The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-06
Force and Effectiveness of Statute a Matter of Growth

We nave been Ll NtdiS ihehhAAS eiAt' statute effective for the purposes for which 1t was enacted. The Knight case was discouraged and seemed to remit to tbe states the whole available power to attack and suppress the evils of the trusts Slowly however, the error of that Judg- ment was corrected, and only In the last three or four years has the heavy hand of the law been laid upon the great illegal combinations that have exercised such an absolute dominion over many or our h- dustries. Criminal prosecutions have been drought and a number have been pending but iuries have felt averse to convicting for iail sentences, and judges have been most reluctant to impose such sentences on men of respectable standing in society whose offense has been regarded as mere iy statutory Still, as the offense becomes better understood and the committing or fl partakes more of studied and deliberate defiance of the law. we can be conndeht that iuries will convict individuals and that iail sentences will be imposed.
 Tn the Standard oil case the supreme and circuit courts found the combination to be a monopoly of the interstate busl- ness of refining, transporting. and mark eting petroleum and it's products, effected and maintained through 37 different cor porations, the stock of which was held by a New Jersey company. It in effect com handed the QlSSOlullOl Ol lliiS tpiiipiAitA 1 tion. directed the transfer and pro rata distribution by the New Jersey company of the stock held by it in the 37 corpora l lions to and among it's stockholders, and the corporations and individual defend- 1 ants were enjoined from conspiring or l combining to restore such monopoly, ana all agreements between the subsidiary
 corporations tending to produce or bring about further violations of the act were l enjoined
 | In the Tobacco case the court found that the individual defendants, % in number, had been engaged in a successful effort to acquire complete dominion over the manu-
 facture, sale, and distribution of tobacco | in this country and abroad, and that this
 had been done by combinations made with la purpose and effect to stitle competition, | control prices and establish a monopoly, I rot only in the manufacture of tobacco.
 but also of tinfoil and lieorce used in it's manufacture and of it's products of cigars,
 cigarettes and snuffs. Tie tobacco suit l presented a far more complicated and diff l ficult case than the Standard oil suit for l a decree which would effeetuate the will of tl1e court and end the violation of the | statute. There was here no single holding | company as in the case of the Standard l Oil Trust The main company was the l American Tobacco company, a manufac- I plan adopted to destroy the combination I involved the redivision of the capital and plants of the whole trust between some | of the companies constituting the trust and new companies organized for the pur-
 poses of the decree and made parties to it. and numbering, new and old, II.
 Situation After Readustment
 The American Tobacco company told), readjusted capital, s92,Ogooo0; thes Liggett l x Meyers Tobacco company (new), cap l ital, $67,0GO0 coo; the r. Lorilard company
 tnew), capital $47, coo 900, and the R, J. Reynolds Tobacco company lold), capital,
 s7,525G00, are chiefly engaged in the man 1 ufacture and sale of chewing and smoking
 tobacco and cigars. The former one tin-
 foil company is divided into two, one of
 s25,000 capital and the other of $4Oo,000 The
 one snuff company is divided into three companies. one with a capital of $15 900, 600, y another with a capital of sSO00,0Go, and a
 third with capital of $S000,0C0 The iic- orce companies are two, one with a oapi-
 tai of S5, ,75S,300 and another with a capital
 of s2,000,0o0. There is, also, the British
 American Tobacco company. a British cor
 poration, doing business abroad with a
 eapjtal of $26,o000Ga the Porto Rican To- bacco company. with a capital of $1, 800 GOO and the corporation of United Cigar Stores, with a capital of $9.9o0,09e.
 f, Cnder this arrangement each of the diff
 ferent kinds of business will be distributed
 between two or more companies, with a
 division of the prominent brands in the
 same tobacco products, so as to make
 competition not only possible. but necessa-
 ". Thus the smoking tobacco business