Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-12-06
PRESIDENT TAFT'S MESSAGE
TO SIxTY-SECOND CONGRESS.
Champions Antitrust Statute==New Rene
des=-Not Repeal or Amendment, But
Supplemental Legislation=-Federal
Corporation Commission.

| applied by the court at comman law
to contracts or combinations or con-
spiracies in restraint of trade whose
purpose was or whose necessary effect
would be to stifie competition. to con-
troll prices or establish monopolies.
| The courts never assumed power to
say that such contracts or combina
tons or conspiracies might be lawful
If the parties to them were only mod
crate in the use Of the power thus Sc
cured and did not exact from the pub
| lie too great and eXorbitant prices. 1t
is true that many theorists and Others
engaged in business violating the stat
ute have hoped that some such line
could be drawn by courts, but no court
| of authority has ever attempted IL
! Certainly there Is nothing in the deci-
sions of the latest two cases from
which such dangerous theory of jul
, dicial discretion in enforcing this stat
ute can derive the slightest sanction.
Force and Effectiveness of Statute =
| Matter of Growth.
We have been twenty-one years max
/
poses for which it was enacted The
knight case was ediscouraging and
seemed TO remit to the states the whole
available power to attack and suppress
the evils of the trusts. Slowly, howev-
er, the error Of that judgment was cor
rected, and only In the last three or
| four years has the heavy hand Of the
law been laid upon the great illegal
combinations that have exercised such
an absolute dominion over many of our
industries. Criminal prosecutions have
been brought. and number are pend
ing. but juries have felt ayerSe to con-
victing for Jail sentences and judges
have been most reluctant to impose
such sentences on men of respectable
standing in society whose offense has
been regarded as merely statutory.
Still. as the offense becomes better I'M
derstood and the committing of 1t par
takes more of studied and deliberate
defiance of the law we can be conf
dent that juries will convict indiyidu-
ais and that jail sentences will be i'm
posed.
The Remedy In Equity by Dissolution.
In the Standard Oil case the supreme
and circuit courts found the combina-
tion to be monopoly of the interstate
= business of refining. transporting and
marketing petroleum and its products,
effected and maintained through thir-
ty-seyen different corporations. the
stock of which was held by a New Jer-
! sey company. 1t in effect commanded
the dissolution of this combination, di-
rected the transfer and pro rata distri-
button by the New Jersey company of
1.-THE stock held by it in the thirty-seven
corporations to and among its stock
| holders. and the corporations and indi-
yidual defendants were enjoined from
! conspiring or combining to restore
such monopoly. and all agreements be-
tween the subsidiary corporations tend
ing to produce or bring about further
violations of the act were enjoined-
In the tobacco case the court found
that the individual defendants, twen-
ty-nine in number, had been engaged
in a successful effort to acquire CON-
plete dominion over the manufacture.
sale and distribution of tobacco in this
country and abroad and that this had
been done by combinations made with
a purpose and effect TO stihe eompetl-
ton, control prices and establish
monopoly. not only in the manufacture
of tobacco but also of tin foil and lic-
orice used in its manufacture and of
its products of cigars. cigarettes and
snuffs. The tobacco suit presented
far more complicated and difficult case
than the Standard Oil suit for decree
which would effectuate the will Of the
court and end the violation of the stat
ute There was here no single hold
ing company, as in the case of the
Standard Oil trust The main company
was the American Tobacco company,
manufacturing, selling and holding
company. The plan adopted to de-
stroy the combination and restore COM
petition iavolved the redivision of the
capital and plants of the whole trust
between some of the companies con-
shutting the trust and new companies
organized for the purposes of the de-
cree and made parties to it and num-
boring. new and old, fourteen.
Situation After Readjustment.
| The American Tobacco company
(old), readjusted capital 500, 100000;
the Liggett s. Meyers Tobacco company
new, capital SCI, oo0o 600; the P. Loril-
lard company new, capital $4,000
000 and the r. J. Reynolds Tobacco
company (old), capital $T.525,000, are
chiefly engaged in the manufacture
and sale of chewing and smoking to-
bacco and cigars. The former one tin
foil company is divided into two, one
of $S25,o0o capital and the other or
100000. The one snuff company Is
divided into three companies. one with
capital of $15.0OO.00o. another with a
capital of SS,oo0000 and a third with
a capital of $S0O0,0oO The licorice
companies are two. one with capital
of $5,75S,3 and another with a capt.
tai of $2,000,00O. There is also the
British-American Tobacco company.
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