The Green Forest tribune., 1911-12-08
TRUST PROBLEM
 |S 7hFI'S TOPIC Message to Congress Devoted
 to This One Matter.
DECISIONS ARE DEFENDED
Dissolution Plans of Standard OH and Tobacco Explained-Federal h. corporation and Commission
 Recommended.


 ashington.-President Taft's annual
 message, which was read in both houses of congress Tuesday, deals exclusively
 with the antitrust statute. The message in part is follows:
 To the Senate and House of Represent
 atives: This message Is the first of sev-
 eral which I shall send to congress during the interval between the opening of it's
 regular session and its adjournment for
 the Christmas holidays. The amount of Information to be communicated as to the operations of the government. the number of important subjects calling for comment by the executive, and the trans
 mission to congress of exhaustive re- ports by special commissions, make it i'm possible to include in one message of | reasonable length a discussion of the top les that ought to be brought to the at-
 tention of the national legislature at its first regular session.
 Decisions of Supreme Court. Tn May last the Supreme court handed down decisions in the suits in equity brought by the United States to enjoin the further maintenance of the Standard Oil trust and of the American Tobacco trust, and to secure their dissolution The | decisions are epoch-ma6ing and serve to advise the business world authorftativelY | Of the scope and operation of the anti | truss law of 1890. The decisions do not depart in any substantial way from the l previous decisions of the court in constru-
 ing and applying this important statute, but they clarify those important decisions by further defining the already admitted exceptions to the literal construction of l the act. By the >decrees they furnish | useful precedent as to the proper method | or dealing with the capital and property n 1ppGinnS o. | gest the need and wisdom of additional
 or supplemental legislation to make it | easier for the entire business community | to square with the rule of action and | legality thus finally established and to | preserve the benefit freedom and spur of reasonable competition without loss of real efficiency or progress.
 It has been said that the court, by in- | troducing into the construction of the statute common law distinctions, has 1 emasculated it. This is obviously untrue. l By it's judgment every contract and com bination in restraint of interstate trade
 made with the purpose, or necessary ef feet of controlling prices by stifing con7- | petition, of establishing in whole or in | part a monopoly of such trade, is con
 emned by the statute. The most ex
 treme critics cannot instance a case that | ought to be condemned under the statute
 which is not brought within it's terms as l thus construed.
 The suggestion Is also made that the Stu preme court by its decisions in the last two cases has committed to the court the
 undefned and unlimited discretion to de- termine whether a case of restraint of trade is within the terms of the statute. This is wholly untrue. reasonable re straint of trade at common law Is well understood and is clearly defined. It does
 not rest In the discretion of the court It
 must be limited to accomplish the purpose | t~ 11. t,a order that 1t shall be enforceable at all, | 1t must be incidental. If 1t exceeds the | needs of that contract it Is void,
 Methods of Dissolution. Ln the Standard Oil case the Supreme and circuit courts found the combination to be a monopoly of the interstate bus-
 ness of refining, transporting. and mar keting petroleum and it's products. effect ed and maintained through thirty-seven different corporations, the stock of which
 was held by a New Jersey company. It In effect commanded the dissolution of this combination directed the transfer and pro-rata distribution by the New Jer
 sey company of the stock held by it in
 the thirty-seven corporations to and among it's stockholders. and the corpora tions and individual defendants were en- joined from conspiring or combining to restore such monopoly; and all agree
 ments betwen the subsidiary corporations | t, nding to produce or bring about further violaticls of the act were enjoined. Ir the Tobacco case, the court found that the individual defendants. twenty nine in number, had been engaged in a
 successful effort to acquire complete do- minlon over the manufacture, sale. and dis ributo of tobacco in this country
 and abroad. and that this had been done by combinations made with purpose and effect to stihe competition, -nrrol prices, and establish a monopoly not only in the manufacture of tobacco but also of tin-fol and licorice. used in it's manufacture and of it's products of ci- gars. cigarettes and snuffs. The tobacco
 suit pres end far more complicated and difficult case than the Standard oil
 suit for decree whics would effectuate
 the will of the court and end the viola
 ton of the statute. There was here no single holding company as in the case of the Standard Oil trust. The main com pany was the American Tobacco com
 pany, manufacturing selling and hold. Ing company. The plan adopted to de
 stroy the combination and restore cornpe- tition involved the redivison of the capi-
 'al and plants of the whole trust between some of the companies constituting the trust and new companies organized for the purposes of the decree and made par ties to 1t, and numbering. and old. fourteen.
 Purpose Not Confscaton.
 It Is not the purpose of the statute to confiscate the property and capital of the offending trusts Methods of punishment
 by fine or Imprisonment of the ldiVidual offenders, by fine of the corporation, or
 by forfeitura of it's goods in transporta- tion, provided. but the proceeding in equity is a specific remedy to stop the operation of the trust by injunction and prevent the future use of the plant and capital in violation of the statute.
 l venture to say that not in the history