The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1911-05-17
THE Law AND THE FACTS.

NuuIt IN the STANDARD Oll case has been
received by the country with relief. The
opinion of the most able financial men
agrees that the decision will work no
harm to business, but on the contrary.
VIII stimulate 1T, and will effect results
FOR good 1t is always moro satsfac-
tory TO know what decision is, even
though il hurt. than TO be kept in
suspense. But this does not hurt. And
so the business world welcomes the dc.
cision, first of all as ending the
suspense, and second as being the least
disturbing to business Of any form that
such decision could be expected to
take; for that the Sherman antitrust
law should be affirmed was inevitable; {;
the constant decisions of this court
have always been TO that effect; the
law is valid, it must be enforced.
But 1T is said by some that the court
introduced new element in this case
not expressed in the law, and not
intended by Congress to be put into
the law. That criticism is directed to
the words reasonable and Sum
reasonable" as used by Chief Justice
White in pronouncing the decision. 1t
is held by those critics that this is an
invasion of the legislative field, and
that the court exceeded its authority
IN injecting the principle expressed by
these words into the law. The mean.
ing OF this is that these critics would
have the court pronounce its decision in
an unqualified, peremptory way, allow
ing of no latitude, either to the court in
making up its Judgment, or to the
effect of that judgment, as it is put
peremptory judgment as that would
have created havoc throughout the
The Standard Oil company
and all its great auxjliarics would have
TO dissolve instanter, no matter what
devastation such dissolution
would cause, Men Of conservative
ideas and of broad business experience
will rejoice that the court did not fol
low such a course as that. They will
commend the court for
the ideas Of reasonableness,
with the words to express this idea in
the judgment as rendered. 1t must be
that the Standard OIL
is vast concern, 1t has,
either directly or through its auxiliary
immediate relations with
every household in the United States
These relations arc continuous, day by
day. If the court had issued a
dissolution order, effective
at once, upon all these companies. the
result would have been disastrous to
business OF all kinds; it would have
been confusion confoundcd. Ii is fortu
nate, indeed that we have court high
enough and broad enough TO enforce
the principle Of rcasonablcpees, and TO
protect the country from sudden and in
,onsideratc trade revolutions, such as
the percmptory order which some seem
to demand in this case would have
brought about.
But the words "rcasona BILE - and
unreasonable are extended even
further than this by the decision as
rendered. The principle involved in
these expressions goes TO the very root
and essence Of the whole matter. The
court applied those words and the prin.
ciple defined by them to the trust
itself; and here we take il is where the
weight of the adverse criticism on this
point would fall. IT is argued by the
extremists that the court, in under
taking TO fix a definition or dctermiua
lion like this, assumed TO say that there
arc good trusts and bad trusts; that a
good trust is reasonable, and the court
will not mcddle with it; but that the
very bad, oppressive, extortionate. law
less ones will be dealt with by the
court firmly and to the point of cx.
vet in such way as will not
bring disaster TO allied businesses
the country. Those who op
pose the distinction thus made by the
court are insistent in suggesting that
Congress must now proceed at once TO
amend the Sherman antitrust law, so
as to obIiterate the distinction ap,
made by the court between
good trusts and bad trusts. This. of
course, Congress may do if it so desires,
but we doubt very much whether de
of this kind will hold fixed
ong enough for Congress to act. For.
it must be noted that this is not point
in this case. Although the
court apparently laid down this prin
riple, it gives the Standard Oil Com
pany no benefit from it. That company
is treated as a bad trust; its origin is
traced; its purpose from the first is de
clared to have been monopolistic and
exclusive, and the growth and history
Of this trust are pronounced to have
been lawless and unfair throughout,
crushing competitors and obtaining full
dominance unscrupulousiy Therefore,
since this company got no benefit
from the distinction suggested, there
is no reason to- find fault with the
,orrf a., ibic pniof Tho Sfauda ri Oil