The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1911-05-17

Washington. May Governmental
shington--legislativc executive and
iudicial--gave over the greater part
Of today to n discussion of the SUI
preme courts disposition of the Stand
ard OH case
While there was qualification In
administration circles over the order
for the dissolution of the corporation
which has been declared IAN unreas SON
able combination and monopoly I'm re-
straint of trade" there unquestionah.y
was misgivings rs TO the Interpretation
Of the antitrust law giving to courts
the right to determine whether Il mo-
nopoly was reasonable" and declaring
Il reasonable" monopoly not TO b. "A
eontravention of the statute.
President Taft. who lit,ln more
than a year ago. in n spec,a message
20 congress. said that und?r supreme
court precedents there cod1 be no
such things as reasonable" ara "un-
reasonable" restraints of rrada, or in
other words. good trusts and bad
trusts" was said to have been rather
disappointed that the court should
have seen fit to reverse l.seif In III! ;
important matter
Taft's Message Quoted.
President Taft's message was freely
quoted about the capital and the seem
ingly similarity of his views as to the
scope of the antl-tr,ist law to the view
expressed by Associate Justice Har-
Ian In his dissenting opinion yesterday
attracted renewed attention to Justice
Harlans position as outlined I'm his
statement to the court following the
handing down of the majority opinion
by Chief Justice White.
Justice Harlan held that his brother
Judges had no right to usurp the func-
tions of the executive branch of the
government by writing into the statute
IA differentiation between reasonable"
and unreasonable" He declared that
congress had resisted all appeals so to
amend the act and that there was every
reason to believe that such an amend
mcnt never could be put through the
legislative branch.
Under these circumstances and in
their extremity, great aggregations or
wealth applied to the court in an ef.
fort TO have 1t constrne the law in
n way that would be n flat reversal of
what It had held on two previous oc-
casiona.
Harlan Declines.
Z Justice Harlan declined to be party
To such a reversal and hence his dis
scnting opinion He denounced as the
most alarming tendency of the day
the tendency OF judicial legislation.
Men of power, he said. always were
trying to get the courts to do what
congress would not do.
President Taft In his special mes
sage to congress on January Z. 1910.
urging n federal Incorporation act, de-
clared 10 put the word reasonable"
into the antitrust statute and thus
leave 1t for the courts to say what was
q reasonable restraint OF trade. would
he to put into the hands of the court
n power impossible TO exercise on any
consistent principle which would insure
the uniformity of decision essential to
good Judgment
1T Is to throw upon the courts he
added "a burden that they have no
precedents to enable them to carry,
and to give them n power the abuse
of which might involve our judicial
system In disaster"
Good and Bad Trusts.
As to the doctrine of good trusts
and bad trusts" which the majority
opinion OF the court, as expressed by
Chief Justice White seems to have laid
down, President Taft in his message
written more than year ago. said:
THE public. and especially the busi-
ness public, ought to rid themselves OF
the idea that such distinction is prac-
ticable. or can be introduced into the
statute. Certainly under the present
trust law. no such distinction en-
lists"
Relying upon the former opinions OF
the supreme court In the so-called
trans Missouri and joint traffic cases
the president said