust
law as now construed, does accomplish
certain amount of good, it was out of
the question that, framed as it was,
in such spirit, and in such purpose,
it could achieve in any but the small
est degree what it's trainers hoped,
and any effort to achieve this purpose
simply by making the law more strin-
gent will result either in nothing or
in changing the situation for the
worse.
Drastic Laws Necessary.
what is urgently needed is the en-
0CtmCAI VI uIdSllC duu 1dT-IcdCuluS
legislation, which shall put the great
interstate business corporations of the
type of the Standard Oil Company, the
sugar trust, the steel trust and the
like, at least as completely under the
control and regulation of the govern
ment in each and every respect as the
interstate railways are now put.
ut may we'll be that, in the end,
government of these great interstate
corporations may have to go much fur
ther than is indicated by the present
government control over the railways,
but, in any event, the only possible
satisfactory method of dealing with
these great corporations of monopo-
listic trend, which are not railways,
is to follow the lines along which the
nation has gone in dealing with those
of them which are railways, altering
and developing the policy as condi-
tions and events shall justify. Our
mr. ~. 49, <>H