The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1911-05-18

ready under way 10 amend lAe SheI-
man antitrust law so that the distinc-
ton drawn by the supreme court be
tween good and bad trusts may be
wiped out and the definite prediction
that the suit TO dissolve the tobacco
trust will be dismissed are in the in
terestng feature aftermath of the
Standard Oil company decree.
At the meeting Of President Taft
and his cabinet today, general disap-
pointment was expected over the man
ner in which the supreme court has
read into the Sherman law a distinc-
tion between combinations formed in
reasonable restraint of trade" and
those in unreasonable restraint
Taft Believed Disappointed.
While the president has made it a
practice never to criticise the court,
referring to accept the law as laid
down by the judges, there is no doubt
that he is disappointed over the inter
probation given to the Sherman law.
He is gratfied by the result of the
case against the Standard Oil, but
chargined over the general principle
laid down.
The president will not ask the pres
ent congress to amend the Sherman
law. Efforts to amend that law will
come from the insurgent resolutions,
and in the democrats, who freely pre-
dicted that the case against the tobac-
co trust, under the Interpretation of
Chief Justice Whites opinion, would
be dismissed.
Federal incorporation Remedy.
President Taft looks to his bill pro
viding for federal incorporation of cor
porations to meet the situation that
has arisen with regard to supervision
and restriction of the trusts.
Senator La Toilette of Wisconsin,
who is expected to lead the fight to
amend the Sherman law, quoted on
the floor of the senate today the words
of President Taft in a special message
to congress on Jan. ., to show that the
chief executive, if satisfied with the
decree of the supreme court. was re-
yersng himself.
The words of the president in the
message quoted were not retracted at
the white house, in fact. the president,
while declining to express an opinion
with reference to the wording of the
decree of the supreme court, referred
to his mssage as expressing his view
on the subjects of the distinction be-
tween good and bad trusts. In that
message President Taft spoke of the
attempts to inject the doctrine of rea-
sonable restraint into the antitrust law
as follows:
Taft's Former Utterance
1T has been proposed, however. that
the word reasonable should be made
a part of the statute, and then that it
should be left to the court to say what
is reasonable restraint of trade, what
is a reasonable suppression of compe-
tition, what is a reasonable monopoly
Il venture to think that this is to
put into the hands of the court a power
impossible to exercise on any consist.
ent principle which will insure the uni
formity of decision and essential to
just judgment. 1t is thrusting upon
the courts burden that they have no
precedents to enable them to carry
and to give power approaching the
arbitrary, the abuse of which might
involve our whole judicial system in.
to disaster"
Probably the most important docu-
ment, outside the presidents message
uncovered by members of the senate
in the course OF the daw. was the ma
jority report made by the committee
on the judiciary of that body. deciding
adversely on bill to amend the anti
trust law.
The bill to amend the antitrust law,
introduced in the second session
sought to do by legislation what
the supreme court has just done by
judicial decree Knute Nelson. chair
man of the committee. wrote the ad-
verse report, which was sustained by
the senate itself. After quoting num-
erous decisions, the senate judiciary
committee held that the doctrine and
effect of all these cases is that any
agreement or combination directly af
fecting the welfare of the public by
competition and breeding monopoly in
trade and commerce is contrary to
lublic policy and invalid. and the
courts in such cases will not under