Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1911-12-06
TRUST PROBLEM
IS 7AFTS TOPIC
Message to Congress Devoted
to This One Matter.
DECISIONS ARE DEFENDED
Dissolution Plans of Standard Oil and
Tobacco Explained-FederaI In
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 as follows:
To the Senate and House of Represent
atives This message is the first of sew
eral which I shall send to congress during
the interval between the opening of its
regular session and it's 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 a
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.
In 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-making and serve TO
advise the business world authoritatively
trust law of 1890. The decisions do not
depart in any substantial way from the
previous decisions of the court in constru
ing and applying this important statute,
but they clarity those important decisions
by further defining the already admitted
exceptions to the literal construction of
the act. BY the DEGREES. they furnish
useful precedent as to the proper method
of dealing with the capital and property
of illegal trusts. These decisions sug-
gest the need and wisdom of additional
or supplemental legislation to make 1t
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.
1t has been said that the court, by in
Producing into the construction of the
statute common law distinctions. has
emasculated it, This is obviously untrue.
BY its judgment every contract and COM
bination in restraint of interstate trade
made with the purpose. or necessary eff
feet of controlling prices by sitting COM
petition or Of establishing in whole or In
part 4 monopoly of such trade. is con-
6emned by the statute. The most ex
IRENE critics cannot instance a case that
ought to be condemned under the statute
which is not brought within its terms as
thus construed.
The suggestion is also made that the Su-
prene court by its decisions in the last
two cases has committed to the court the
underlined and unlimited discretion to de-
ternine 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. 1t does
not rest in the discretion of the court. 1t
must be limited to accomplish the purpose
,F Ion nj OF n which.
order that it shall he enforceable at all,
# J0ust be incidental. If it exceeds the
needs of that contract it is void
Methods OF Dissolution.
In the Standard Oil case the Supreme
and circuit courts found the combination
to be a monopoly of the interstate bust
ness of refining, transporting, and mar
keting petroleum and its products, effect
ed and maintained through thirty-seven
different corporations, the stock of which
was held by a New Jersey company. 1t
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 its stockholders, and the corpora
tfons and individual defendants were en-
1oined from conspiring or combining to
restore such monopoly; and all agree
rnents between the subsidiary corporations
tending produce
violations of the act were enjoined.
In the Tobacco case, the court found
that the Individual defendants, twenty
nine in number, had been engaged in
successful effort to acquire complete do
minion over the manufacture, sale, and
distribution of tobacco in this country
and abroad and that this had been done
by combinations made with purpose
and effect to stiie competition, control
prices. and establish monopoly, not
only in the manufacture of tobacco, but
also of tin-foil and licorice, used in its
manufacture and of its products of CT
CARS cigarettes and snuffs. The tobacco
suit presentend a far more complicated
and difficult case than the Standard Oil
suit for a decree which would efectuate
the viii 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
panv was the American Tobacco COM
pany, a manufacturing, selling and hold
ing company. The plan adopted to de-
stroy the combination and restore compe-
tition involved the redivision of the capt.
tai 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 it. and numbering. new and old,
fourteen.
Purpose Not Confiscation.
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 individual
Offenders. by fine of the corporation, or
by forfeiture of its goods in transporta-
ton. are 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.
I venture to say that not in the history