Norwich bulletin., 1911-12-06


 sentatives:
 This message is the first of several
 which I shall send to congress during
 the interval between the opening of
 its regular session and it's adjourn
 ment for the Christmas holidays. The
 amount of information to be commit
 nicated as to the operations of the
 government, the number of important
 subjects calling for comment by the
 executive and the transmission to con
 gress of exhaustive reports of special commissions make it impossible to in-
 clude in one message of a reasonable length a discussion of the topics that
 ought to be brought to the attention
 of the national legislature at its first regular session.
 The Anti-trust Law-The Supreme
 Court Decisions.
 In May last the supreme court hand ed down decisions in the suits in equi- ty brought by the United States to en- join the further maintenance of the Standard Oil trust and of the Ameri- can Tobacco trust and to secure their dissolution. The decisions are epoch making and serve to advise the busi ness world authOritatively of the scope and opera tion of the antitrust act of 1890. The decisions do not de- part in any substantial way from the previous decisions of the court in con- Struing and applying this important statute, but they clarify those deci- Sions by further defining the already admitted exceptions to the literal con- struction of the act. By the decrees they furnish a useful precedent as to the proper method of dealing with the capital and property of illegal trusts These decisions suggest 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 esta ablfshed and to. pre- serve the benefit, freedom and spur of reasonable competition without loss of real efficiency or progress.
 No Change In the Rule of Decision,
 Merely In Its Form of Expression.
 The statute in it's first section de- lclares to be illegal every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce among the sev- eral states or with foreign nations and in the second declares guilty of a misdemeanor every person who shall monopolfze or attempt to monopolize or combine or conspire with any other person to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce of the several states or with foreign nations
 In two early cases. where the statute was invoked to enjOin a transporta- tion rate agreement between inter- state railroad compa nies, it was held that it was no defense to show that the agreement as to rates complained of was reasonable at common law, be- cause fl was said that the statute was directed against all contracts and com hfnations in restraint of trade, whether reasonable st common law or not It was plain from the record, however, that the contracts complained of Tn those eases would not have been deem cd reasonable at common law In sub- seQuent cases the court said that the statute should be given & reasonable construction and refused to include within it's inhibition certain contrac- tual restraints of trade which 1t de nominated as incidental or as indirect. 1
 These cases of restrant of trade that 1 the court excepted from the operation l of the statute were instances which l ht common law would have been call ed reasonable In the Standard Oil | and tobacco cases. therefore, the court l merely adopted the tests of the con- ] mon law and in defining exceptions to | he literal application of the statute | only substituted for the test of being | incidental or indirect that of being 1 req sonable, and this without varying | In the slightest the actual scope and l fleet of the statute. In other words. i III the cases under the statute whch nave now been decided would have | 1een decided the same way If the | .ourr had originally accepted in its 1 the rule at common law
 It has been said that the court by h. reducing into the construction of the | itatute common law distinctions has .masculated it. This is obviously un- rue. By its Judgment every contract md continuation in restraint of inter 1 tate trade made with the purpose or necessary effect of controlling prices " stih1ng competition or of esta bfish- ng In whole or fna part a monopoly of | uch trade is condemned by the stat te- The most extreme critics cannot instance a case that ought to be con ernned. under the statute which is not 1 rought within it's terms as thus con. xued-
 The suggestion fs also made that the upreme court by it's decision in. the ast two cases has committed to the l ourt the undeaned and unlimited dis. retion to determine whether a case of of trade Is within the terms f the statute. Thfs Is wholly untrue. reasonable restraint of trade at com aon law js well understood and is leariy de8sned It does not rest in the iscrerfon of rhe court 2 It must be 1 mited to accomplish the purpose of a wful main contrsrtsfc viichsin order
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