Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1911-09-18

to controlling prices and maintaining
a monopoly could be held to be reas-
enable and thus lawful. Under the
decision of the supreme court in these
last two cases there was clearly de-
fined hope in the minds of many bust.
ness men who had reached the conclu-
sion that it was impossible to conduct
business on a free competitive basis,
and that it was necessary to secure
monopolistic control of prices and
competition in order to make business
reasonably profitable, that in some
way or other the statute could be con-
strued so as to make it apply only
to unreasonable monopolies and I'M
reasonable exclusion OF competition
and control of prices. They had IN
their minds the thought that in some
way or other a standard could be set
by which if those who enjoyed the
monopoly and the restraint Of compe'
tition and the control Of prices did not
abuse their power to the point Of seek
ing from the public exorbitant profits,
their arrangements could be held to
be only reasonable and not within the
statute or punishable by law. In my
message of January Z, 1910, on the
interstate-commerce and antitrust
laws and federal incorporation, used
this languages:
Many people conducting great busi'
nesses have cherished a hope and a
belief that in some way or other a
line may be drawn between good
trusts" and bad trusts" and that it
is possible by amendment of the anti.
trust law to make distinction under
which good combinations may be per.
mitted to organize, suppress competl'
ton, control prices, and do it all leg
ally if only they do not abuse the pow
er by taking too great profit out OF
the business. They point with force
to certain notorious trusts as having
grown into power throug~. criminal
methods by the use of illegal rebates
and plain cheating and by various acts
utterly violative of buiness honesty
or morality, and urge the establish.
ment of some legal line of separation
by which criminal trusts" of this
kind can be punished, and they, on
the other hand, be permitted under
the law to carry on their business. /
Now the public, and especially the
business public, ought to rid them
selves of the idea that such a distinc'
ton is practicable or can be introduce
ed into the statute. Certainly under
the present antitrust law no such dis
tinction exists. 1t has been proposed,
however, that the word reasonable"
should be made part of the statute,
and then that it should be left to the
court to say what s. a reasonable re.
straint of trade, what is a reasonable
of competition, what is a
reasonable monopoly. venture to
think that this is to put into the hands
Of the court a power impossible to
exercise on any consistent principle,
which will insure the uniformity OF
decision essential to just Judgment.
It is to thrust upon the courts a bur.
len that they have no precedents to
enable them to carry, and to give them
| power approaching the arbitrary,
he abuse of which might involve our
whole judicial system in disaster.
This paragraph has been quoted and
spread on the record of the senate on
The motion of a senator who consider
ed this to be at variance with the de-
,isions of the supreme court. Instead
If being at variance it is in exact &C.
;ord with those decisions.
Again, from those who have given
Up free competition as an economic
orce that ought to be encouraged or
enforced, and who are utterly opposed
o the spirit of the antitrust law, we
AVE frequently heard the question,
We'll, suppose you convict those {
arge combinations under the statute,
What are you going to do about it?