Arizona republican., 1911-09-20
The Rule of Reason

enmity-tO all who believe In fairness and candor rather than in prejudice and malice-the great speech of Presi- dent Taft at Detroit, in which the chief executive gave a masterful and judicial interpretation of the Supreme court decision in the all-important Standard Oil case will appeal as the final word in the controversy which that decision engendered.
 It is not to be supposed, of course that demagogy will accept the ut terance of the president. Demagogy is not looking for the truth. Nor will the clear exposition made by MT Taft appeal to the journalistic mal- contents, big and little. whose un- certain tenure Of popularity is born of vituperation and nursed in the lap of malice and prejudice. It is enough that the supreme tribunal has spoken and that the president has sanctioned its utterance to draw the fire of these small minds. But men who know something of the law. men who believe in common decency and fairness, men who believe that a man may be honest and courageous even though independent of the whims of populistic caprice-such men will find in the brave, temperate, and states manlike utterance of the president the dearest and most forcible ex- planation of the rule of law laid down by the court that has yet been enun- ciated.
 A brief summary of the facts win be in point here. The Sherman anti trust law was enacted by Congress to prevent monopolistic combinations; and in it's decision in the Standard oil case. in which the acts of the defendant corporation were held to be in contravention of the statute, the court held that in this and in all other cases, what Is sometimes called the rule of reason" should be used in construing the law.
 It was the use of that language that opened the flood gates of dem agogic vituperation; and from one end of the country to the other cheap newspapers and cheap men-men who never read the decision of the court and who would not understand it If they had read it, proceeded. in the most unmeasured terms to denOunce the court for usurping the authority of Congress. It was said in all seriousness that the supreme court had decided against the application of the antitrust law unless it could be shown that the law had been in voked against an unreasonable" mo- nopoly.
 In the language of the street, all this hullabaloo was the veriest rot The supreme court, as President Taft points out, never used the word reasonable" in that connection at all. As a matter of fact the law forbids all monopolistic combinations. But the court does say that the statute does not apply to a reasonable re- straint of trade.
 These vOciferous gentlemen" as the president aptly calls them-that Is. the populistic publicists who have declared against this principle of law, might do well to read a little of our judicial history. 1T they do. they will find that for centuries a reasonable restraint of trade has been recognized by the common law. The rule has been in effect in this coun- try so long as we have had courts at all: and 1t was in effect in Eng land for centuries before that time. It would seem, therefore. that how ever strong -lunged these critics have been, they have been lamentably de- ficient both in knowledge of the law and of the facts.
 Suppose a man from New York came to this city and bought the stock and good will of one of our local merchants. And suppose he contracted with that merchant that the latter should not engage in busi- ness on the same street for the space of a year. Would not that be a per fectly reasonable contract and one which any court would enforce? Vet it Is a contract in restraint of trade.
 If. on the other hand. the contract should prohibit the local merchant from engaging in business in the State of Arizona for a term of fifty years, that contract would be unrea-