Las Vegas optic. (East Las Vegas, N.M.) 1908-1921, 1911-05-16
MUST REVISE ITS POLICY
SUPREME COURTS OPINION TO
SERVE AS GUIDE FOR FED
ERAL GOVERNMENT
TWO KINDS OF MONOPOLIES
HIGHEST TRIBUNAL UPHoLDS
DOCTRINE AS TO GOOD AND
BAD COMBINATIONS

Washington, May 16.-The govern
ment's policy in dealing with trusts
and combinations of capital, as it
must be shaped in the light OF the
supreme courts decision announced
yesterday in the Standard Oil case,
was discussed by President Taft and
his cabinet today.
The court, in declaring that the
Standard Oil company of New Jer-
sey, and its nineteen subsidiary COM
panies, were a conspiracy and COM
bination in unreasonable" restraint
of trade, did not condemn all great
interstate corporations and did not
hold that every restraint of trade"
was a violation of law. The court
seems to have upheld the doctrine
that there are both good" and "bad"
trusts, and that the Standard Oil was
a bad" trust.
There was much discussion here to- |
day or Justice HarIan's dissenting I
opinion He declared that there ought
to be recognition OF the difference
between reasonable restraint" and
'sanreasonable restraint" by the SUI
preme court. but that congress ought
to do it if it were to be done.
But the fact remains declared
Justice Harlan, that until this day |
congress has been satisfied with the |
law as written in this respect and |
today the law stands that every con-
tract in restraint of trade is illegal
AS one of the direct results of the
decision, it is said that the federal
incorporation act, prepared by Attor
ney General Wickersham at the di
rection of President Taft, may be
brought up to fit the situation created
BIZ the courts action and pressed
for passage in congress.
Attorney General Wickersham may
consider criminal prosecution of the
officials of the Standard Oil company.
1t is said that in event the oil trust
officials should plead immunity under
the statute of limitations, the gov
eminent could take the position that |
the combination in restraint of trade
was conspiracy until the moment
the court ordered it dissolved.
While President Taft made no state
ment today regarding the supreme
courts decision in the case, in which |
the court set up the doctrine that |
there might be reasonable" and "un-
reasonable restraint of trade, offic-
ial Washington recalled an extract
from the special message sent to
congress January Z, 1910, urging the
enactment of a federal incorporation
law. When that message was sent,
President Taft discussed the sugges-
tion that the word reasonable" be
made part of the Sherman antitrust
law and strongly opposed the propo-
sition in these words: 81 venture to
think that this is to put into the
hands of the court power impossi-
BILE to exercise on any consistent
principle which will insure the uni
formity of decisions essential to just
JuuSuSul. 1t is W lOlSJ upOu lHS
courts burden that they have no
precedents to enable them to carry
and to give them power approach
ing the arbitrary, the abuse of which
might involve our whole judicial sys-
tenn in disaster"
Divergent views were expressed to-
day by members of congress on the
supreme courts Interpretation of the
antitrust law in the Standard case.
"a wonderfully wise decision which
will be of great good to the business {
interests of the country" was the way
Senator Clark of Wyoming, chairman
of the senate judiciary committee,
characterized the decision. Represent
ative Mann, minority leader of the !
house and former chairman of the 7
committee on interstate and foreign
commerce, was equally hearty in his '