The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1911-12-01
CONGRESS FACES
TRUST QUESTION
@ECENT DECISION OF COURTS
BRINGS MONOPOLY ~
IIMELICHT
LEGISLATIVE A c TION
sHERMtN ANTITRUST ACT HAS
HAD FOUR INTERFERE
TATIoNS ny
COURTS.
BY VICTOR ELLIOTT.

portant question OF legislation TO be
presented at the coming session of
Congress. with the possible excep-
ion of the tariff, WIN be that bear
Tag upon the trusts and the indus
trial com binations.
The Senate committee on Interstate
and foreign commerce began hold
ing hearings November 18th. A
number Of leading business men Of
he country and prominent econo-
nists presented their views to the
committee upon the necessity Of
adopting additional laws TO meet
existing conditions
There Is growing feeling in Wash
ington Is well as throughout the
country that the Sherman antitrust
ACT Will have TO be amended, II II IL
10 remain as the remedy for the In
.-.- dustrial ills from which that coun-
try Is suffering This law has been
construed so varlously by the SUI
preme Court and so indefinitely by
the same body that no corpora ton
now having even a near monopoly
of business In its line, knows whe-
'her or not II is within or without
the law.
Four Interpretations.
During the twenty years that the
Sherman antitrust act has been upon
the statute books It has been inter
pre;ed in contrary fashion by the
same court four times. In the first
place IL was held by the court not
to apply to the Sugar Trust. That
WAS at time when the question was
raised whether or not it was designed
to prohibit monopolies of Industrial
corporations.
Since the Sugar Trust decision.
However, the court has ordered the
dissolution OF the Tobacco and stand
ard Oil trusts. In the first decision.
the country found reason TO believe
that industrial corporations were
exempt from the operation OF the
act. The two last opinions. however,
show plainly that the law does apply
10 this class OF monopolies.
When the point WAS made that in
dustrial com hsnations were not
amendablc 10 this law, the additional
point was made that railroad cor
porations We're Amendabie. TINS
theory seems to have been borne out
by DEGREES OF the court ordering the
dissolution of the Northern Securi-
ties Company. At that time the rail-
roads began to readjust their affairs
in accordance with that decree TO es'
cape any possible prosecution by the
government
In latter days though, the same
court. upon pleas under the same ACT
has held in the southern Union Pacl-
nc railroad case that railroads arr
not TO be regulated under the Sher'
man law.
These four decisions, therefore
have created a situation that the pes
posted public men In the country 1ai
10 understand. In four big cases
assuming that the standard On ant
the Tobacco cases are one. the coaI
has seemed to reverse itself ana &c
leave the legal advisers OF the ran
road and Industrial corporations with
out a guide to follow
Harian's Opinion.
In these decisions lies one phase oil
the legislative problem which Con-
gress is facing. There Is another
phase. of course, which was given
prominence first by the dissenting
opinion of the late Justice Harlan al
the two recent trust cases. Ihat mas
to do with the reading into the Ster-
man law of the idea of reasonaoieness
or urreasonableness az applied to mo-
nopoiies Mr.. Justice Harlan held
that the court had no right TO inter
pref this idea into the act and apply
IL to combinations In restraint or trade
The remainder OF the court agreed that
IL had such right.
BY leaving the reasonahleness OF a
restraint OF trade to Interpretation
the court makes IL necessary for each
trust in the country to stand alone
Any corporation doing volume OF
business that appears monopoist,e
must prove in court that IL has not
unreasonably restraining trade. II
cannot compare itself with some other
corporation upon which th6 court han
passcd, but must go through the whole
process OF the law upon Its own n<r-
its.
Then, too. the efforts to enforce the
DEGREES In the Standard OH and To-
bacco cases, have developed another
phase of the trust problem This Is
admitted frankly by Attorney General
Wfckersham In his address to the
court upon the tobacco dissolution
plan. He said plainly that the to-
bacco company could not no resolved
hack into It's original component parts.
He said that the old competitive con-
" citizens rouad not again exist It, Is
therefore necessary for Congress 10
consider the question Of how far COM
petitive conditions may be restored.
All economists agree that big corpor-
atioDs are necessary in order TO carry
on big business The day OF the
smaller corporation AZ competitor or
the bigger ones seems 10 he past in
this country, If the Attorney Cen
eral Is ~ be believed.
Wants Competition.
Yet Congress wants competition re-
exist and then people want Il, other.
wiEe tl.ey would at once repeal the
whole OF the Sherman act and invite
this present monopoiies to continue un-
hampered by lesni restraint
Just how far. however. this COM
petition may be guaranteed by law is
the problem, and It is far from the
4 easiest one which Congress must solve
The courts are unable to solve IL and
the law makers must.
All these questions and many others
will be discussed before the. Senate
Interstate Commerce Commission be-
fore the opening OF Congress. and by
leading members of both houses after
the reassembling.
President Taft will of course. offer
his Federal Incorporation project as a
remedy for some OF the evils now ex-
X tstiHnt but he has never claimed that
this plan would eliminate all the trou-
4 A1es from which the people and busi-
& 7<Na suffer.
Many nlans wifi be proposed during
NJ coming session for sntf-trust leg
ts1atjon. Senator La Toilette lie even
nOw refusing to make q speech max.
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