The Washington times., 1911-11-06
PRESIDENT sHoNTsON COR
PORATION PROBLEM.

ihcouoic L . ohoheo, plcoiucnb VI 0he
New York Interborough Transit Com,
pany, in an article on the recent de.
cisions under the Sherman act, gives
effective Endorsement to some recent
observations of this paper. He says
that present construction of the law
opposes the principle of business com
bination, after it has been adopted by
the country for a generation; and he
adds with much force that
1T is EXTREMELY UNFORTU-
NATE THAT THE BUSINESS PUB.
Lie SHOULD HAVE BEEN MISLED
BY THE TREND OF EARLIER DE-
CISIONS INTO THE BELIEF THAT
THIS PRINCIPLE WOULD BE AL.
LOWED TO STAND.
That is exactly what The Times has
maintained: that reversals of the whole
economic policy of a great nation
after that policy has once seemed to
be effectively established, are ever
more serious that the question OF
whether the policy itself is exactly cor,
rect.
The antitrust act was passed TWEEN,
ty-one years ago. If it is ever justi,
fable to Judge laws meaning by the
circumstances of it's passage, the tenn,
per of its times, and the debates ac,
companying it's passage through the
legislature, then only one conclusion
could possibly be reached concerning
this act:
1t was intended to apply to indus.
trial combinations.
1t was not intended to apply to rail,
roads.
1t was not intended to apply to labor
unions.
Anybody who will read the long
debates, in House and Senate, incident
to this acts consideration, must agree
to this view. Yet the first time big
case went up under the act the Su.
preme Court refused to give it effect as
against an industrial combination, the
Sugar trust.
That decision, reached with only one
of the nine justices dissenting, was ac-
cepted as the laws correct interpreta,
ton. Thereupon, honestly believing a
safe course had been charted for them
the industrial organizers proceeded tc
develop their combinations on the lines
of the Sugar combination. In the
Standard Oil and Tobacco cases the
court, in effect, reverses its decision
in the sugar case, and makes the law
apply directly and drastically to in,
dustrials.
That is what Mr.. Shonts means wher
he says that "it is extremely unfortu
nate that the business public should
have been misled by the trend of earlier
decisions into the belief that this
principle would be allowed to stand.'
On the faith of the sugar decision
the various other combinations were
ioih ihcu, eho PuuiiS ihNSoIcu III Jnen
their operations were assumed to bs
legal; and then the Supreme Court
with changed personnel and il
changed times, reverses it's earlier de
cision and finds that these combinations
are in contravention of the law.
AS to the railroads, as we have
heretofore pointed out, the earliest de
cisions under this law reversed TIL,
intent of Congress and made the Law
apply to them. 1t had no real effect
other than to disturb conditions; anC
the Northern Securities decision hal
latterly been reversed in the Unior
Pacific case, which is now pending OF
appeal to the Supreme Court, where il
is almost universally expected that tn,
circuit court will be sustained.
Thus, in two score years the shift
ing policies and adjudications hav,
given the net result of getting bacl
to something like the original meaning